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Community Corner

Chickens and Pigeons and Doves, Oh My

Les Larson brought a little bit of the farm to his Oakdale home.

Urban farming might be coming back in style, but don’t assume the six chickens roaming around Oakdale resident Les Larson’s backyard are destined for the grill.

Larson’s “roving lawn ornaments” as he calls them are there for companionship—not food—although they do provide some eggs.

In addition to the chickens, Larson has three pigeons, three doves and a cat—which might seem like a lot—but Larson is used to having a wide assortment of animals.

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He had over 1,000 animals including seagulls, foxes and cows at the farm he owns in Harris, MN—near North Branch in the 1970s and early ‘80s.

“I kind of went crazy,” he said. “I bought two of everything.”

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He’d see a horse and bring it home; someone would have some cattle, and he’d buy a couple, he said, or in the case of his seagulls, he found them injured while boating in the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior.

“Somehow, they just accumulated,” he said.

Larson said he loves observing the animals' interactions and finds them to be more emotionally similar to humans than most people realize.

He talks about how his seagull would yank on his cows’ tails, “like she was trying to drag them backwards,” and antagonize his fox, stealing its food (although a wild fox ultimately killed the seagull).

“She was used to having the fox run from her, so she got nailed,” he said.

After years of commuting more than 60 miles each way from Harris to his job in Bloomington, he moved to Saint Paul in 1985, and then to Oakdale about 12 years ago. He had “normal pets” like dogs up until 2005 when he decided he’d like to have some chickens.

“I missed them, and I couldn’t have a cow or a horse back here, so I went with chickens,” he said. Oakdale requires residents to have a permit to keep chickens.

He built them a coop complete with air conditioning and heat (only for the coldest days of the year) and an aviary so that they can go outside, yet be somewhat protected. Because of the way it’s built, he said, it costs him only $5 per year to keep the chickens safe from temperature extremes. He was also careful to prevent any noise and sanitation problems, he said.

Although Larson has fewer animals now than he once had, there’s no shortage of drama.

He had to get rid of one of his favorite, especially affectionate, chickens because it was stirring up too much trouble among the group.

“She was constantly starting fights and the other chickens would fight with each other,” he said. “Now all the remaining chickens get along unbelievably well.”

And then there are the two pigeons whom he says are “madly in love” Velcro and 2.5.

“The other one gets into a severe depression if one’s gone,” he said.

One of the pair is a homing pigeon and the other isn't. About two years ago, the two went flying together, but only the homing pigeon came back. The next morning, Velcro was still gone.

“A tame pigeon (in the wild) is as good as dead,” Larson said. “If they live 24 hours it’s doing pretty good—predators, cats you name it, if not cars.”

When Larson opened the aviary door that morning, the homing pigeon “took off like a bullet” to the west to search for her partner. Three hours later, the two birds returned together, he said. Then the next day, the same thing happened again. After that, they learned their lesson, he said.

“Ever since then, they never leave together,” he said. “They’ll make a short circle around here occasionally, but 99 percent of the time, Velcro never leaves the yard, but the homer, 2.5, does.”

Larson documented Velcro’s disappearance, and the birds’ reunion on his website, Bert the Mensa Chicken, named for Larson’s rooster.

Larson’s wife, Karen Larson, said of all the hobbies a husband can get into, having chickens around is one of the cheapest. She’s found it interesting to watch how the chickens interact, she said.

“You realize that they’ve really got their own little personalities and their own little soap opera going on in the backyard,” she said. “You can tell which chickens like each other, which ones have an argument.”

Her favorite pet is still the cat, though.

“The cat is fabulous at not bothering he birds,” she said.

Of all the birds, Les Larson said his favorites are the doves, which peacefully coexist with the cat inside the house.

“These guys are very people-oriented—they like people more than they like each other,” Les Larson said. “If they’re given a choice, they’d rather be on my shoulder, on my hand.”

Since interest is growing, Larson, who is on the Oakdale Planning Commission, said he plans to write a how-to article on his blog for other people who want to own chickens.

Editor's note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the number of chickens owned by Les Larson. He has six chickens.

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