Urban Chickens

you want chickens? get a farm!

2009-07-14T23:56:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal today has an article about urban chickens structured around the effort to legalize them in Salem, Oregon.

The article's author, Nick Timiraos, does a good job of providing color to the struggles that Barbara Palermo, Nancy Baker-Krofft and others are enduring while trying to convince city councilors to allow homeowners to have three hens in enclosed coops. (Salem's City Council remains divided on the issue, but it seems a vote is imminent, and the Mayor's in support of the measure).

What I find most interesting about the story is the new forms of hysteria drummed up by the decidedly anti-chicken crowd of Salem.

"What's next? Goats? Llamas? Get a farm." says Terri Frohnmayer, a co-chairwoman of one of Salem's neighborhood associations. Beg pardon? I thought we were talking about chickens here. Let's keep our eye on the ball, shall we?

Salem disallowed residents from keeping livestock, including chickens, in the 1970s when it decided "to be a city and not a rural community," says Chuck Bennett, a Salem City Council member who opposes backyard chickens. So the only thing that's keeping Salem from reverting to a rural community is the absence of eggs in backyards? This satellite view of Salem should quickly dispel any notion that Salem's just one cluck away from being mistaken for a big ol' farm.

It's only more than halfway through the article that we arrive at the meat of the issue:

The biggest concern, however, is that chickens will just lead to more conflicts between chicken owners and neighbors who own more traditional pets, like dogs. "You can just see the conflict associated with the addition of another animal into this kind of [close] environment," says Mr. Bennett, the council member.

It would seem that (some) dog owners are concerned their canines just won't be able to help themselves with chickens next door and, you know, will wind up eating these tasty treats on two legs.

According to Timiraos, Mrs. Frohnmayer (she of the "Get a farm!" advice) "often finds her own springer spaniel sizing up chickens on her neighbor's farm. It's only natural, she says, for her dog to want to eat her neighbor's birds. 'Are they going to put my dog down when it eats one of their chickens?' she says."

Let me take a swipe at the answer to this one:

We won't put your dog down when it trespasses and eats the first chicken, Mrs. Frohnmayer. But if you can't keep your dog off my property and prevent it from eating my pets, you can bet your uncontrollable pooch will be getting a visit from the animal control officer.

Unless, of course, I've followed your advice and your dog trespasses out on my farm. From what I understand about farming, you're allowed to shoot predators to protect your livestock.

Get a farm, indeed.

just say no to urban roosters

2009-07-12T23:50:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine (@lpetrides) posted a video from where she's traveling in Greece.

Go ahead, watch it. I'll be here when you get back.

But note: there's not much to see in the video, as it was shot from her room at 4:24am, while all that's visible in the black of night are the porch lights of the houses surrounding her.

The soundtrack, however, is priceless. You can hear the rooster crowing starting at about 30 seconds into the 2-minute flick. And you can hear ~~the echo of~~ other roosters chiming in in response to the rooster's ~~own~~ crowing starting at about 60 seconds in.

Those who think roosters crow only at sunrise are sorely mistaken. They're as bad as dogs in their disregard for the timing of their noisiness.

Please, for all our sanity, be sure to exclude roosters from any urban chicken ordinance you may be trying to pass.

UPDATED: Thanks, Lisa for pointing out in the comments that the rooster wasn't echoing, just rousing the neighboring roos to get noisy, too. I wonder if a rooster's call does indeed echo? (useless trivia: Mythbusters proved that a duck's quack never echos)

Is there a safe pesticide to use around chickens?

2009-06-28T01:52:00.000-07:00

Thanks, all, for the comments, the follows to @urbanchickens and the emails. I'm now getting enough email sent directly to me that I can sustain a weekly Mailbag feature. So, without further ado:

A dear reader, Lo, recently sent me the following email request:

I am going to be doing some yard work for a friend who keeps several chickens in her urban back yard. Obviously I cannot use any pesticides in her yard and garden because of the birds, is there any alternative to help control weeds and kill invasive non-indigenous plants?

Right away, I knew I was in over my head, so I referred her to the kind folks over at Seattle Tilth for help. Here's what Laura of the Garden Hotline had to say:

There is no alternative pesticide to spray on weeds that is safe for chickens. The only effective herbicide that is "natural" is made of acetic acid and this still would be questionable to use around the birds. The good news is that chickens eat weeds! They could make short work of annual weeds and grasses and even dandelions. The scratching that they do can disturb weed growth as well. They can wreck other desirable plants as well so the use of chickens must be done with caution! Noxious weeds and more persistent perennial weeds like dock will need to be hand removed. You could also try flame or heat weeding though this requires special equipment and propane tanks. Hot water can kill annual weeds pretty effectively straight from the teapot! Otherwise it is a matter of hand pulling and then mulching areas you do not want growth of weeds. Getting to weeds before they go to seed is crucial to interrupt their life cycle.

