Chickens in the City
A farm-fresh egg with a thick brown shell and a dark golden yolk just doesn't compare to a puny egg from the store. As a little girl I collected eggs from my own flock of chickens we raised on the farm where I grew up, and I've recently been spoiled on fresh eggs again by my mother-in-law, who keeps a dozen or so hens on her farm near Fayette.
But now my husband and I have our own hens in our backyard, thanks to a new ordinance passed by the City of Columbia this spring. The ordinance inspired much debate when it was proposed. Homeowners were fearful of everything from bird flu to noise and smell issues. Those against the idea of chickens in Columbia insisted that if people wanted to keep chickens, they should move to the country. Several city slickers even suggested that the whole thing was nonsense: If roosters were to be banned anyway, how would we be able to have eggs?
Raising a handful of chicks in my yard has been a pleasure, and not the noisy, smelly, health-risk some people claimed they would be. Unless you're sitting inside the chicken coop itself, six hens do not produce a detectable odor. And the CDC says there is no more risk for contracting avian influenza than there is from store-bought poultry products. As for the noise, my chickens aren't any louder than the sing-song chirps of all the other bird species that find their way into my yard.
I'm thankful that the city allowed us to bring a bit of the farm into our backyard. Chickens are surprisingly easy to care for as long as they're safe from predators, and with local food movements that encourage us to know more about where our food comes from, I'm happy to have a sustainable, ethical, and fun way to get my breakfast.
Find more information about raising chickens in Columbia at www.ColumbiaUrbanAg.org.
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