Animal Rights Groups Enter The Backyard Chicken-Keeping Fray

There is a new campaign by animal rights activists against backyard chicken-keeping.

These folks are well-intentioned, and their work is valuable. I was a vegetarian for twenty years primarily for ethical reasons and only went back to meat-eating when I discovered local, pasture-raised meat from animals that live as animals should. I have no ethical objection to the eating of meat, but I don’t want to eat an animal that has lived a life of misery ending only in a horrific death in a factory-farm slaughterhouse. But animal rights activists tend to believe meat-eating itself is unethical and therefore have an axe to grind when it comes to backyard chicken-keeping. They don't believe animals can ethically be used for food production, even when the animal isn't killed to produce the food. They advocate a vegan diet -- no eggs, no milk or cheese, no honey -- and their opinions and arguments are profoundly colored by this.  However, some of their concerns are valid, and those considering keeping chickens should be aware of these concerns.

• There are no laws controlling methods by which breeding hens and roosters are kept, which means some hatcheries could be keeping them in small, crowded cages with no access to pasture.  Be sure to investigate where your chicks or fertile eggs for hatching come from; don't buy from any hatchery who mistreats breeding animals. Buy from a those who raise birds on pasture, just like you want to raise yours. Your best bet may be a small producer of heritage breeds, preferably someone local whom you can visit to see how the birds are treated.
  
• Male chicks are not in demand for backyard flocks and may be mistreated because of their relative lack of value to a hatchery focussed on producing laying hens. Again, choose your hatchery carefully and don't buy from one that mistreats its male chicks.
• Shipping day-old chicks is not ideal.  I don't know what kind of stress chicks experience in shipping, but while most chicks survive, it's probably a safe bet that no baby animal should ideally spend its first few days in a shipping box.  Again your best bet may be a small local producer of heritage breeds.
• Roosters are often unwanted and sometimes illegal.  If you can't have or don't want roosters, have a plan for any bird that turns out to be male.  The producer who sold you your chicks may be willing to take the males to add to their flock of meat birds; ask ahead of time. Or you may be able to slaughter your unwanted males yourself or send them to be slaughtered.  It go should go without saying that dumping them on a shelter or otherwise abandoning them is not an ethical option.
  
• Hens may be abandoned after they are no longer productive.  As an ethical backyard chicken-keeper, it's incumbent upon you to either treat your no-longer-productive hen as a valued pet, the same as you would an aging dog, or to either slaughter her yourself or send her to be slaughtered.  Have a plan in mind before you get your chickens.  

When push comes to shove, though, what's also true is that if you eat eggs, these problems are not ones that can be solved by not keeping your own chickens.  Producers of eggs, even those you buy at the farmers' markets, are probably getting their laying hens from the same hatchery as the chicks down at Tractor Supply.  So whether you get your eggs from Kroger, the farmers' market, or your own backyard, at some point some hatchery was likely involved.  Unless you are willing to give up eggs altogether -- which is what the animal rights groups want you to do -- keeping your own chickens is always going to be the best way to ensure you know how your eggs are produced.

These animal rights groups are asking supporters to actively oppose backyard chicken-keeping by attending meetings of their local city council, writing letters to the editor and to their government representatives, and talking to friends and neighbors. If you are waging a chicken-keeping fight in your town, be aware of this potential source of opposition.

Montgomery Re-legalizes Chicken-Keeping

Montgomery's City Council last night voted unanimously (7-0) to re-legalize the keeping of chickens in the city, after criminalizing it in July.  Residents had objected to criminalizing an activity that was currently legal and had been causing no problems and provided City Council with extensive research showing that chicken-keeping was not a problem in suburban backyards, and City Council listened. Re-legalizing the practice required a public hearing and three readings of the amended ordinance. 

Chickens currently being kept illegally in Montgomery will once again be legal starting January 1st, under the following conditions:

• No more than six chickens may be kept
• No roosters will be allowed
• Coops and enclosures must not be visible from the street, must be screened from neighboring properties by fencing or landscaping, and must adhere to setbacks and property maintenance codes.

Congratulations, Montgomery-ites!  Raising a little of our own food -- whether by planting a garden for vegetables or keeping chickens for eggs -- is a way to develop a more sustainable suburban lifestyle. And for freshness, quality, and knowing where your food comes from, you can't beat an egg laid a few hours ago by one of your own hens.

An announcement ("Hens Find A Home In Montgomery") and link to the new ordinance are available on the city's website.

Chicken-Keeping in Mariemont

The Village of Mariemont, which currently has no regulations concerning the keeping of chickens, is reportedly planning to consider the issue at tonight's Council meeting (Monday Nov 8 at 7:30). The Municipal Building is at 6907 Wooster Pike. If you're in Mariemont and you have any idea of EVER keeping chickens, this would be a very important meeting to attend. Right now chickens are legal. If you want to keep it that way, you need to let your Village officials know how you feel.