Thanks, Lo, for the question as well as for sharing Laura's response.

Is there something about urban chickens you've been trying to get an answer to? drop me a note or leave a comment and we'll learn together!

Do backyard flocks infect commercial flocks?

2009-06-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

The Harrisonburg City Council expects to review a draft urban chicken ordinance at their July 14 meeting. Jeff Mellott's article on RocktownWeekly.com shows the concerns expressed by "some citizens" in Harrisonburg are the stereotypical ones we hear voiced every time a city considers legalizing chickens: reduced property values, attracting vermin, smells, poop, enforcement costs.

Andy Schneider, the Chicken Whisperer, does a masterful job of addressing each of these concerns in the first comment in response to the article. It's a shame to see many of the comments following his post seem to be of the fingers-in-ears-singing-"LALALALA! I don't hear you" variety.

But the element of the story what caught my eye: the former vice mayor, who happens to be a poultry industry executive, has voiced worries about the spread of disease to commercial flocks on the big farming operations that surround Harrisonburg.

I've blogged about protecting urban chickens from avian flu before, and I don't mean to diminish the concerns of the commercial chicken operator, but I'd love to see some actual proof that a backyard flock has led to the infection of a commercial flock. The only stories I've heard have been of the "the commercial chickens were sick so they eradicated all the backyard flocks, too."

Without that proof, I can't help but think this is simply a political play to protect the interests of commercial agriculture (Think security theater) at the expense of backyard flock enthusiasts.

Can anyone cite a story of backyard-to-commercial transmission of avian flu? I'd love to have a civil discussion about this so we can inform each other.

urban chickens in a City Hall near you?

2009-06-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

While it's nice to see mentions of urban chickens in the popular press and on blogs all over the place, the urban chicken movement itself will only gain traction once the folks who write the laws to allow urban chickens begin to take notice of how great the demand is.

So, you can understand why I'm so excited to see this article about urban chickens by Annemarie Mannion appear in American City & County.

Never heard of the publication? That's probably because American City & County is a trade journal written specifically for the people "who make local and state governments work." From their press kit (emphasis mine):

The business of managing cities, counties and states demands a practical understanding of the issues facing them. From streamlining government operations with the latest technology to repairing crumbling infrastructure, today’s local and state government ofﬁcials face a greater demand on their time than ever before. Because we illuminate, analyze and concisely explain important issues in a way everyone can understand, American City & County is the preferred source of timely and useful information, in print and online.

Our readers are a powerful mix of the people who make local and state governments work — from top administrative ofﬁcials to public works and water professionals. The disciplines may vary, but they share the same goal: to deliver public services in the most cost-efﬁcient and effective manner. And, no publication helps them do that better than American City & County.

So when Mannion writes of urban chicken-keeping as a "resurgent trend taking place in large and small cities across the United States," you know her readership is made up of just the kind of folks we want to sit up and take notice.

NOTE: For those of you trying to get the attention of your local governments to get urban chickens legalized, you'd do well to cite Mannion's article as evidence that municipalities across the country are addressing the issue and yours would do well not to fall behind the curve.

On ignorant editors at The Globe and Mail

2009-06-23T16:17:00.000-07:00

Today's Globe and Mail editorial about urban chickens, Coming Home to Roost, was so rife with misinformation I had to read it twice and double-check the URL to make sure I wasn't being punk'd.

Setting aside the pun-filled opening paragraph (LOLz), the editors really went off the rails here in paragraph three:

In jurisdictions where urban chickens are permitted, there is an increase in complaints about smells and flies, though advocates provide assurances that these can be addressed by properly cleaning chicken coops and properly composting manure. There are also concerns over an increase in disease, notably avian flu, although we are again assured that, if coops are properly built and maintained to make sure chickens are protected from fecal matter dropped by birds flying overhead, disease need not be a problem.

Let's break these observations down, shall we?

The editors cite an "increase in complaints about smells and flies" where urban chickens are permitted. Where there are more animals and excrement, there's bound to be more chances for offended citizens to complain. But was this an increase of 5 complaints (about all non-fowl animals) to 6 (including chickens)? or 5 complaints to 50? Opponents would gladly have you assume the latter, but chances are much greater it's the former. I'd love The Globe and Mail to back their assertion up with statistics (in fact, I challenge them to do so!).

