Chickens in the City

3 messages

Karen Robinson () Chickens in the City

Reply Threaded

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15062.cfm

U.S. City Dwellers Flock to Raising Chickens
By Ben Block
Word Watch Institute, October 6, 2008
Straight to the Source

In the backyard of a suburban home in Denver, Colorado, 22 chickens
are hiding out from the law.

They arrived when a member of BackyardChickens, an online forum,
ordered the birds in the mail this past May. "I actually get my
chicks in today hopefully, and I am worried that animal control will
be at the post office waiting for me with hand-cuffs," the new
poultry farmer wrote.

An underground "urban chicken" movement has swept across the United
States in recent years. Cities such as Boston, Massachusetts, and
Madison, Wisconsin, are known to have had chickens residing illegally
behind city fences.

But grassroots campaigns, often inspired by the expanding movement to
buy locally produced food, are leading municipalities to allow
limited numbers of hens within city limits.

Cities such as Anne Arbor, Michigan; Ft. Collins, Colorado; and South
Portland, Maine have all voted in the past year to allow residents to
raise backyard poultry. "It's a serious issue - it's no yolk," said
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz of Madison, Wisconsin, when his city reversed
its poultry ban in 2004. "Chickens are really bringing us together as
a community. For too long they've been cooped up."

Raising backyard chickens is an extension of an urban farming
movement that has gained popularity nationwide. Home-raised livestock
or agriculture avoids the energy usage and carbon emissions typically
associated with transporting food.

"Fresh is not what you buy at the grocery store. Fresh is when you go
into your backyard, put it in your bag, and eat it," said Carol-Ann
Sayle, co-owner of five-acre ( two-hectare) farm in Austin, Texas,
located within walking distance from the state capitol. "Everyone
should have their own henhouse in their own backyard."

"Buying local" also provides an alternative to factory farms that
pollute local ecosystems with significant amounts of animal waste -
which can at times exceed the waste from a small U.S. city, a
government report revealed last month. In the United States alone,
industrial livestock production generates 500 million tons of manure
every year. The waste also emits potent greenhouse gases, especially
methane, which has 23 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

Meanwhile, advocates insist that birds raised on a small scale are
less likely to carry diseases than factory-farmed poultry, although
some public health officials are concerned that backyard chickens
could elevate avian flu risks.

Chicken: The 'Buy Local' Mascot

After the trend first gained popularity in London, England, with the
invention of the "eglu" chicken house about ten years ago, large
numbers of city dwellers began to raise chickens in the U.S. cities
of Seattle and Portland, said Jac Smit, president of the Urban
Agriculture Network. "It's no longer something kinky or interesting,"
Smit said. "The 'chicken underground' has really spread so widely and
has so much support."

Within the past five years, the trend has expanded to cities where
raising hens was already legal, including Los Angeles, San Francisco,
and Chicago. "Chicken has become the symbol, a mascot even, of the
local food movement," said Owen Taylor of New York City, who knows of
at least 30 community gardens that raise poultry, mostly for their
eggs. One Brooklyn home has raised upward of 50 hens. "We're the
biggest city in the country, so to have it here I think blows people's minds."

K.T. LaBadie, a University of New Mexico graduate student, was born
into a family that grew its own fruits and vegetables. So when she
moved to Albuquerque and met a friend who was raising his own
chickens, poultry was a logical progression in her own home. She
began with two hens, and now she has four.

"It felt like a good compliment to our backyard gardening. We get
compost from the chickens that goes back into the vegetable beds,"
LaBadie said. "And there's really nothing better than harvesting
tomatoes and peppers from your garden and being able to make an
omelet with it using a meal that was based in your backyard."

The spread of backyard chickens has promoted spin-off businesses that
cater to the local market. Some communities are relying on mobile
slaughterhouses to manage and distribute the poultry meat, according
to Smit. "It's no longer huge slaughterhouses doing millions [of
birds]. It's a guy driving around on a truck, visiting neighborhood
to neighborhood," he said. "And it's not chickens only.... Duck,
turkey, and quail are particularly attractive."

In Portland, Oregon, residents have organized a farming cooperative
[video] to raise hens for egg production. "The money is used to
maintain the cooperative. It's not necessarily organized to be a
profit-sharing venture," said Debra Lippoldt, executive director of
Growing Gardens, a Portland urban agriculture advocacy group.

