Chicken Wednesday

Hello and welcome to this weeks edition of Chicken Wednesday where a few articles will point out and hopefully dispel a few bad ideas about backyard chickens.

In Madison Wisconsin backyard chickens are good neighbors.

Janesville council members are considering changing Janesville’s ordinances to allow residents to keep a similar number of backyard chickens. Ordinances now allow chickens only in outlying areas.

People who have spoken out against the idea say chickens are noisy and smelly.

The Rettammells countered those arguments, as did two of their neighbors. The Rettammells’ chickens are more quiet than surrounding dogs, they said. Chickens don’t smell if their waste is taken care of, just like any other animal.

Even though the backyards in the Rettammells’ southwest Madison neighborhood are close together, some neighbors didn’t know chickens had moved in until the Rettammells told them.

I liked how some did not even know they were there until told....unlike howling dogs. That's being a good neighbor.

Other towns have joined the backyard chicken movement.

The Columbia, Missouri, City Council approved an ordinance that allows residents to raise chickens within city limits. In passing its urban-chicken ordinance, Columbia joins Springfield, Independence, St. Louis, Kirksville and Kansas City, Missouri.

While some are still fighting to get the ordinances changed.

Vickie Morgan thinks she won’t ruffle too many feathers with her crusade to bring backyard chickens to Burton.

The retired Grand Blanc school bus driver has asked the City Council to change an ordinance so she can raise hens on her half-acre that will allow hens to cluck around on Morgan’s half-acre yard on Springfield Street.

“I’ve just always wanted chickens,” said Morgan, who has lived in a suburb or city her whole life. “I’ve been told they’re like pets and just to have your own eggs — that’s what gets me, I guess.”

Morgan isn’t alone. People in other communities also are flocking to the idea of backyard chickens.

I'm one of the people "in other communities" who are flocking to the idea....but finding that bad ideas and rumors of the effect of backyard chickens are the greatest enemy to this growing movement.

Here is a video of some backyard chickens in an urban setting suffering the horrors of snow.