Tonight's agenda has been posted, and the issue of chicken-keeping is not on it. However, given that a city employee told me this would be discussed tonight, I think it's still important to attend. If the issue doesn't come up, bring it up during the portion of the meeting reserved for "Permission to Address Council."

I'll be there tonight!

Backyard Chickens at Civic Garden Center

The Civic Garden Center is offering Chickens in the City, a class on backyard chicken-keeping with instructors Tom Cail, Corina Bullock, and a panel of other chicken-keepers who will discuss choosing breeds, chicken care, coops, local chicken-keeping ordinances, and other topics.

Saturday July 25, 3 - 4:30pm.  2715 Reading Road, 45206 (Avondale.)  $10, free for Civic Garden Center members. Register online or by calling 513-221-0981.

Chickens for Montgomery on Facebook

On July 1, Montgomery City Council passed a new ordinance that criminalized the keeping of chickens, which have always been legal in Montgomery. The ordinance goes into effect August 1, but Planning Commission has recommended that land usage codes also be updated to continue to allow chickens with a few restrictions intended to keep them from becoming an annoyance to neighbors:

• No more than six chickens
• No roosters
• Chickens must be contained
• Coops and enclosures must adhere to the setbacks and property maintenance codes and not be visible from the street

Given that there are currently chickens being kept by multiple households in Montgomery with no complaints (the police say they haven't had a complaint since the 1970s, when a family in the Shadowhill neighborhood was keeping a rooster) we feel these limitations are a fair compromise between allowing chicken-keeping and preventing any problems with chickens.

If you're on Facebook and would like to show your support of efforts to keep chickens legal in Montgomery, please join the Facebook group Chickens for Montgomery.

The Chicken Manifesto

Last night, the City of Montgomery's Planning Commission considered what possible exemptions to Montgomery's proposed new "Ordinance Prohibiting Farm Animals" they would recommend to City Council.

We'd done quite a bit of research to try to demonstrate to the Planning Commission that it was absolutely possible to allow chickens without causing a nuisance. Last week, we finished work on a document called "Chickens for Montgomery" and gave copies of it to City Hall to distribute to the Planning Commission and City Council.

I am happy to report that the Planning Commission voted 5 - 1 (one member of the 7-member commission was not in attendance) to recommend the zoning/land use codes be revised to allow up to 6 chickens, no roosters, with chickens required to be contained and enclosures required to be no closer than 15 feet to property lines. We feel this is a very fair outcome, and provides an excellent basis for allowing Montgomery residents to keep chickens while still addressing possible concerns from the rest of the community.

We aren't sure how likely City Council is to accept this recommendation. They have no requirement to do so, I don't think, so we do still need to show them there's support for this. But I am feeling very positive, and very grateful to the Planning Commission for taking what I think is an extremely open-minded approach to the question. I'm sure most of them probably originally thought, when City Council first asked them to consider this issue, that of course Montgomery wouldn't want to allow chickens. But they really listened to us, and last night spent a very long time discussing what additional restrictions might be needed and which possible issues could be addressed by current ordinances regarding noise, odors, setbacks, etc. They asked questions, and they were very fair in considering our responses. For instance, their initial idea for limiting the number of chickens was 4, but when we told them that most day-old chicks could only be sold in quantities of six, they changed their motion to allow up to 6 chickens.

The document -- which my husband is calling my 'Chicken Manifesto' -- is unfortunately at 12MB too large to be uploaded to any free file-sharing sites, but I've got it in both a .pdf file and a Word 2008 file, so if anyone wants a copy, please email me and tell me which version you'd like me to email you. (If you don't have Word 2008, I'd recommend asking for the .pdf file, as converting it to Word 2004 causes significant formatting changes which make the document much less usable.)

And if anyone has server space and would like to host this document so that it can be downloaded and used as a template by other chicken-keeping groups trying to change their town's laws, let me know! Anyone interested in using it for their own efforts on behalf of chicken-keepers should feel free to do so with my blessing. My sincere thanks to Chickens In The Yard, whose own similar document provided a template from which to work.

Chicken-Keeping and Property Values

I've been doing a lot of research on chicken-keeping in Greater Cincinnati over the past few weeks since the City of Montgomery proposed an ordinance prohibiting 'farm animals' (including a few backyard chickens) on lots of less than three acres. As I'm hard pressed to think of even a single noncommercial property of three acres that isn't city-owned, this effectively will prohibit residents from keeping backyard chickens.

As one of the key issues for a lot of folks seems to be whether or not chicken-keeping will hurt property values, I started there. Here's what I've found:

Communities which allow chicken-keeping tend to have HIGHER property values than those that prohibit it.