And the assertion that we're in danger of an increase in disease, notably avian flu, if we don't protect urban chickens from fecal matter dropped by birds flying overhead is mind-numbingly absurd! This observation bares the editors' ignorance of how diseases are transmitted between birds (and then to humans?). But this "protect from above" assertion conjures up a fantastic movie plot for how a pandemic might start: think flocks of infected sparrows dive-bombing their infected poo on captive chickens across the country sparking an avian flu epidemic that wipes out all of Ontario. Those damn chickens.

Cue the eye roll.

Given all the challenges that large-scale agri-business presents in protecting our food supply from contamination and in the impacts of long-haul shipping on the carbon footprint of our food, the G&M editors would find a way to encourage citizens to take back a piece of their food independence through legalizing urban chickens.

Instead, we're enforced to endure yet another round of puns and hyperbole on the editorial pages one of Canada's largest newspapers.

No wonder the effort to legalize urban chickens across Canada is on such a slow train.

Bay Area chicken coop review

2009-06-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago, reporter Laura Casey came over to check out our chickens and talk with me about what it's like to raise urban chickens in the Bay Area.

Her article, Clucking about Backyard Chickens, made the Contra Costa Times yesterday. Ours is one of four backyard setups that's profiled in the piece.

It's nice to see the compare/contrast between different coop styles and how each of us got into urban chickens, but what I like most is Casey's quotes from each of us:

"I haven't been this happy for a long time. I needed them. I just come outside and smile and when they jump in my lap. It's great."
"I never expected them to be so entertaining and it never gets old. When I get an egg I am so excited."
"I like my children to know that not all food comes from cardboard and Styrofoam boxes. It's not all about the bright-colored packaging and the songs." (mine)
"My husband is an interesting fella and he has interesting tastes," Debbie Flinker says, "and he thought chickens would be fascinating pets. They are."

Paints a pretty wonderful picture about urban chickens, don't you think?

(BTW, happy Father's Day to all you dads out there)

a chicken coop from IKEA? YES!

2009-06-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

While there's no specific product number for buying a coop from the IKEA catalog, with a little ingenuity, you can get just about everything you need from the Swedish Superstore.

The coop-construction details (finished product pictured to the right) are over on the IKEA Hacker blog, courtesy the experience of Aaron Bell and his wife Corinne's building their own.

The shopping list of IKEA parts is actually quite short (approx prices):
- Mydal bunk bed ($159)
- Trofast storage unit with shallow drawers ($95)
- Vika Oleby legs ($7.50 each)
- Gorm bottle rack ($8 each)

And the only non-IKEA parts they needed to supply were "the mesh, plywood/beams for the roof (which is 3x coated with reflective paint in an attempt to keep the heat out), and the hardware for the hinges and latches."

Now, that's what I call ingenuity! I wonder how long until the whole chicken coop kit can be purchased as one shrink-wrapped item replete with the adorable little illustrated instructions and hex key?

Thanks, Tamar, for the hat tip on this one!

Favor urban chickens? don't forget the support emails!

2009-06-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Looking to get the laws changed so you can keep urban chickens in your backyard? Make sure you've got numbers on your side by encouraging your friends and neighbors and acquaintances to send emails of support to your City Council.

As previously blogged here, the Asheville City Chickens group was extremely successful leveraging social media to show just how popular the the idea of urban chickens was in their town.

Our lesson this time comes from the opposition camp in Norwalk, Iowa (pop. 9000, Map), where a proposal to allow urban chickens was voted down by the City Council after a favorable preliminary reading made it seem the ordinance was destined to pass.

Sara Sleyster writes in DesMoinesRegister.com that although residents came before the city council in person to speak in favor of allowing urban chickens in Norwalk, their effort was not enough thanks to an email campaign waged against them.

A proposed “urban chicken” ordinance was voted down by the Norwalk City Council last week after it had passed the first reading at the previous meeting.

Councilman Eric Delker changed his vote on the second reading of an ordinance that would have allowed egg-laying hens within the city limits after receiving 146 e-mails against the proposal. Council members Frank Curtis and John Putbrese also voted against the ordinance.

So, it would seem someone, somewhere had started an email chain to the effect of "do you want vermin-attracting, stinky, dirty chickens driving down your property values? Let Delker know you won't stand for this by emailing him." NOTE: I'm guessing at the actual contents of the email, but I'm sure I'm close to the truth given the history of tactics of those opposed to urban chickens.

Sleyster goes on to report:

Councilman Jim McClarnon called Delker’s decision to change his vote because e-mails sent from 146 people out of nearly 9,000 constituents “real bad politics.”

