Blog post by city council member on chickens-- please help?

[Rillion]

Quote:
Theodore Kim's article was published today, and you can see it (and comment on it if you want to) here .

So far, the comments involve objections that you would easily expect (chickens are noisy and smelly!), but also some that I found bizarre. There have been a few people who apparently object to keeping chickens because it's a yuppie thing, as well as a few people who object to keeping chickens because it's a Mexican/3rd world thing. The fact that people are making these two objections simultaneously just slays me.

 

[Rillion]

North Haven Gardens in Dallas will be hosting two screenings of the documentary "Mad City Chickens"

Saturday, August 8th at 2:30
Sunday, August 9th at 1:00

North Haven Gardens is located at
7700 Northaven Road
Dallas, Texas 75230
Phone: (214) 363-6715

I wonder what the chances are of getting some Plano city council members to come?

 

[foweler]

Make note of who the arrogant naysayers are. They will be the first ones panicking and trying to take your eggs if the food supply stops flowing

 

[RachelFromTheBlackLagoon]

Not sure why but I'm having a tough time reading the comments/commenting. I noticed, from the comments it did allow me to read, that people are most concerned about the smell of their droppings, noise and someone actually said FEATHERS EVERYWHERE (LOL Oh, the horror!) but somebody could easily compare this to wild birds. Do wild birds chirping in the trees really bother the average person? No, most people don't even notice it! It merely becomes background noise. My chickens (not including the cockerels I need to rehome, who aren't even loud yet) don't make anymore noise than wild birds in my yard, do any of yours? If I keep their enclosure clean, as I hope all of us do, they don't smell any more than wild birds flying over my yard and leaving droppings...in other words, no smell at all. As for the feathers....wild birds leave those, too. And there are hundreds more of those that pass through my yard than there are chickens.

Some people are INCREDIBLY ignorant!

ETA: if anyone thinks that is a good enough arguement to use, feel free to use it (even word for word, if you want) I would use it but I'm unable to post a comment for whatever reason.

 

[Rillion]

Quote:
Hi Rachel,

Not sure why you couldn't see all of the posts and weren't able to post. Did refreshing the page help at all? In any case, I went ahead and posted your comment for you under the name "Rachel"-- hope that's okay.

 

[RachelFromTheBlackLagoon]

Sure, that's fine! Thank you! It would let me view the most recent page of comment but if I tried to click to the next or write a comment myself, it would go straight to some sort of subscription page asking me to create an account. I'm on an iPhone, no idea if that might have something to do with it.

 

[Wifezilla]

There SHOULD be laws covering smell, noise, disease, etc...

But guess what? It should not be SPECIES SPECIFIC. I could care less if my neighbor has a goat, chicken or a dog. If it isn't properly cared for, its droppings are not picked up and it wakes me up everyday at 5:30 AM, I am going to want it GONE!

If it is not noisy, doesn't smell, and isn't spreading disease, the guy next door could have an elephant for all I care. It's none of my business actually.

I don't have chickens, but I do have ducks. My ducks are not nearly as noisy as the neighbor's dogs. As for smell, I use deep liter and DE. I make sure there is no nasty odors to bother the neighbors, or more importantly...ME

. I even hang fly traps to make sure there is no bug menace though the DE keeps the insect population down...and my ducks eat any they can get their hands on.

The person who used to live next to me would NEVER clean their dog kennel. If I sat at the patio table, all I could smell was dog poop. The poor dog's water bowl was empty all the time and I would fill it up when watering to make sure the poor dog didn't die. Another neighbor had 5 dogs that barked constantly. Because of the noise and smell, should dogs be banned? Of course not...the idiot owners should have been held accountable for creating a public nuisance. To single out chickens is just snobbery and stupidity.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Mostly I agree with that--target the offense, not the cause of the offense. Odor from an improper compost heap or unsanitary conditions, noise hours and levels, beit from a crowing hen or power equipment or a party are equal intrusions.

However, I would probably not want a neighbor to be allowed to have pet elephants, at least not without a permit that includes inspection of the structural intergrity of his pen. Despite having sturdy concrete block walls for my fence, I think a determined elephant could break them down to grab a snack off my fruit trees.

 

[Rillion]

Hmmm, maybe I should campaign to city council on a "Let us have elephants!" plan for a few weeks....and then say "Okay, then how about some chickens?" and see if that works.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Don't forget to add bears and lions and chimps to the list, then maybe you can get geese and guineas allowed, as well.