SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The North may seem an unlikely place for agriculture, but a group of nine neighbours in the Trails End area have teamed together to build a chicken coop.

The coop houses nine chickens shipped up from a farm in Alberta.

Marc Casas, one of the neighbours involved, said one of the main benefits is that the birds will eat (along with chicken feed) organic waste the neighbours would otherwise compost or throw out, and then in turn provide a steady supply of eggs.

"They're supposed to produce almost one a day," said Jennifer Skelton, another neighbour who is part of the coop project.

The chickens are still getting used to their environment and not yet producing as much as the group predicts they will.

Plus, Casas said, the chickens' waste is nitrogen-rich and makes for good fertilizer.

Casas said the group's initial meeting was in early spring and the plan came from a semi-serious off-hand remark that everyone thought was a great idea.

"We just sort of (divided) the tasks - some people were on checking whether it was legal and we could do it, another was making sure that enough of the (neighbours) were aware of it and OK with it. We figured if we could get people who would potentially be bothered by it to buy into it or at least agree to it, then it would have a better chance to work out.

"Other people were researching types of chickens, whether we could get the chickens, how to get them here, that kind of stuff."

Casas said the next hurdle was to come up with a design for the small barn and enclosure. They built an insulated barn and enclosure with two feet of buried chicken wire skirting the bottom to keep out unwanted vermin.

Then they had to find the chickens.

"We actually got them from a farm just north of Edmonton," said Casas.

"They had been in a farm and in pretty small cages. They didn't have much living space and I'm assuming they lived all their life in this cage situation."

"Then all of sudden they were taken out of that, which is all they have known, put in a box and shipped here in 36 hours in the back of a truck - and it was cold in the spring. They probably were very uncomfortable. Then we put them here and it took a while for them to get over the whole shock."

Casas said the nine chickens didn't move around much at first. The first time they left the barn, which is about a foot off the ground, was an adventure.

"They fell out and couldn't actually fly back in because they'd been in cages they had no muscles. Now they're hopping up to different perches," said Casas.

"They're hopping up, I don't know, maybe three feet off the ground - which isn't a huge jump for a bird but they seem to be getting better."

Skelton said "a lot of them didn't have very many feathers when we got them. They're starting to look a lot better."

Casas said he enjoys watching the birds' progression.

"To see them out and walking around now, it's good," he said.

The final calculations haven't been done yet, but Casas estimated the project cost the group $400 or $500 - divided nine ways.

The next step, according to Casas, will be determining how late into the year they can keep the coop going. It is insulated, but the coop can't be sealed completely because the nitrogen in the chicken waste produces hazardous ammonia.

If the winter proves to difficult, though, Casas has a back-up plan.

"We'd maybe just have a barbecue or whatever. There's nine chickens and nine of us."