“They haven’t even seen this ordinance,” McClarnon said.

Councilman Alexander Grgurich also questioned the changed vote.

“I would agree with you if this was a poll, but this is an e-mail list that got forwarded on,” Grgurich said.

So, it bears repeating: if you have even the slightest whiff of an idea that there's opposition to your changing the laws to allow urban chickens (and there ALWAYS is, thanks to humanity's desire to maintain the status quo), make sure you get your petitions signed and your emails sent to show the numbers are on your side.

I'll bet dollars to donuts the opposition is already doing their part to push back.

Mad City Chickens Screenings in Seattle

2009-06-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

Filmmakers Tashai Lovington and Robert Lughai are touring the country with their fabulous film Mad City Chickens, and they'll be in the Seattle area within the week for two showings.

On Friday, June 12, the Wallingford Neighbors for Peace and Justice will be hosting a screening with Tashai, Robert and Seattle Tilth Garden Educator Carey Thornton, to boot! The screening will be held at 7pm at Keystone Congregational United Church of Christ, 5019 Keystone Place N., Seattle. The event is free (but donations are kindly accepted).

On Monday, June 15, Sustainable West Seattle will have its own screening of the film (note: Tashai and Robert cannot attend the Monday showing). The screening will take place at 7pm at Youngstown Arts Center, 4408 Delridge Way SW. A $3 donation is requested.

If you haven't yet purchased your own copy of the film (or even if you have), these showings will be a great opportunity to meet your fellow chicken lovers, learn a bit more about the fabulous birds in your backyard, or even convert the curious but not yet committed.

(I'm excited because Robert and Tashai will be bringing Mad City Chickens to the Bay Area in early August! If anyone would like to help me try to bring an MCC screening with the filmmakers here to the Peninsula, please let me know and we can work together to make it happen.)

What if you don't want 25 chicks?

2009-06-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I read about the plight of urban chicken farmer Mable Biccum of Henderson, Kentucky.

The quick and dirty retell: Biccum set up a coop in her backyard where she's raising 25 chickens for eggs as a way to supplement her fixed income and give the extra eggs to a social services group. Unfortunately, chickens aren't allowed on properties of fewer than 5 acres in Henderson, so Biccum's chickens have to go. She's vowed to appeal to the Board of Zoning Adjustment at their June 10 meeting.

What's caught my eye about this particular story is that Biccum got her 25 birds because that's the smallest quantity the local feed-n-fuel would allow her to buy: "Rural King will not sell you less than 25."

I suspect that's the smallest quantity because the big hatcheries (McMurray, et al) won't sell chicks in quantities fewer than 25 and it's likely Rural King simply ordered the chicks on behalf of Biccum.

Back when I got started raising urban chickens, while I wanted to pick out a specific breed from a hatchery, there was no way I could order the minimum quantity of 25. And back then, I didn't know enough other folks to go in on an order with me to make up the minimum of 25.

Thankfully, we've got folks like My Pet Chicken (MPC) who've stepped in filled the gap by allowing you to order as few as three chicks at a time. They're bridging the gap between the agri-business scale of chick production and the urban chicken farmer scale of consumption.

I recently learned that the fastest selling lines of chicken feed are the small bags of organic feed favored by urban chicken farmers (I don't have the citation at my fingertips, but I'll keep looking). I wonder how long before the big hatcheries start scaling down their own minimum orders? Or will it be the likes of MPC who will simply grow to fill the gap?

Where did you get your chickens from? The local Feed-n-Fuel? By mail?

an urban chicken farmer's first year

2009-06-03T16:12:00.000-07:00

Found a delightful post over on the New Green blog that's a recap of the first year raising urban chickens in Brooklyn, NY.

The author's got an Eglu like we do, and she got her chicks from My Pet Chicken last summer, a resource I didn't know about two years ago when we got Sophia and ZsuZsu from Half Moon Bay Feed and Fuel.

In the span of a single (well-documented and -illustrated) post, we travel from "chicks arriving" to "first eggs" with great color commentary along the way.

I love how she ends her post:

We have enjoyed our chickens tremendously and highly recommend chicken keeping to almost anyone. We felt like first-time parents as we watched our chicks grow into hens. We love the rich, “meaty” eggs they give us. How many people have pets that make them breakfast?? What was really important to us was that our “city girl” daughter would grow up knowing where her food comes from, and now she does.

Let's hear it for urban chickens!

urban chickens in Salem no twee agri-fad

2009-06-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

Credit goes to Emily Grosvenor coined the term "twee agri-fad" in her excellent rant post on the Desperately Seeking Salem blog about the urban chicken issue now being debated there in Oregon.

