LONGMONT, Colo.—It’s been the cluck heard ’round the nation.
It may be close to turkey time, but lately it seems that everyone wants to talk chicken. And “everyone” doesn’t just mean Longmont, a city divided over whether to allow residents to keep backyard chickens.
It also means Madison, Wis., which began allowing hens in town in 2004.
It means Albuquerque, N.M., where city ordinances allow a household to keep up to 15 hens and one rooster.
It even means the Big Apple itself, New York City, where at least 30 community gardens raise poultry, in addition to those raised by home hobbyists.
It’s a debate that continually fascinates KT LaBadie of Albuquerque, who co-founded the Web site urbanchickens.org with her husband in March. Her interest began in graduate school when she gave a presentation on chicken-keeping in urban settings that mentioned it was legal in Albuquerque—and found curious students and professors approaching her afterward.
“I would say that over the past five years, the urban chicken movement has really taken off,” LaBadie said.
What’s given it wings? Often it’s a growing concern about food content and meat recalls, LaBadie said, along with a greater interest in raising food locally—and even just the thought that raising animals sounds like fun.
“You can grow fruits or vegetables in your yard, but animals are pretty exciting,” she said. “It’s cared for as a pet, but you can have an omelet every morning.”
She’s got a lot of company. A recent Newsweek article said 65 percent of major U.S. cities now allow chicken-keeping. But it’s not been universally welcomed, particularly by neighbors who are concerned about smell, unsightliness and particularly disease.
“I’m very proud that Longmont is willing to take the chance to be the first (American) city with avian flu,” Trudie Lay of Longmont said at a Longmont Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on Nov. 19.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, the most deadly form of avian flu—H5N1—does not infect humans easily and is hard to spread from human to human. Most known cases, the agency said, have involved children or young adults who had close or direct contact with infected poultry or contaminated surfaces.
“In many cases, the people were either sleeping in the same building as the birds, or living in very close proximity,” wrote University of Wisconsin extension agent Ron Kean on the madcitychickens.com Web site. No infections have resulted from eating cooked poultry or eggs, he said.
His advice: Be concerned, but don’t panic.
“Don’t allow your birds to mingle with wild birds,” Kean advises on the site. “Don’t borrow other people’s equipment. Clean your shoes and clothes if you have contact with other people’s birds. If you purchase birds … keep those birds isolated from your regular flock for at least two weeks.”
LaBadie herself keeps four chickens. In keeping tabs on other potential poultry towns, she’s noted that even the cities that don’t allow chicken-keeping are rarely against chickens themselves. They’re against specific issues, such as poor sanitation or noisy roosters.
“It’s not so much a yes or no, but a ‘how do we make this work?'” she said. Often, she added, an ordinance can be written to cover specific concerns; say, by banning roosters or limiting the number of chickens on a property and how they can be kept.
“If you’ve got 50 birds in the backyard, that might get stinky,” LaBadie said. “If you have four, it’s probably not a problem.”
Of course, keeping track of those conditions isn’t free. Some in Longmont have raised concerns about how animal control would be able to respond to chicken complaints, when officers are already stretched thin keeping an eye on cats and dogs.
One answer, LaBadie said, might be found in Portland, Ore. That city allows residents to keep up to three chickens, but requires them to apply for a permit and pay a fee if they want more than that. In other words, the larger coops basically pay for their own policing.
Many other cities require permits for chickens, LaBadie said, with fees ranging from $5 to $50.
Many of the questions that get raised with chickens could just as easily be raised with dogs, she said. And one question in particular should arise, she said—am I ready, willing and able to care for an animal?
One Australian company took a different approach to that. Rentachook, founded six years ago, is basically a “chicken rental” business. Customers buy two hens and a coop, plus a feeder, waterer, food and straw but can return the animals and equipment within six weeks if they find it’s more than they can handle. Rentals are $360, of which all but $100 is refundable.
LaBadie knows urban chickens might seem odd to some. But in Albuquerque, she said, it’s considered part of the landscape.
“I see this as different because it’s rooted in the ‘local food’ idea, which I don’t see going away,” she said. “People want to get back to a model of participating in their own food production.”
