YAY, that's a big deal! If we keep working at this thing, we'll catch up to where we were, oh, 60 years ago! I mean that in the best possible way. The backyard chicken was a commonplace in my city before the 50s...

Food security is a big argument - and it makes a difference to people who might normally oppose moves like this as hippie folderol. It makes people go 'hmmm.'

I used have two chickens years ago. Penny and Violet. I miss them.

Yah. It was very interesting to see unfold. The group that led the charge didn't do as good a job as they could have in enlisting some of the local community leaders from day one. There was broad support from city residents from all sorts of backgrounds, but two particular women who work day in and day out on issues like crime, poverty and racial disparity were against the ordinance. They spoke very strongly against it, but it seemed more of an emotional response. Next time there's a movement like this, it's probably a good idea to go to those women to talk about it first.

Look!

Cuuute (to HJ).

Yeah, I really like interspecies color coordination.

Bizarre. That would be enough to chase Mrs. Doohickie out of a community. She grew up on a farm and the chickens skeeved her out.

Ok, I give: What does "food security" mean?

≡ Click to see image ≡

Look!

Are you the one on the right?

Nope. I'm in the middle.

"Yeah, I really like interspecies color coordination." If that chicken is eating cat food it's very likely she is a cannibal.

Why would someone be opposed to something like this? Is it just the noise? Perceived uncleanliness?

(Looking at the FAQs, I guess those are the main arguments. Bizarre.)

If you want to raise backyard fowl may I suggest Guineafowl? If you want eggs they produce more per bird and more per amount of feed. If you want meat they produce more protean per amount of feed.

You're going to get some, right stew?

If that chicken is eating cat food it's very likely she is a cannibal.

When I worked on the chicken farm, in the long overcrowded sheds, sometimes chickens would get injured by the mechanically retracting feed troughs (dispensing feed consisting of about 10% meat and bone meal, mostly from cows). In overcrowded conditions, chickens gang up and peck at injured individuals, and a dead chicken on the floor of a chicken shed becomes food for the other chickens. Mice do the same thing, which is why it's important when you're breeding animals to separate the young and the weak to prevent cannibalism due to overcrowding. My first duty every morning was to wade through the sheds and pick up the dead and dying birds from overnight. We had a steady attrition rate of about .1%, so every day I'd carry twenty or thirty chickens to an oil drum and deliver the coup de grace to the ones who still had a heartbeat. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to wring a bird's neck, or how much even a goner will flap when it's being killed. I learned to step on their heads, or kick them off; arm's length was too close for that kind of thing. I'm not a good killer; I still feel bad about it. But it's worth mentioning because it's usually bad husbandry that leads animals to eat their own, and as is certainly true in the case of chickens, most farm animals are kept under less-than-optimal conditions.

This isn't to say that the chicken in the photo isn't being forced into cannibalism (I think that's one of the craziest things humans do to other species, I mean really open-up-the-maw-of-hell-and-stick-your-head-in crazy) but it does my heart good to see a chicken running free in a yard, well kept and fluffy. My conscience still eats me over the job I did, though.

I mean, I've fed mice to snakes, even baby mice to baby snakes, but it doesn't compare to being part of an industrial chicken operation.

People having the option of keeping their own chickens in their own backyards, given enough space and good fences, is good. I think the food security that Miko alluded to is helped as well; funny pictures aside, it's good to have diverse sources of staple foodstuffs so that an epidemic doesn't wipe out an entire food source.

Anyway, that's not to say that chickens aren't inherently funny or that cannibalism is okay; just a few things I felt I should share.

"it's usually bad husbandry " What really creeps me out Hugh, is that suppliers (can't bring myself to call them farmers) have deliberately fed cow protean to cows and chicken protean to chickens in order to up the meat production per pound of feed. No wonder we have CJD and other prion related issues.

Yeah, like I said, head-in-the-maw-of-hell stuff. I mean, I don't really believe in divine retribution (unless it's capitalized and John Waters directed it) but, uh, maybe CJD and BSE and whatever else is out there is just desserts for people forcing cannibalism on other animals just to make a buck.

If you're ever breeding mice, you must separate mothers and their newborns from the very pregnant, or the pregnant mice will eat the newborns. It's less of a problem if you have fewer mice kept together, but there's an instinct that assumes a natural scarcity of food that persists even in generations of captivity, where the food supply is constant. It's actually pretty fascinating to breed up a nice mouse colony, provided you have an outlet for the inevitable surplus. I have a friend who keeps and breeds snakes (mostly beautiful tree boas and pythons), and one of my favorite activities in herpetology is the keeping of rodent colonies; over many generations of mice being kept (viz. not being fed to snakes) for their beauty and docility, his mouse colony is consistently shiny, frequently dappled, and generally well-behaved. Of course, they're being kept in optimum conditions and he very rarely loses a mouse unintentionally, but it's interesting to see how a little care goes a long way.

Anyway, I think this might all be rather alarming in a thread about city ordinances permitting backyard chickens; sorry if it's a little grotesque, folks.

If you want to raise backyard fowl may I suggest Guineafowl?

They are awesome, BUT they are also wicked LOUD. Some people raise them along with their chickens as "guard" animals. They will sound an alarm if they feel threatened.

Turtlegirl wants guinea hens.

CONGRATS STEWRIFFIC!!!!

Cool! Yeah Stew are ya gonna get some?? I'm comin to see 'em when you do. We went on the Tour d'Coop here a couple of years ago to see some people's backyard setups & their girls. One had a bathroom sign on their coop that said LADIES.