What's she ranting about? The "reasoning" (loosely defined) given by the Salem City Council for not simply passing the resolution forthwith. She's done a great job of breaking down each of the "reasoned" points, and I'll let her do the talking:

Argument: But Salem is a capital city…

Answer: Chickens are a go in Olympia, and yet, “there is something about Salem.”

Read: We can’t take care of our yards, our families, our urban livestock.

Argument: But Salem can’t pay to enforce the laws, even if we allowed them… it would be a code enforcement nightmare.

Answer: Cities larger and smaller have not seen increases in chicken infractions.

Read: Salem’s citizens are less trustworthy than the 60% of the nation’s cities that allow chicken-keeping.

Argument: But all the city dogs will start barking at the chickens…

Answer: Um… since when is it my fault if your dog barks at my yard?

Read: Put a dog in a story and it will win every time.
I don’t really have any stake in this game. I’m not going to get a chicken even if this measure ever passes. But I will defend to the death the right to argue with fair-minded reason, which is exactly what these chicken people have done, again and again, at these council meetings.

I don't think Grosvenor's dissecting the comments from the city council apply to Salem's lot alone.

Have you heard something similar by your own town's council in their review of this twee agri-fad aka urban chicken farming? Share it in the comments below.

Urban Chickens legal, but not yet allowed in Vancouver

2009-05-28T06:27:00.000-07:00

Back on March 6, I proudly shared the news that urban chickens were legal in Vancouver, BC. As a North American, I was encouraged to see another big city, albeit north of the border, do the sensible thing and allow urban chickens within city limits.

Little did I know then how big the gap is between "they're legal" and "here's the guidelines as to how they're legal so you can keep them."

In yesterday's Vancouver Sun, Rebecca Tebrake reported that the city staff tasked with creating the report to outline the rules and regulations for keeping chickens won't have a final draft ready to go to council until after its August break.

I'd had visions of newly legal chicks becoming pullets and laying their first eggs this summer in Vancouver. Silly me. Only the illegal Vancouver urban chickens will be laying eggs in the city this year.

I guess I've gotten used to things happening quickly, like with the Longmont Urban Hens success: the council approved chickens on Feb 24 and the permits were made available March 9. Maybe this is an American-ism I've taken for granted.

For those of you living in/familiar with the Great White North, is this procedural delay between "yes you can" and "here's how you can" a Canadian thing? Or is this just something to do with the Vancouver city staff?

Design sources for urban chicken coops

2009-05-21T07:48:00.000-07:00

Got an email from someone last night asking where he might get designs for building a coop in his backyard. I'm sharing my response here as I think there might be others asking the same thing.

There are lots of sources for coop design out there, depending on how handy you are with a hammer and nails and whether you need explicit step-by-step instructions or simply a book of inspirational pictures you can create your own plans from.

The Garden Coop -- Step-by-step detailed plans available for download. John Carr's put together a really useful design and done a great job making it accessible to those of us (like me) who have a lot of enthusiasm but not a lot of practice building structures.
BackyardChickens.com Coop Design Gallery -- An online gallery that displays the myriad types of coops owned by the community of backyard/urban chicken owners. The individual coops you'll see range from small to huge, from plain to fancy and from cheap to expensive. The amount of detail behind each coop varies. Some have dimensions and as-we-built-it photo documentation. Others are just the finished product.
Chicken Coops: 45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock -- a book by Judy Pangman. The title's a bit misleading, but it's still chock full of ideas for coops for your chickens. Use this book more as inspiration for building your own coop, not for plans with a step-by-step guide to building a coop (like the Garden Coop's plans).

Are there other sources for coop design you'd recommend? How did you go about creating your own? Let us know in the comments!

Provo Council Says Yes to Urban Chickens!

2009-05-20T15:36:00.000-07:00

Let's hear it for the Provo City Council's ability to work quickly to make urban chickens legal in their city again.

Just a couple weeks ago, I wrote about the Provo Mayor exercising his first veto in years to strike down the urban chickens ordinance passed by the Provo City Council in a 4-3 vote. Mayor Lewis Billings had been in favor of urban chickens yet objected to the implementation of the ordinance. While I agree with Billings's principles, I was disappointed that he had to use his veto as I figured the matter would be lost in months and months of ~~bickering~~ negotiations before urban chickens would make it back to the front burner again.