Public Health Concerns

If avian influenza eventually evolves to infect humans, experts fear
that backyard chickens will be vectors of the disease. Government
officials have threatened to ban free-range chickens in cities in
Thailand, Indonesia, and Hong Kong, where bird flu has spread in the
past. Governments around the world are also concerned that wild fowl
will infect backyard chickens, leading to calls for similar bans in
the Canadian province of British Columbia and in Australia.

But several public health officials argue that homegrown poultry are
not a disease threat if the chickens are properly maintained. "Make
sure the roof of the pen has a solid cover to protect birds from
fecal matter that may drop from birds flying overhead," said
University of California at Davis poultry specialist Francine Bradley
in a statement released in 2005, at the peak of avian flu conc....
"We always tell people, don't let anyone near your birds who doesn't
need to be there [due to fears of people carrying the virus]."

Sustainable farming advocates insist that backyard chickens are less
of a concern than factory-farmed poultry, which the Pew Commission on
Industrial Farm Animal Production has said poses serious risks of
transmitting animal-borne diseases to human populations, especially
due to the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance.

"When it comes to bird flu, diverse small-scale poultry farming is
the solution, not the problem," the international sustainable
agriculture organization GRAIN concluded in a 2006 report.

For urban poultry farmers, a more relevant health issue is whether
the chickens, which many owners consider to be pets, can survive
urban wildlife, even in New York City. "It's awful how often flocks
are decimated by raccoons or hawks or possums," said Owen Taylor, who
runs the City Farms livestock program, an extension of the
sustainable food organization Just Food.

As the backyard chicken movement spreads, urban farmers are finding
new ways of experiencing city living, whether their chickens are pets
or dinner. "Raising chickens on a backyard stoop, especially if you
have children, is agreeable," Smit said. "How you convince the kids
you'll cut its neck and eat it is another thing."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be
reached at [hidden email].

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at
[hidden email].

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Craig Hibberd () Re: Chickens in the City

Reply Threaded

I want chickens in Moab and I want them now! They don't bother anyone
and they make the quality of life here better. I have friends that
have chickens in the Sugarhouse part of Salt Lake. The kids love
having them. I also want bees, flowers and dirt, but that's another
story.

- Craig
-------------------------------------
Craig Hibberd
435.259.1610

On Oct 16, 2008, at 10:13 AM, Karen Robinson wrote:

>
> http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15062.cfm
>
> U.S. City Dwellers Flock to Raising Chickens
> By Ben Block
> Word Watch Institute, October 6, 2008
> Straight to the Source
>
>
> In the backyard of a suburban home in Denver, Colorado, 22 chickens
> are hiding out from the law.
>
> They arrived when a member of BackyardChickens, an online forum,
> ordered the birds in the mail this past May. "I actually get my
> chicks in today hopefully, and I am worried that animal control will
> be at the post office waiting for me with hand-cuffs," the new
> poultry farmer wrote.
>
> An underground "urban chicken" movement has swept across the United
> States in recent years. Cities such as Boston, Massachusetts, and
> Madison, Wisconsin, are known to have had chickens residing illegally
> behind city fences.
>
> But grassroots campaigns, often inspired by the expanding movement to
> buy locally produced food, are leading municipalities to allow
> limited numbers of hens within city limits.
>
> Cities such as Anne Arbor, Michigan; Ft. Collins, Colorado; and South
> Portland, Maine have all voted in the past year to allow residents to
> raise backyard poultry. "It's a serious issue - it's no yolk," said
> Mayor Dave Cieslewicz of Madison, Wisconsin, when his city reversed
> its poultry ban in 2004. "Chickens are really bringing us together as
> a community. For too long they've been cooped up."
>
> Raising backyard chickens is an extension of an urban farming
> movement that has gained popularity nationwide. Home-raised livestock
> or agriculture avoids the energy usage and carbon emissions typically
> associated with transporting food.
>
> "Fresh is not what you buy at the grocery store. Fresh is when you go
> into your backyard, put it in your bag, and eat it," said Carol-Ann
> Sayle, co-owner of five-acre ( two-hectare) farm in Austin, Texas,
> located within walking distance from the state capitol. "Everyone
> should have their own henhouse in their own backyard."
>
> "Buying local" also provides an alternative to factory farms that
> pollute local ecosystems with significant amounts of animal waste -
> which can at times exceed the waste from a small U.S. city, a
> government report revealed last month. In the United States alone,
> industrial livestock production generates 500 million tons of manure
> every year. The waste also emits potent greenhouse gases, especially
> methane, which has 23 times the global warming potential of carbon
> dioxide.
>
> Meanwhile, advocates insist that birds raised on a small scale are
> less likely to carry diseases than factory-farmed poultry, although
> some public health officials are concerned that backyard chickens
> could elevate avian flu risks.
>
> Chicken: The 'Buy Local' Mascot
>
> After the trend first gained popularity in London, England, with the
> invention of the "eglu" chicken house about ten years ago, large
> numbers of city dwellers began to raise chickens in the U.S. cities
> of Seattle and Portland, said Jac Smit, president of the Urban
> Agriculture Network. "It's no longer something kinky or interesting,"
> Smit said. "The 'chicken underground' has really spread so widely and
> has so much support."
>
> Within the past five years, the trend has expanded to cities where
> raising hens was already legal, including Los Angeles, San Francisco,
> and Chicago. "Chicken has become the symbol, a mascot even, of the
> local food movement," said Owen Taylor of New York City, who knows of
> at least 30 community gardens that raise poultry, mostly for their
> eggs. One Brooklyn home has raised upward of 50 hens. "We're the
> biggest city in the country, so to have it here I think blows
> people's minds."
>
> K.T. LaBadie, a University of New Mexico graduate student, was born
> into a family that grew its own fruits and vegetables. So when she
> moved to Albuquerque and met a friend who was raising his own
> chickens, poultry was a logical progression in her own home. She
> began with two hens, and now she has four.
>
> "It felt like a good compliment to our backyard gardening. We get
> compost from the chickens that goes back into the vegetable beds,"
> LaBadie said. "And there's really nothing better than harvesting
> tomatoes and peppers from your garden and being able to make an
> omelet with it using a meal that was based in your backyard."
>
> The spread of backyard chickens has promoted spin-off businesses that
> cater to the local market. Some communities are relying on mobile
> slaughterhouses to manage and distribute the poultry meat, according
> to Smit. "It's no longer huge slaughterhouses doing millions [of
> birds]. It's a guy driving around on a truck, visiting neighborhood
> to neighborhood," he said. "And it's not chickens only.... Duck,
> turkey, and quail are particularly attractive."
>
> In Portland, Oregon, residents have organized a farming cooperative
> [video] to raise hens for egg production. "The money is used to
> maintain the cooperative. It's not necessarily organized to be a
> profit-sharing venture," said Debra Lippoldt, executive director of
> Growing Gardens, a Portland urban agriculture advocacy group.
>
> Public Health Concerns
>
> If avian influenza eventually evolves to infect humans, experts fear
> that backyard chickens will be vectors of the disease. Government
> officials have threatened to ban free-range chickens in cities in
> Thailand, Indonesia, and Hong Kong, where bird flu has spread in the
> past. Governments around the world are also concerned that wild fowl
> will infect backyard chickens, leading to calls for similar bans in
> the Canadian province of British Columbia and in Australia.
>
> But several public health officials argue that homegrown poultry are
> not a disease threat if the chickens are properly maintained. "Make
> sure the roof of the pen has a solid cover to protect birds from
> fecal matter that may drop from birds flying overhead," said
> University of California at Davis poultry specialist Francine Bradley
> in a statement released in 2005, at the peak of avian flu conc....
> "We always tell people, don't let anyone near your birds who doesn't
> need to be there [due to fears of people carrying the virus]."
>
> Sustainable farming advocates insist that backyard chickens are less
> of a concern than factory-farmed poultry, which the Pew Commission on
> Industrial Farm Animal Production has said poses serious risks of
> transmitting animal-borne diseases to human populations, especially
> due to the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance.
>
> "When it comes to bird flu, diverse small-scale poultry farming is
> the solution, not the problem," the international sustainable
> agriculture organization GRAIN concluded in a 2006 report.
>
> For urban poultry farmers, a more relevant health issue is whether
> the chickens, which many owners consider to be pets, can survive
> urban wildlife, even in New York City. "It's awful how often flocks
> are decimated by raccoons or hawks or possums," said Owen Taylor, who
> runs the City Farms livestock program, an extension of the
> sustainable food organization Just Food.
>
> As the backyard chicken movement spreads, urban farmers are finding
> new ways of experiencing city living, whether their chickens are pets
> or dinner. "Raising chickens on a backyard stoop, especially if you
> have children, is agreeable," Smit said. "How you convince the kids
> you'll cut its neck and eat it is another thing."
>
> Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be
> reached at [hidden email].
>
> For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at
> [hidden email].
>
>
>
> >
>