Mudpupp you should do a youtube series: how to obtain / care for your backyard chickens! I can see a blog.

OK, so now that I'm awake again, here's some more info. Food security basically means access to healthy and nutritious food for all people at all times.

In inner cities what you often see is a lack of grocery stores. There are corner stores stocked with King Dons and potato chips, but very little in the way of whole, unprocessed foods. The community garden initiative that I'm working (on both statewide in my role as a public health worker and locally as a volunteer) is aimed to provide access to fresh fruits and vegetables in the places that need it the most.

Hens factor in both for the nummy eggs they provide as well as for the very rich fertilizer from their droppings.

Jeeze, I could go on about this for years, so I'll stop now.

And yeah, I think I'll probably get some hens when I buy a house.

Huh, that's great, I was totally wrong about what food security was. Thanks for the correction, I just marked the Wikipedia page -- are there any other must-read resources on the subject?

And oh yeah, food security's super important any way you slice it.

Stewriffic - Yay, exciting!
Hugh Janus - Fascinating.

In downtown Toronto, there are some neighbourhoods where you get woken up by the chickens kept in people's backyards, even though technically it isn't permitted. Usually, it is an older couple who emigrated to Canada decades ago. For the most part, nobody minds. I know of one dispute, where a young uppity couple who just moved onto a street, ratted out some 75 year old seniors with a few chickens. The chickens had to go, of course. The whole street turned against the uppity couple. But it didn't matter because a few months later more chickens turned up. The uppity couple didn't say a word. Ha ha.

Typewriter--it had to be roosters that were waking people up, no? One of the interesting issues that came up last night was whether people would be tempted to get (illegal) roosters in order not to have to buy more chicks. A citizen there for the public hearing explained that chicks cost about $2 each plus shipping (yes, they are mail ordered!!).

These are my friends' chickens in their West Asheville backyard - this is where I get my eggs. They want to give me some chickens but alas, I think the dogs would eat them. Also in the video: a blurry interlude with me banging on some drums.

There have been chickens in my neighbourhood for years (small town outside Toronto) and we can hear them - no roosters, but they do make noise. It is a nice birdy noise. It isn't legal here but since the local animal by-law officer lives across the road from me and right beside the chickens I don't think they will be going anywhere. A friend is actually known around the world for his chicken breeding (I think his are for looks though). I'd love to get chickens but it is mu husband who would probably be looking after them so he is not so keen. With the amount of milk we drink here though we would be better off getting a cow.

I'd be unhappy if a neighbor had roosters, but chickens are very sensible to keep. They eat the bugs from the garden, provide eggs, and eventually provide stewing chickens. I wish I had a neighbor with chickens who would sell me fresh eggs. I have a friend who has to keep them indoors as pets because her town is silly.

Good on you, Stewriffic.

Stew, did animal rights activists show any interest in this issue? Their stated goal is to outlaw any human ownership or stewardship of animals, so even though this is a huge step in the right direction for animal welfare, it's a step in the wrong direction for animal rights.

(My dogs would kill chickens, I am absolutely certain. Otherwise I would have them already.)

Animal rights activists... stated goal is to outlaw any human ownership or stewardship of animals.

That may be true for a few, but way, way, no, absolutely not, not a grain of, no, no, no, not true in the least for all.

I'm not aware of any animal rights activists having this on their radar at all. It's an interesting thing to think about. To me it seems very extreme and at odds with the idea of animal welfare to expect that domesticated animals should not be "owned". Look at India and cows, for example. One among many stories...

I told my sister a few years ago that we were having guineafowl for Christmas dinner.

"What's a guineafowl?" she asked.

"It's a cross between a chicken and a guinea pig" I explained.

"Oh. That sounds nice."

I will add here that for three years my sister went to cookery college

Hugh, that is the difference between animal rights and animal welfare.

Roosters aren't the only ones who crow. We had a few hens that would crow after laying a batch of eggs. They were a bit mean, too.

Hugh, that is the difference between animal rights and animal welfare.

Wow, I was all ready to be like, crazy definitions make for crazy people; then I looked it up and found that the crazy people have taken over! Just kidding, it's an interesting distinction -- until just now I would have described myself as pro-animal rights but at what seems like sometime in my lifetime the agendas have been pushed around. So good on ya, AcornCup, thanks for taking my mildly snarky flabbergast and responding seriously, I'm glad to be wrong again and learn something new, but I still wonder how long these definitions have been in place? Probably forever and I'm just a knucklehead.

I was talking to a woman about her 50-year old fur coat, which she has for the warmth (she feels the real crime is in owning furs for fashion), and she pointed out that synthetic fabrics are mostly made from oil, which accounting for war and exploitation, costs a specific number of human lives per bolt of fabric, and that she'd rather see rabbits bred and killed for her coat than see her son sent off to Iraq to die for mine. Probably hyperbolic all around, but it gave me pause.

Anyway, thanks for pointing out the difference between animal rights and animal welfare. I like learning stuff.

One of my mom's coworkers sent out this email to some employees at their company today (excerpt):

"For those few who didn't hear the chicks last Friday, I have a clutch of baby chicks (of the chicken variety). When you order chicks from a hatchery, you have to get at least 25 to keep each other warm while in transit. This is far more than we could keep, unfortunately (no matter how spectacularly cute they are). That means we have CHICKS FOR SALE."

Isn't this an irresponsible practice? Who would ever want 25 chicks, unless they were ordering for a big farm or distributor? I'm curious to know if anyone has any insight into this.