On May 19, the council passed, by a 6-1 vote, a revised ordinance that dealt with most of the objections of the mayor (there's a simple $15 registration fee, up to six hen chickens -- of all ages -- per residence, etc) leaving only the 15-foot clearance from coop to property line as an issue the mayor wasn't fond of.

The lone holdout this second time around? Council Chair Cynthia Dayton. According to the Daily Herald, Dalton "said she voted against it simply because her constituency had expressed little interest in seeing chickens in their neighborhoods. 'Good luck with your chickens, people in Provo,' Dayton said."

Good luck, indeed. Talk about distancing yourself from an issue.

Seeing the challenges folks are having getting urban chickens legal in Stallings, NC and in Shorewood, WI and in Hollywood, FL, maybe our friends in Provo can share their luck with those less fortunate.

Urban Chickens on CNN

2009-05-18T03:06:00.000-07:00

Good to see Andy, the Chicken Whisperer, get some air time on CNN Saturday.

It's a nice video that counters that bogus article on Slate.com Friday.

Chicken Busters for when urban chickens go wild

2009-05-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

The fear of urban chickens run amok seems strong in those who oppose the idea of allowing chickens within city limits.

While I'd like to think that all urban chicken farmers are conscientious enough to care for their flocks for the full life cycle (from egg to bones), the law of averages means at least some chickens will either be evicted (on purpose) or escape (on accident) from their coops and become feral.

Miami, Florida, is a good place to look to see what happens when chickens escape to live on the streets. It's estimated there's over 10,000 feral chickens within city limits, and things finally got so bad that the city government had to step in and do something about it.

Starting in April 2003, the city of Miami deployed the Chicken Busters -- a team of Code Enforcement officers, Firefighters and others -- to round up loose chickens from all around Miami.

How do they do it? Well, "to catch a chicken, you have to think like a chicken."

And the team must be awfully good at thinking like chooks: the Chicken Busters have captured over 6,400 chickens so far and in the process raised over $10,000 for charity.

This MiamiHerald.com video tells their story nicely:

Now, who you gonna call? Just be careful not to cross the streams :^)

Good news: urban chickens vetoed in Provo, Utah

2009-05-08T10:23:00.000-07:00

When I wrote about the future of urban chicken advocacy efforts, I espoused a straight-forward "get them legal however you have to, and then work on making the laws more favorable." So it's with mixed emotions that I read that Provo Mayor Lewis Billings vetoed the chicken ordinance passed by the Provo Council before it could go into effect this week.

I admit that when I first read some of the headlines about this in my news reader ("Provo's chicken law on hold" and "Billings balks at Provo chicken ordinance"), I was upset thinking that this one person was going against the will of the people to block chickens in the city.

Moreover, it's the first time Billings has blocked an ordinance since 2007. Now that I've researched the subject, I see he vetoed the ordinance for all the right reasons.

He's not against people owning chickens in the city, he's against the awkward way the Council wrote the ordinance that would allow six urban chickens per household in Provo.

The challenges Billings found in the way the urban chickens ordinance was crafted include:

requiring permits for chickens (that would have to renew annually)
hiring a part-time chicken coop inspector (at $50,000 per year! -- where do I apply?)
distance limits (15-foot distance limit from the property lines)
no deference to county health rules in case of an emergency (think: flu outbreak)

And he's asked the council to go back and rewrite the ordinance to make it more reasonable for those wanting chickens in their backyard.

The council originally passed the ordinance 4-3, and they need just a single vote to swing to get the 5 necessary to override Billings's veto.

I hope they do the right thing, though, and re-write the ordinance to make owning chickens easier and more reasonable. Just so long as they make urban chickens legal.

Welcome Marketplace Morning Report Listeners!

2009-05-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to report Joel Rose's story Chicken owners seek free range in the city aired this morning on the Marketplace Morning Report.

For those of you coming to the blog after hearing the story, here's a quick orientation to what you'll find here:

Defanging four arguments against urban chickens will help you educate those who say chickens should remain outlawed because of too much poop or salmonella or avian flu or cost to enforce the laws
how to clean urban chicken eggs shares the surprising (counter-intuitive) info on how to handle yard-fresh eggs each day
instructions for the chicken sitter gives you an accurate picture of what it's like to care for urban chickens day-in and day-out
the one-year recap which summarizes the experience of going from no chickens in the backyard to two eggs a day.

If it's info about changing the laws in your own city, I've tagged posts related to that subject over the last two years with the label law so you can easily find them.

And if you're just looking for a book to read in the backyard as you think about having your own hens producing eggs each day for your table, I've recommended nine books for aspiring urban chicken farmers to help you out.

