Several other Iowa municipalities, including Des Moines, allow people to keep hens for eggs within city limits. I've never heard of a public nuisance problem. The main issue for the chicken owners is keeping predators away from their hens at night.
Washington Post garden columnist Adrian Higgins today lends his voice to the growing movement behind backyard chickens in the nation's capitol with a front-page spread in the paper's Home section.
As it turns out, we're not the only crazy chicken people in San Diego county. Another couple in Imperial Beach, Lauren Giardina and Ian Blake, has been working to get their laws changed since at least 2008. They own four chickens - Henrietta, Sheila, Camilla, and Oprah - who you can see pictured on their Imperial Beach Chickens website here. As noted in the article, the city of Imperial Beach has agreed not to prosecute the couple for their illegal chickens while the city looks at overturning the law. So here's my question to you: Do you think people should just get chickens anyway, even if they are illegal?
For months now, I've been dreaming of getting a small flock of backyard chickens. The problem? No backyard. Then I met and fell in love with a wonderful man with two small children... and a backyard. I'll be moving in with them in about a month. I hope that the chickens will follow soon after :) Of course, we aren't 100% decided on it yet. Well, I am. But I need to make sure he's 100% okay with it before we go ahead with it. I'd like to bring him to the nursery where I plan to buy them from so he can ask any questions he may have and then have a chance to veto the idea once he's got full information on it.
In the meantime, I'm busy plotting my future flock of chickens :) I plan to document my chicken project on this site, to help any others who are thinking about getting some chickens.
The other day I noted that the Humane Society was congratulating Wendy's for switching a mere 2% of their eggs to cage-free. Turns out Wendy's isn't alone. Burger King, Hardee's, Quizno's, Carl's Jr. and Denny's are each going to buy about 5% of their eggs as cage-free. I interpret this as a "shut up and get off my back" move by the fast food chains to placate the Humane Society without getting bad press and protests at their restaurants. It seems that McDonald's wasn't even willing to go that far to get HSUS to back off - they'd rather "study the issue" for 2 years first.
In fact, the VP of Corporate Social Responsibility at McDonald's had the chutzpah to say "I have been to our laying facilities and I am proud of them. The birds are protected well." Protected by cramming 10 of them into each battery cage, giving each hen less room than a sheet of paper? Oh they are protected all right. In huge, windowless rooms with 100% protection from the elements and from coyotes or any other critter that might want to harm a chicken. You might say that prisoners in maximum security prisons are "protected well" too.
Quite frankly, I'm disappointed that the Humane Society is going to settle for this - any of this. If they care about the chickens so much, don't they care enough to keep negotiating for more than just a 5% switch?
Let these restaurants know that we can spot hypocrisy when we see it:
(Egg-citing! Egg-cellent! Can't wait for the nest edition! Okay, I'll stop now... - promoted by JayinPortland)
Quite a while ago I promised everyone a photo diary of the critters out here at my farm. Well, as I said, it's been a while, so here's the first installment. I was going to try to do the whole thing in one shot, but I think that'd be too many pics. So I'm splitting it up into Meet the Crew - chicken edition, Meet the Crew - emu and goat edition, Meet the Crew - equine and others, Crops - a photo diary, and Cool Tools. So, without further adieu, Meet the Crew....
Carol Ann treats us to another delightful piece about her chickens, this time giving us details on the industrial practice of debeaking and why she likes her chickens to have their beaks fully intact.
There's another post evaluating the performance of Obama on food/ag issues for his first 100 days, and this one has a quote by Marion Nestle. Her take: Too early to tell.
Mark Winne's got a piece up called Keep it Simple, Keep it Local. Looks like he's taking some inspiration from Barbara Kingsolver.
Fooducate sizes up All Natural Fanta. They recommend we all skip the beverage aisle at the supermarket and learn to enjoy water.
Just... holy shit. I'm speechless. Why the hell is Wrigley trying to convince us that chewing gum makes you smarter.
You read it here first, but ultimately the story about the letter to Michelle Obama requesting she put pesticides on her garden made it to Stephen Colbert. Yay!
Since the arrival of industrialized agriculture, more than 95 percent of vegetables that had been grown in the world have disappeared, according to the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture.
I gotta go on one of these! Local Portland foraging expert John Kallas is doing especially well with his wild food tours these days...
Whither the days of syrup-drenched styrofoam-containered pre-sliced peaches in hospitals? More and more U.S. hospitals are taking the common sense measure of serving patients more fresh, healthy whole foods.
For decades ordinary citizens of color have become environmental activists when they organized to resist the siting of toxic waste dumps in their neighborhoods, to force regulation of polluting industries in fence-line communities, and to bring attention to the negative health impact of particulate emissions near their homes. But these largely decentralized, locally led movements were rarely understood as central to the conservation and climate change environmentalism that dominated federal policy and the national imagination. So despite their efforts, the contributions of black, brown, and poor communities have often been ignored in the story of a greening America.
(Joanne's Advice On Chicks! Tons of advice, and great pics - promoted by JayinPortland)
Heritage chickens are great! Actually if you buy chickens from the feed store as day old chicks, what you'll get are heritage breeds. Barred Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, Black Astralorps, Wyandots, Aracaunnas, all are heritage breeds.
Feed stores generally buy from the large hatcheries like Dunlop and Murray McMurray, which are supplied by people breeding the heritage breeds. You can get commercial breeds, generally the meat breed called a Cornish Cross, I don't think that this is a heritage breed but I could be wrong.
Some of the most interesting, and enjoyable animals out here, are the laying hens. People who know our hens may question my sanity in saying this though....
If I was able, I would love to have a few chickens for eggs. Even the so-called cage-free or free-range eggs at the store sketch me out, so I'd prefer to have direct control over ensuring my eggs come from humanely treated chickens. Plus, chickens are great for fertilizer and pest control. And I hear they each have a unique personality, so they sound like fun pets.
Elfling just sent me a link to a site called Backyard Chickens that serves as a resource for people who are luckier than me, who can actually HAVE backyard chickens. Check it out!
Good on the LA Times for running this op ed! It's about an upcoming vote in California to ban battery cages for chickens in factory farms. As the op ed points out, this will not result in sustainable and humane egg production - just no more cages and a few extra inches of space per bird. They will still reside in enormous barns, filled with the stink of their own excrement. The article questions the environmental impact of such a change, asking if CAFOs complying with the new law (assuming it passes) will use more resources (energy, land) than before. The piece concludes:
But there are small things we can do that might be more meaningful than a cage ban. The eggs I buy come from hens raised free-range on pasture. Their manure fertilizes vegetables on the small farm where they live. And the chickens -- if the deliciousness of their eggs is any indication -- seem content. Do these eggs cost more? Of course, but that seems a small sacrifice given the benefits.
If we want our chickens and other livestock to live in decent conditions, we need a more radical change to our food system than this, or any ballot initiative, can deliver. The problems in industrial agriculture -- and their solutions -- are much bigger than simply banning battery cages.
I plan to vote yes on the measure. It's a small, inadequate start, but it's a start.
