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, April 22, 2009
Defanging four arguments against urban chickens

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.

Fantastic information Coopa Cabana!!!   Sorry I missed this thread!

I'm from Arlington Va, where we are trying to change our zoning ordinances to allow for backyard hens. I'm involved with a group called The Arlington Egg Project- check out their website for lots of good information and ideas. Their petition is online, as well as a sample letter to the County Board:

http://www.arlingtoneggproject.org

Also, here's a BYC link to a recent post with a successful proposal to change zoning in New Hampshire:

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/641973/my-proposal-that-was-accepted-and-eventually-led-to-a-new-law-allowing-chickens

I live in Mantua Township New Jersey where I have started the The Hens4Mantua Project which seeks to educate the community of the benefits of backyard hens

I am in Richmond Virginia and we are trying to change the law to allow a small flock in average backyards. I want to help connect people with our local movement. which is on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/CHICKUNZ
 

Hi, We just moved to Morganton, North Carolina, to start our own homestead and find out chickens are not allowed (only up to 12 weeks which I don't get that reasoning).

Anyway, I just created a website (using all the great info I found on BackyardChickens and other sites). 

Can you let me know what you all think and/or if I should make any changes/additions to my site.

Thank you!

http://chickensinmorganton.weebly.com/index.html