Finally, don't just take my word for how great it is to raise chickens in the city. Visit the blogs in the blog roll to the right or come visit our fans on our Facebook page to get to know who else loves urban chickens.

calling all San Mateo County urban chicken owners

2009-05-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

I'm reaching out to all the readers who live here in San Mateo County (SF Bay Area) to ask you to come join the new San Mateo Chickens Yahoo! group. I know that there's got to be a lot of us in the area because the local feed store on El Camino Real seems to be moving a lot of chicken feed off the shelves.

The SMC group's founding host, Nikki, does a great job of making everyone feel welcome and sharing the details of her own journey into raising urban chickens (her first chicks just hatched). And I think we'll be trying to organize a group dinner in May if there's enough interest.

In the two years since I started blogging here on urbanchickens.net, I've had a chance to meet a half dozen other urban chicken farmers here in Redwood City, and I don't want to generalize too much here, but urban chicken farmers seem to be the nicest folks in town.

Won't you join us in the group? And if you're outside the area but have your own group going, feel free to advertise it in the comments.

Another Chicken Coop Open House

2009-05-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

This video about raising chickens in Beverly, Massachusetts contains a plug for an open house tomorrow, May 2, from noon to 3pm. You can see the details of the open house over on the beverly chickens blog.

Sue Lupo's a great ambassador for the urban chicken movement, and the video's a wonderful introduction for those interested in getting their own chickens.

If you know of any other open houses to add to our list of upcoming chicken coop tours, please let me know so I can spread the word!

social media means Urban Chickens now legal in Asheville, NC

2009-04-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

Very happy to see that the news that urban chickens are now legal in Asheville, NC (pop ~220,000, map). The city council approved the measure just last night, in front of a crowd of 120 citizens who'd shown up to urge the ruling.

What's most exciting to see about this particular effort to legalize urban chickens is how the group Asheville City Chickens was able to leverage social media to mobilize their cause.

In addition to coming up with a cute logo as an identity, the folks (Cathy, Josh, et al) pulled out all the stops in setting up a digital toolbox to rally the troops and equip people to dive in.

Among their social media portfolio:

a blog to announce their progress and needs and act as the platform for sharing news
a Twitter account (@avlcitychickens) for those bite-sized updates that can mobilize folks away from their computers
A Google Sites wiki to facilitate rapid collaboration and editing of content the group created together to press for the change
A Facebook group and a Yahoo! group to tap into the already-existing social networks of Asheville citizens and broaden the reach of their messages
Online petitions and bumperstickers, too.

Each of these social media tools is powerful in its own right (in the right hands) and to see the Asheville City Chickens group pull them all together in a potent mix of making their voices heard and advocating for change is fantastic.

The best part of all of this effort? All the tools they used are free for anyone to put to work on their own efforts to legalize urban chickens. That's right: the tools are free, you just need to apply effort, just like Clay Shirky has written in his book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (I highly, highly recommend it if you haven't yet read it). It's almost as if the Asheville City Chickens crew used it as their playbook.

Please join me in dropping a quick Tweet of congrats to the Asheville City Chickens crew!

protecting urban chickens from avian flu (Part 1)

2009-04-27T16:41:00.000-07:00

With all the talk of swine flu in the last couple days, it's a great reminder that, as keepers of small flocks of chickens, we MUST pay attention to bio-security practices not only to protect our own urban chickens, but our community at large.

This past weekend, I had a chance to attend a Meetup of the Santa Cruz Pet Chicken group hosted by Cheryl Potter where we learned how to protect our flocks from infectious diseases and, more importantly, how to draw blood from our birds to provide to the authorities for screening should an outbreak occur near us.

The class was taught by Mark Bland, DVM, a very knowledgeable poultry veterinarian who consults with small- to medium-sized poultry farms in California from the Mexican border to Santa Rosa, and then in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.

Believe me when I say Bland's seen a lot of things happen to chickens in his days on the farm(s). Even better, he's a great story teller and really knows how to talk to us backyard chicken folks in a way we'll understand. Sure, he's used to dealing with flocks of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of birds, but his knowledge applies directly to our own scale of urban chicken farming. What we lack in numbers, we more than make up for in care (dare I say love?) for our few hens.

But, you say, the closest I get to a big chicken farm is when I buy a shrink-wrapped bone-in breast at the supermarket, why should I care what they do at the big farms? My girls will never get close. They don't have to because you just might without even realizing it.

Backyard flocks get infected from human cross-contamination. Full stop.

Whenever you visit other chickens in your neighborhood, at a store, at a show or on a farm, there's a chance you'll pick up a strain of a virus and take it back to your own flock.

