I have put this article on hold several times because I don’t want people to think I condone breaking the law. I am so blessed that the city I ended up in, is so lenient towards the individual freedoms of the people living in it. In the city of Richardson we have a complaint driven system. That means that if you have a rooster crowing at 6 o’clock in the morning, if no one complains, your golden. I respect my neighbors enough NOT to have a rooster and I am proactive in getting to know them(giving eggs and veggies) so that I will never(God willing ) have a complaint. Other cities around me are NOT that lucky. So that begs the question; What do you do if your city does not allow chickens at all? Do you fight the good fight in court? We all know that could cost you a pretty penny and time, but then maybe they are closely related. Time is money, so I’ve been told. Or do you fly under the radar of local municipalities with a secretive chicken run?
One of my good friends are having to give up their chickens this week because someone reported them to the authorities. See story here: https://jraz76.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/the-right-way-and-the-hard-way-are-the-same/ What do you do then? I have to say that it is an awful feeling to be “reported” by, you will never know who, and have your dream of backyard chickens taken away by your government! I have to take a moment and vent here; IT IS A FEW FREAK-IN CHICKENS! HOW MUCH TROUBLE AND NOISE COULD A FEW FREAK-IN CHICKENS MAKE! SURE A DOG GIVES YOU LOVE AND POOP, BUT A CHICKEN GIVES YOU EGGS AND POOP. YOU CAN EAT ONE AND USE THE OTHER IN YOUR GARDEN TO GROW MORE THINGS THAT YOU CAN EAT! Thank you for giving me that moment. I feel much better. Reining it in here.
To be truthful I chalk it up to ignorance, I am thinking a lot of injustices can be chalked up to that. Most people don’t know that chickens can produce eggs without the presence of a rooster. They think that to have chickens producing eggs means a loud alarm going off at 6 o’clock in the morning, every morning. Let me just say; YOU DON’T NEED A ROOSTER TO GET EGGS FROM YOUR CHICKENS!
One of my dear friends decided to go the other route and fly under the radar. Not surprisingly, she is a bit of a rebel. I don’t mean this in a bad way. When it counts, when it makes sense, when something is hurting others, she is ready to do what ever it takes to help, but when it comes to a few chickens, she feels pretty much the same way I do. I won’t vent again at you, but I am sure you get the idea.
So if you are going to fly under the radar of the city or HOA regulations than this is what we recommend:
- Build something that you can use later if you lose your right to keep chickens. In my friend’s case she built a screened in porch. It could easily be used as a green house or an area to relax and entertain in the event that she has to give up her dream of fresh scrambled eggs.
- Find out how much time or warning your city will give you if you get caught and have a back up plan for your birds. In this case they will get a warning of a few days to relocate their chickens and the plan is that they will come to my flock.(Her divas will have a rude awakening, as my chickens are not pampered near to the extent these are, but they will live.) If you are worried about calling the city yourself , get a friend to call your city and ask questions. Better to know than have an unexpected LARGE fine later.
I, for one, think the whole set up/screened porch idea is ingenious. However if you have the money and the determination(an online presence doesn’t hurt either) then consider fighting the good fight for want-to-be chicken owners everywhere! I could vent again here about civil liberties, but I won’t. I do however think it is sad, just plain sad, that our laws are set up in such a way that we can no longer provide food for ourselves. That leaves us dependent on someone else to raise our food. Perhaps they won’t do it in quite the way we would?(Chickens with their beaks seared off so that they can pack them in cages too closely together, also having to feed them anti-biotics to fight off infection, lights on them, always, so egg production stays high, NEVER to see the real light of day. No scratching or pecking the earth here to be sure!) Perhaps eggs won’t be there on the shelves when we need it the most.(trucks can’t get in or the price is too high) Sorry, I said I wouldn’t vent and here I am venting. Well at least I am not shouting at you now. I can’t help it!
A different point of view from my friend from Japan: She was so puzzled about why on earth anyone would have a lawn that you have to water and mow, but you cannot eat?
She is one of the reasons I turned my front yard into a garden. My friend looked at me and simply asked the question, not trying to be confrontational, but just trying to understand. She asked me, ” Why would you spend energy and money on something that you cannot eat?” When I looked at it from her point of view, it made no sense, no sense at all. “Food, Not Lawns!” Just had to shout that out there.
Can you eat this?
Maybe you would rather eat this:
It is such a joy to live in America, the land of the free? Or is it? Free to provide your family with food or forced have a lawn that looks well manicured like everyone else’s? Is it the land of the compliant? Is it the justice system for the rich? ……
First of all I just want to say that I cannot understand why people would complain about hens (not even a rooster – just hens)! I have lived in suburbia before and I know that there are dogs that bark all night long and whose bark is louder and more distracting than any noise that a hen could make. I have had them bark at me aggressively while I was entertaining guests in my own backyard; barking at me as though I was an intruder and so loud that we could no longer hear each other talk.
I am right there with you on the soapbox, etc.
Second – and perhaps more importantly – Why in the world would you try to live in suburbia when you have rural ambitions? I just mean that I would probably be depressed if I had to live on less than .25 acre lot in a cookie-cutter pre-fab with chicken-hating neighbors. Jus’ sayin’.