WashPost Ups Volume On Backyard Chickens
January 7th, 2010 · 4 Comments · Posted in food news, urban agriculture
Eggs from backyard chickens are a great source of inexpensive protein
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.
Higgins recounts the story of Caryn Ernst and how D.C. police and animal control agents swooped down on her family’s Capitol Hill home in June when they discovered that Ernst and her daughters were raising some chickens in their back yard as part of an elementary school science project. After the chickens were taken away, Ernst started digging into D.C. law and discovered that it is nearly impossible to raise backyard chickens in the District of Columbia. Animal control regulations require that chickens be kept at least 50 feet from the nearest residence.
Ernst took her concerns to local Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who, with Ernst’s assistance, drafted a new law that would ease restrictions on keeping chickens. That bill is now in the hands of Councilmember David Catania (I-At Large), pending a hearing before the Council’s Committee on Health, which Catania chairs.
In the meantime, Ernst and fellow chicken enthusiast Amanda Cundiff have started a petition drive in support of backyard chickens at the DC Food for All blog, a collaborative effort of local food access advocates. Ernst and Cundiff have presented Catania with 130 signatures of D.C. resients in favor of a new chicken law.
In the latest development, Catania’s staff has suggested that the issue could be resolved by Animal Control officials, without the need for a new law. Ernst and Cundiff say they now plan to present their petition to Animal Control.
The bill written by Tommy Wells would permit keeping hens for laying eggs, not meat, and it would prohibit roosters, which make too much noise. Still. Wells’ bill would be far more restrictive than chicken legislation in other jurisdictions–including city’s such as New York–because it would require that anyone wishing to keep hens obtain written permission from 80 percent of neighbors living within 100 feet.
Backyard chickens have been embraced by a surging local food movement as a boon to those who want to eat more healthfully, more sustainably and more cheaply. If that applies to you, by all means sign the petition.
And don’t miss edible gardening columnist Barbara Damrosch’s sidebar on the benefits of raising chickens at home–even in the city.
Ed, y0u posted a while back about being more self-sufficientish; having chickens and/or rabbits would definitely help you down that path. Minneapolis has a ruling similar to the proposed DC one: you need to get consent from half your neighbors…this would be all the neighbors of your common block (where you share an alley). They had wacky restrictions about compost containers too. I got by with just a big heap.
El, I love the idea of having chickens for the eggs (I’d raise chickens for eating, too, given a chance), but I look around my yard an wonder how good I would feel about keeping them in cooped up in a small space. How would that work? Perhaps you could build a tight fence. But would the chickens eat the vegetables in the garden?
They need much less room than you would think, but having a run is pretty much essential if you want some happy birds. I ended up fencing in my garden BECAUSE of the birds’ love of vegetables (just-ripening Brandywine tomatoes and Swiss chard in particular), so yeah, they’ll do in the veggies. My birds are fenced and (during snow-free months) are allowed out for “happy hour” around dinner time. It’s a good compromise…even if they do scratch up the front garden beds of perennials. I would look up “Backyard Chickens” which is a great on-line forum about the how-tos. Bookmark it if DC allows birds!
The distinction between egg chicken and meat chicken is really… a little ridiculous for the purpose of the bill. Egg chicken can end up as meat chicken, and who would know?
Anyway… easing restrictions on urban chicken keeping is a good thing. 4 hens don’t need that much space, and can have a mobile cage with an open bottom giving them fresh ground every week so they can do what chicken like to do: scratching the grounds and pecking at new things. And for a few hours here and there you can give them the run of the garden for exercise and bug controls (as long as your garden is fenced). And 4 hens (of the right breed) mean 4 eggs a day at peak time! and poop for the compost pile… and a way to recycle things that I don’t put in the compost because of varmint: dairy, cheese bits, meat (not poultry), table scraps.
and they are so much fun. I never thought I’d say that about chicken. But they are!