Yes, when you visit another friend who's an urban chicken owner, you're putting your own chickens at risk of contracting whatever disease the other chickens might have, whether it's manifest itself in recognizable symptoms or not. And if you don't transfer a virus, you might just be transferring mites, instead.

All kinds of invisible goodies can make the hop to your flock via you as a human carrier, so here's what you do to reduce the risk:

Keep a set of chicken clothes to use exclusively to interact with your flock: in the picture above, you can see Mark's got one of those great blue overalls getups to wear. You should have something similar (or a complete set of clothes, including shoes) that you wear when tending to your chickens and ONLY when tending to your chickens.
Assume all other chickens are infected: If you find yourself in the company of other birds for whatever reason (they're at the local feed store, you see some at a farmer's market, you stop by a neighbor's coop), assume you've picked up something on your clothes or person that's danegerous to your own flock. Don't rush home and out to the coop first thing. Take precautions, as in...
Clean up well (self, clothes, tools): Just as you wouldn't dream of leaving the restroom without thoroughly washing your hands, you shouldn't dream of getting near your birds with your street clothes on. Believe it or not, it's possible to pick up mites/viruses from contaminated delivery vehicles that have been out to a processing plant and parked next to you while delivering the goods to a store.
Keep a closed flock: no co-mingling of chickens. And if you introduce new chickens to your flock (either to expand or replace), quarantine the new birds in a different part of the yard for a couple weeks just to make sure they aren't sick before introducing into your existing flock. Even if you got a new chick from the same store you got your others just a few weeks before, they came from different flocks and you'd do well to protect the ones you have by taking this quarantine precaution.

The good news in all this? It's rather difficult for chickens to get the flu from coming in contact with it (they're low on the totem pole, well below ducks and turkeys and other fowl). Couple this fact with the knowledge that our backyard flocks have very low stress levels (out in the elements, enjoying their lives scratching around our backyards) compared to their agri-business-raised sisters, and it'd be difficult for our birds to get a high-path flu.

In the next post, I'll explain the difference between high-path and low-path avian influenzas and what to do if you suspect one of your birds is sick.

Defanging four arguments against urban chickens

2009-04-22T08:49:00.000-07:00

On this Earth Day, it's great to see efforts to overturn ham-fisted ordinances banning urban chickens cropping up all over the country (just take a look at the Google News search for "urban chicken laws").

The benefits to backyard chickens are many (pest control, fertilizer, eggs, entertainment), so it makes perfect sense that rational people would seek to legalize the keeping of small flocks of hens (not roosters!) on their own property.

Time and again, however, the rational pursuit of changing the law runs into an emotional barrier thrown up by NIMBYs and others who see urban chickens as a retreat to less sophisticated times. The lack of sophistication, however, is typically found in the arguments against urban chickens that, no matter how specious, still grab the imagination and make perfectly rational members of city government act in irrational ways.

After watching two years' worth of battles to legalize urban chickens, I've identified the four most common myths introduced as fact in the argument against chickens in the backyard:

Chickens produce too much poop - the fact of the matter is that dogs and cats produce way more excrement in a week than a flock of four hens. And while the chicken manure can be converted easily into fertilizer to help your garden grow, for health reasons, you cannot do the same with dog and cat poop.
It'll cost too much to enforce an urban chicken law - the kind of people who want to raise chickens in their backyards for eggs are doing so (mostly) out of a sense responsibility for taking control of their food sourcing and reducing their carbon footprint. These are not the kinds of folks who'll be requiring animal control to come out and bust chicken owners for too many animals making too much noise (see: dogs).
Owning chickens means hosting salmonella in your backyard - the food safety folks have done a great job sensitizing the public to take care in handling chicken so as to avoid salmonella. The simpletons spreading salmonella fears as an argument against urban chickens don't seem to understand that salmonella is a problem of safe food handling, not of responsible pet ownership.
Backyard chickens will spread the bird flu - the fact is, it's through backyard flocks that we might insulate ourselves from the spread of the H5N1 virus and the like that tear through the million-bird in-bred flocks of large-scale agribusiness. But, of all the arguments against urban chickens, this is the point most often deployed as an end-of-discussion "so there."

So, if you find yourself up against any of the above arguments in your own efforts to get urban chickens legalized in your city, read the posts and use the research to help steer the argument away from the sensational and back to the rational.

If you've got other arguments you're hearing against urban chickens, please let me know so I can help you counter them with fact.

Oh, and keep an eye on the "law" tag here on this blog. Whenever I post about a struggle to legalize urban chickens in one city or another, I always apply the law tag to it.