Here's the data (please do call any mistakes to my attention -- this is the best I could determine from various communities' ordinances as posted online):

Suburb	Chicken-Keeping Ordinances*	2007 Average Home Sales Price**
Indian Hill	Permit	$1019K
Terrace Park	Generally Permit	$ 400K
Mariemont	Permit	$ 345K
Wyoming	Generally Permit	$ 326K
Symmes Township	Permit	$ 313K
Montgomery	Generally Permit (currently)	$ 297K
Evendale	Generally Permit	$ 288K
Glendale	Generally Permit	$ 274K
Mason	Essentially Prohibit	$ 213K
Madeira	Generally Permit	$ 212K
Blue Ash	Case by Case***	$ 202K
Loveland	Generally Permit	$ 174K
Fairfield	Essentially Prohibit	$ 166K
Sycamore Township	Essentially Prohibit	$ 165K
Sharonville	Restricted	$ 157K
Milford	Generally Permit	$ 152K
Springdale	Essentially Prohibit	$ 144K
Reading	Restricted	$ 131K
Deer Park	Generally Permit	$ 130K
Silverton	Essentially Prohibit	$ 127K
St Bernard	Generally Permit	$ 124K
Norwood	Prohibit	$ 119K
Mt Healthy	Essentially Prohibit	$ 116K

* Generally Permit: chicken keeping is allowed under minor restrictions intended to prevent chickens from becoming a nuisance. Restricted: chicken-keeping is allowed, but ordinances will prevent a significant number of residents from keeping chickens. Essentially Prohibit: chickens are allowed under such profound restrictions as to prevent most residents from keeping chickens.
** Source: city-data.com
*** Blue Ash requires "suburban farms" practicing "poultry husbandry" to have at least five acres, but they don't define "poultry husbandry." The city compliance inspector I asked about this said that a few backyard chickens would likely be handled on a case-by-case basis if there were complaints.

Now, I'd never use this data to argue that keeping chickens actually raises property values, but it certainly doesn't prove the opposite, either.

Montgomery is giving their proposed ordinance its second of three required public readings at tomorrow's meeting (Wednesday June 3, 7:00, 10101 Montgomery Rd) if anyone would like to attend, if only to provide evidence that I'm not just the Crazy Chicken Lady of Montgomery. The last meeting I attended started right on time and ended at 7:35, so there's not a huge time commitment to showing your support for suburban chicken-keeping!

New Backyard Chicken-Keeping Group Forming for Greater Cincinnati

Michael Roman, the chicken expert at Gorman Heritage Farm, has started a new group for folks in the Greater Cincinnati area who are interested in backyard chickens for city dwellers, suburbanites, and those in small towns.

If you have chickens in your backyard, or would like to, join us! The group is just getting started right now, but we hope to set up tours of area coops, provide resources and research for communities planning ordinances regarding chicken keeping, form chick-buying and feed-buying co-ops, share coop plans, and benefit from each other's experiences.

Chickens Not Welcome in Montgomery

All over the country more and more of us are interested in keeping backyard chickens, and many cities are adjusting their zoning laws to allow it. The City of Montgomery is doing the opposite. Current law doesn't outlaw chickens, so Montgomery is planning on changing that.

There are so many reasons to find a way to allow rather than forbid backyard chickens. Fresh, pastured organic eggs sustainably raised should be within everyone's grasp, but for many of us -- especially now -- they're unfortunately out of reach. But not if you raise them yourself. Chickens eat bugs, improve the soil, help prevent thatch, and produce organic fertilizer and compost. They have personalities and make easy-care and even affectionate pets. They require very little space: a chicken needs a run smaller than the top of the average kitchen table. They make less mess, smell, and noise than most dogs. If cared for properly they cause no smell or mess at all, and the normal cluck of a laying hen isn't audible from 25 feet -- about the same as normal conversation.

Require that there be no smell. Require that there be no mess. Require that there be no noise -- even require that there be no roosters. Require that they be confined, just like dogs and cats. Require that coops and runs be attractive and well-maintained, just like the requirements for fences. But why require that there be no chickens? This isn't a herd of goats or pigs we're talking about. Most families interested in raising backyard chickens want a couple of 8-pound birds.

I'll be down at Montgomery's City Hall (10101 Montgomery Rd) next Wednesday, May 6th, at 7pm for the Council Business Session if anyone wants to join me. Or send the members of council an email, especially if you're in Montgomery. I'm hoping they'll reconsider.

More Backyard Chickens

Suddenly everyone wants chickens in their backyard. Everyone except my 14-year-old daughter, that is. Backyard chickens would be the frosting on her cake of parental embarrassments.

Turner Farm is offering Chickens in Your Own Backyard, a one-hour informational session for those interested in raising backyard chickens. Turner's chicken expert, Mike Steele, will discuss choosing breeds, housing options, feed, hygiene, and more. Thursday April 23rd at 6:00pm, followed by a question-and-answer session. Registration is $6, reservations are required. Call 561-7400 or email Turner.

Chickens in Your Backyard at Park+Vine

Park+Vine is offering Chickens in Your Backyard, including the basics on keeping chickens in the city, what types of shelters can be used, how to endear your neighbors and more, presented by Michael Roman of Gorman Heritage Farm. The workshop is free, but registration is required. 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 28 at Park + Vine. Email Park+Vine or call 513.721.7275 before April 27 to register.