Soaring ceilings. Vernacular architecture. Expansive, light-filled rooms. Up-to-date wiring.

Another Atlanta weekend, another tour of homes to gawk over. Except these showhouses are wired for chickens. Literally.

Becky Stein / Special (ENLARGE)

An increasing number of Atlanta and Decatur residents keep chickens in their back yards. An unexpected result is Chicks in the City, a tour of chicken coops. Here, 'Tiny' the rooster at Dale Horeczy's home, guards his hens in the daytime pen.

Becky Stein / Special (ENLARGE)

Jonathan Watts Hull built this Decatur structure from reclaimed wood. He added a shiny steel roof.

RELATED: • Photos: See the coops • See more in Home & Garden • Check out ajcpets.com

City Chicks, billed as the first-ever tour of intown chicken coops, beckons egg lovers to behold egg layers on May 3.

The tour includes nine hen houses in neighborhoods from Druid Hills east to Oakhurst. It's sponsored by Georgia Organics and the Oakhurst Community Garden, which offers occasional classes on poultry-keeping.

The homes aren't just chicken scratch. In Kirkwood, the 60-square-foot centerpiece in the kitchen garden of Dale Horeczy and Brad Daily boasts cedar-shake shingles, a weathervane (a rooster, of course) and a bronzed chandelier.

In Decatur, the Watts Hull chickens roost in a shed built by Jonathan Watts Hull from reclaimed wood, a vintage six-panel door and a shiny steel roof. When they want to take the sun, they amble out to a covered porch or scratch around the vegetable garden.

But the practical isn't forgotten: Nesting boxes in both houses provide a place for the hens to earn their keep, with most giving an egg a day.

"We pay attention to where our food comes from," says Rebecca Watts Hull. "You can't get much more local than eggs from your backyard."

The cities of Atlanta and Decatur allow residents to keep chickens, with some restrictions. Counties that ring Atlanta have varying rules, but most require at least two acres of land, an increasingly scarce commodity.

Horeczy and Daily designed the chicken house for versatility, envisioning a day when they might sell their home to someone who'd rather use it as a garden shed. Some coops on the tour are single-purpose, with reclaimed wood a common building material.

"They're pets," Horeczy says of his eight hens and one rooster. "They give us eggs and we're happy with that. We love to watch them. It's better than television."

The Watts Hull chickens have names, too, some of them bestowed by children Amina and Noah. When they stop giving eggs, they'll live out their days scratching around the yard.

On a farm, chickens that quit producing are likely to wind up in a stew pot. In the city, it's a tougher call.

"Could I eat Patty? I don't know," says Suzanne Welander, whose Grant Park coop, home to four birds, is on the tour. "My husband has refused to call them by name because he expects someday they'll be on the dinner table."

IF YOU GO: Advance tickets are $15 for members of Georgia Organics and the Oakhurst Community Garden; $20 for others. Children are $5; children younger than 8 are free. Tickets can be purchased on the tour Web site, or by phone at 678-702-0400.

On Saturday: Tickets can be bought Saturday from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Morningside Farmers Market, 1393 N. Highland Ave. N.E., Atlanta, or during the tour hours of 1 to 4 p.m. at Oakhurst Community Garden, 435 Oakview Road, Decatur.