Fresh food tastes best, and it does not get any fresher than food that comes from your backyard. All across Canada, there are individuals enjoying fresh eggs as often as they want, simply because the eggs come from the chickens they keep right on their own property.
You do not have to keep a large flock as three or four layers will provide a family of four with more than enough eggs to meet their dietary requirements. Chickens do require some attention but so does a dog or a cat. Like dogs and cats, chickens can be pets.
In cities where they have passed ordinances that allow people to keep chickens on their own property, the chickens are considered pets or are not allowed to be slaughtered for food. Eggs, which the chickens are going to produce anyway, are acceptable.
In Calgary people who believe that keeping chickens in an urban environment is a perfectly reasonable thing to do have recently launched an on line petition, that urges the Calgary City Council to update the Municipal Code to allow people to keep chickens in the city of Calgary.
One of the concerns that people raise about chickens in their neighbours backyard is noise. First, it is not necessary to have a rooster to produce eggs, so their will be no crowing at the crack of dawn. The bulk of the eggs we buy in supermarkets are unfertilized eggs so the eggs raised in backyard will be as nutritious as they are, but fresher.
Hens are relatively quiet emitting an occasional clucking sound; they may be more exuberant when they have just laid an egg but that is very short-lived.
A second concern people express is that chickens are dirty. Well, if the person looking after the chickens does not care for them, they are likely to be dirty; however, the same can be said for a dog or cat.
If the chickens’ coop is kept clean it will not attract any unwanted visitors (flies, rodents).
Cities can include in the bylaw that enables people to keep chickens some basic requirements that control the conditions within which the chickens are kept.
If you plant to have chickens in your backyard, do your homework, find out what local ordinance exist first and if you are new to raising chickens find out how to do so in a manner that is good for the chickens, good for you and good for your neighbours.
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