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Canyonlands Sustainable Solutions" group.
To post to this group, send email to [hidden email]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [hidden email]
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/canyonlandssustainable?hl=en
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Karen Robinson () Re: Chickens in the City

Reply Threaded

Well, I have some in Spanish Valley and they are wonderful
creatures. Get to know them, and each has its own personality. I
don't have a rooster as my hens HATE roosters, so there is no noise
aside from occasional cackles, and some muttering under the breath,
which I find quite soothing.

I can see some reason to limit to number allowed in the city,
depending on the size of the lot, but everybody should be allowed to
have at least two hens.

Karen

At 03:52 PM 10/16/2008, you wrote:

>I want chickens in Moab and I want them now! They don't bother anyone
>and they make the quality of life here better. I have friends that
>have chickens in the Sugarhouse part of Salt Lake. The kids love
>having them. I also want bees, flowers and dirt, but that's another
>story.
>
>- Craig
>-------------------------------------
>Craig Hibberd
>435.259.1610
>
>On Oct 16, 2008, at 10:13 AM, Karen Robinson wrote:
>
> >
> > http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15062.cfm
> >
> > U.S. City Dwellers Flock to Raising Chickens
> > By Ben Block
> > Word Watch Institute, October 6, 2008
> > Straight to the Source
> >
> >
> > In the backyard of a suburban home in Denver, Colorado, 22 chickens
> > are hiding out from the law.
> >
> > They arrived when a member of BackyardChickens, an online forum,
> > ordered the birds in the mail this past May. "I actually get my
> > chicks in today hopefully, and I am worried that animal control will
> > be at the post office waiting for me with hand-cuffs," the new
> > poultry farmer wrote.
> >
> > An underground "urban chicken" movement has swept across the United
> > States in recent years. Cities such as Boston, Massachusetts, and
> > Madison, Wisconsin, are known to have had chickens residing illegally
> > behind city fences.
> >
> > But grassroots campaigns, often inspired by the expanding movement to
> > buy locally produced food, are leading municipalities to allow
> > limited numbers of hens within city limits.
> >
> > Cities such as Anne Arbor, Michigan; Ft. Collins, Colorado; and South
> > Portland, Maine have all voted in the past year to allow residents to
> > raise backyard poultry. "It's a serious issue - it's no yolk," said
> > Mayor Dave Cieslewicz of Madison, Wisconsin, when his city reversed
> > its poultry ban in 2004. "Chickens are really bringing us together as
> > a community. For too long they've been cooped up."
> >
> > Raising backyard chickens is an extension of an urban farming
> > movement that has gained popularity nationwide. Home-raised livestock
> > or agriculture avoids the energy usage and carbon emissions typically
> > associated with transporting food.
> >
> > "Fresh is not what you buy at the grocery store. Fresh is when you go
> > into your backyard, put it in your bag, and eat it," said Carol-Ann
> > Sayle, co-owner of five-acre ( two-hectare) farm in Austin, Texas,
> > located within walking distance from the state capitol. "Everyone
> > should have their own henhouse in their own backyard."
> >
> > "Buying local" also provides an alternative to factory farms that
> > pollute local ecosystems with significant amounts of animal waste -
> > which can at times exceed the waste from a small U.S. city, a
> > government report revealed last month. In the United States alone,
> > industrial livestock production generates 500 million tons of manure
> > every year. The waste also emits potent greenhouse gases, especially
> > methane, which has 23 times the global warming potential of carbon
> > dioxide.
> >
> > Meanwhile, advocates insist that birds raised on a small scale are
> > less likely to carry diseases than factory-farmed poultry, although
> > some public health officials are concerned that backyard chickens
> > could elevate avian flu risks.
> >
> > Chicken: The 'Buy Local' Mascot
> >
> > After the trend first gained popularity in London, England, with the
> > invention of the "eglu" chicken house about ten years ago, large
> > numbers of city dwellers began to raise chickens in the U.S. cities
> > of Seattle and Portland, said Jac Smit, president of the Urban
> > Agriculture Network. "It's no longer something kinky or interesting,"
> > Smit said. "The 'chicken underground' has really spread so widely and
