City
Petition for Backyard Chickens
The allure of fresh eggs daily and natural pest control is too much for some Toronto locavores, and despite the city's prohibition, some residents are quietly keeping chickens in their backyard. One midtown woman, we'll call her Toronto Chicken, has started an online petition to change that bylaw.
Toronto Chicken is not alone, in Toronto and elsewhere. As eating local food becomes more and more popular, urban dwellers are increasingly looking to their governments to loosen regulations regarding backyard non-commercial livestock.
Although the annonymous chicken keeper has quietly kept her birds for a year, she feel like it is time to go public and change the bylaws, making her chickens - Clucky, Sally and Hybie - legal residents of Toronto.
With the increased attention to and popularity of eating local food, and a dearth of backyard gardening resources, websites such as Backyard Chickens and The City Chicken have cropped up to satisfy those who want more than tomatoes from their yard.
Each year only a few complaints are received about neighbourhood chickens, suggesting that either not many people are keeping chickens, not many people mind that their neighbours are keeping chickens, or the $240 fine is a sufficient deterrent.
For Toronto Chicken, she unknowingly became an outlaw last July when she brought home her hens from an Orangeville farm that had slated them for food. The 1999 bylaw prohibiting certain animals in the city doesn't specifically mention chickens, but they fall under the Galliformes category.
Now, for this anonymous chicken keeper, the quest to legally keep her chickens - and continue collecting their eggs (a food item she hasn't had to buy in over a year) - has resulted in a website and petition as she bides her time until she's ready to make herself known. So far she's collected 342 signatures of support.
Although I don't have the backyard right now, I'd enjoy keeping chickens one day. My wife's Italian grandmother used to have one and she wishes she still did, as her garden always flourished with the extra feet and beak to control pests and a tasty egg each day. As Waterloo, Halifax and other cities around North America are reviewing their bylaws regarding chickens, it seems time for Toronto to do the same.
Photos courtesy of Toronto Chicken.
Discussion
49 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
We need to do a study! We need to charge fees!
Kramer: I know it sounds pretty glamorous, but it's business as usual at Kramerica.
Dean Jones: As far as I can tell your entire enterprise is more than a solitary man with a messy apartment which may or may not contain a chicken.
------
min 12:45 http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=3890566068573140475&;q=the+voice+seinfeld&ei=vLp7SNvvNoWU-AG_nKGGCw&hl=en
I understand the "eat local" thing, but this takes it a bit far.
Anyone here ever been to (or rather downwind from) a chicken farm? I remeber in the real 1970s they sold live birds in Kensington and it was quaint and all, but downtown livestock was banned for a reason.
The biggest thing I can see having to worry about in the city is protecting them from raccoons who like to rip the chickens open to get at the eggs inside them.
As for keeping livestock in the city, all I can say is when I was in Hong Kong it was quite common to find a corner store with chickens and other birds. The store clerks kill the chicken for you to take home.
It's these kinds of changes that people need to be willing to consider and accept. Going to your local big box grocer to buy a pack of two boneless skinless chicken breasts from chickens raised thousands of miles away is not sustainable.
On this topic, does anyone know how I can grow nutri-grain bars?
Totally not comparable.
and Ryan L. chickens shouldn't be eating expensive grains... they eat grass and bugs and kitchen scraps.
that we feed chickens grain is part of the problem with the food industry. it just fattens them quickly for slaughter.
We need to bring our food closer to home. Period.
Ellen and Kettunainen, Hear Hear!
It was a quiet animal and was cared for so that there was no smell even in the summer. Its possible to have 1-2 chickens in your backyard and as long as you take care of its spot to be very clean and useful.
My cats are supportive too...
gross!
I have to wonder though, tee hee, if the neighbours of those currently illegally harbouring chickens, get any hush eggs.
for that reason alone, we should all raise chickens.
they aren't dirty, and they are cleaner and quieter than Pigeons, which are legal to have in big numbers.
it isn't for everyone, clearly, but why not for those who want them?
Chickens are legal in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and countless other North American cities. Like any other pet or companion animal, they need proper care, housing, and food. In the case of chickens, this is as easy -- or easier -- than raising a cat. They don't need fancy housing and they enjoy eating weeds, common insects, and scraps from the kitchen. They don't produce any special odors, you just have to clean up after them like you do for a cat or dog. I have one cat, 2 dogs, and 3 hens. The hens are by far the easiest to care for.
I'm all for chickens in the backyard as long as their's a limit.
I get fresh eggs from my aunt and there is no comparison.
I'm getting a chicken. Fuck yer dogs and cats!
As a rural Ontario 20 something, I think it's great to see some people keeping chickens. My great grandma came to Toronto in 1921 and she always kept a chicken around to keep pests down, eggs, and yummy chicken soups.
P.S. I wonder if the idea mentioned above, about designated restaurants and markets raising hens, is a valid compromise?
Bina
I am excited to buy a couple of chickens as well. I have been buying organic eggs for some time and it is expensive. If I find some info. on where to buy them I will let you know Jay.
Good for you Tara! you are brave, with neighbors close by. Never mind seagulls, what about dogs, cats, animals that have been domesticated and pooh all over the place. I love animals but some of the comments about the smell or livestock in the city is inaccurate.
I hope the petition helps to pass the bill so it can become a reality. Considering our current economic dilemma and disconnection from nature, it would be the best thing for Toronto!!!
- Henry
GO Chicken Lady GO!!
You don't need a rooster to get eggs from hens. Chickens don't smell if you only have a few of them. I would much rather my neighbors have chickens than yappy dogs that never shut up.
Here are a few points to ponder:
1- disease:
Ckn- salmonella that can cause diarrhea
Dogs- rabies cause death
Cats- ticks cause blood issues
2- feces
Ckn-gr8 source of compost/fertilizer
Pets- harvest parasites
3- smell
Ckn- if u don't clean regularly, yes
Pets- if u don't clean regularly, YES
4- garden
Ckn- natural insect repellent
Pets- natural diggers
5- vaccination
Ckn- don't need to, life span avg 2 yrs
Pets- yes, lifespan 20-40yrs
6- noise
Ckn- hens not really
Pets- barking dogs=annoying and scary
7- food
Ckn- eggs and meat
Pets- feed THEM eggs and meat
8- multiculturalism
Ckn- common pet of the East
Pets- common pets of the West
It's all perception of this idea. We have begun to be overly 'etiquette' and try hard to be like the ''masses'.