> > has so much support."
> >
> > Within the past five years, the trend has expanded to cities where
> > raising hens was already legal, including Los Angeles, San Francisco,
> > and Chicago. "Chicken has become the symbol, a mascot even, of the
> > local food movement," said Owen Taylor of New York City, who knows of
> > at least 30 community gardens that raise poultry, mostly for their
> > eggs. One Brooklyn home has raised upward of 50 hens. "We're the
> > biggest city in the country, so to have it here I think blows
> > people's minds."
> >
> > K.T. LaBadie, a University of New Mexico graduate student, was born
> > into a family that grew its own fruits and vegetables. So when she
> > moved to Albuquerque and met a friend who was raising his own
> > chickens, poultry was a logical progression in her own home. She
> > began with two hens, and now she has four.
> >
> > "It felt like a good compliment to our backyard gardening. We get
> > compost from the chickens that goes back into the vegetable beds,"
> > LaBadie said. "And there's really nothing better than harvesting
> > tomatoes and peppers from your garden and being able to make an
> > omelet with it using a meal that was based in your backyard."
> >
> > The spread of backyard chickens has promoted spin-off businesses that
> > cater to the local market. Some communities are relying on mobile
> > slaughterhouses to manage and distribute the poultry meat, according
> > to Smit. "It's no longer huge slaughterhouses doing millions [of
> > birds]. It's a guy driving around on a truck, visiting neighborhood
> > to neighborhood," he said. "And it's not chickens only.... Duck,
> > turkey, and quail are particularly attractive."
> >
> > In Portland, Oregon, residents have organized a farming cooperative
> > [video] to raise hens for egg production. "The money is used to
> > maintain the cooperative. It's not necessarily organized to be a
> > profit-sharing venture," said Debra Lippoldt, executive director of
> > Growing Gardens, a Portland urban agriculture advocacy group.
> >
> > Public Health Concerns
> >
> > If avian influenza eventually evolves to infect humans, experts fear
> > that backyard chickens will be vectors of the disease. Government
> > officials have threatened to ban free-range chickens in cities in
> > Thailand, Indonesia, and Hong Kong, where bird flu has spread in the
> > past. Governments around the world are also concerned that wild fowl
> > will infect backyard chickens, leading to calls for similar bans in
> > the Canadian province of British Columbia and in Australia.
> >
> > But several public health officials argue that homegrown poultry are
> > not a disease threat if the chickens are properly maintained. "Make
> > sure the roof of the pen has a solid cover to protect birds from
> > fecal matter that may drop from birds flying overhead," said
> > University of California at Davis poultry specialist Francine Bradley
> > in a statement released in 2005, at the peak of avian flu conc....
> > "We always tell people, don't let anyone near your birds who doesn't
> > need to be there [due to fears of people carrying the virus]."
> >
> > Sustainable farming advocates insist that backyard chickens are less
> > of a concern than factory-farmed poultry, which the Pew Commission on
> > Industrial Farm Animal Production has said poses serious risks of
> > transmitting animal-borne diseases to human populations, especially
> > due to the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance.
> >
> > "When it comes to bird flu, diverse small-scale poultry farming is
> > the solution, not the problem," the international sustainable
> > agriculture organization GRAIN concluded in a 2006 report.
> >
> > For urban poultry farmers, a more relevant health issue is whether
> > the chickens, which many owners consider to be pets, can survive
> > urban wildlife, even in New York City. "It's awful how often flocks
> > are decimated by raccoons or hawks or possums," said Owen Taylor, who
> > runs the City Farms livestock program, an extension of the
> > sustainable food organization Just Food.
> >
> > As the backyard chicken movement spreads, urban farmers are finding
> > new ways of experiencing city living, whether their chickens are pets
> > or dinner. "Raising chickens on a backyard stoop, especially if you
> > have children, is agreeable," Smit said. "How you convince the kids
> > you'll cut its neck and eat it is another thing."
> >
> > Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be
> > reached at [hidden email].
> >
> > For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at
> > [hidden email].
> >
> >
> >
> > >
> >
>
>
>