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We're all for hopping on the localvore train, but is raising farm animals on your back porch taking things a bit too far? Not according to some city residents, who have taken to raising chickens outside their urban households, a practice which is perfectly legal in Chicago.
Today WBBM featured an East Garfield Park couple who keeps a homemade chicken coop with four egg-laying chickens inside their condominium garden. To Tara Keating and her husband, the chickens are "like pets with eggs."
Rest assured, while housing chickens within the city is allowed, slaughtering them is not. These chickens are used solely for their egg production. Still, as WBBM points out, would you really want your next door neighbor keeping chickens considering their general noisiness, stinkiness, and constant molting? We're pretty sure we prefer our chickens a little more backwoods than backyard.
Photo by hddod.
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I used to see a few working class families with chickens in their yards in Humboldt Park back in the day. Haven't seen any in quite some time though.
One good outbreak of Avian Influenza (Bird flu) will take care of that.
Can I have a pet duck?
As long as they're not crowing when I have a hangover then by all means, bring on the chickens. I spent my entire childhood about fifty yards from a half dozen chickens kept my neighbor - I never heard or smelled them up until he got a rooster.
"Can I have a pet duck?"
Sarcastic or not, can you even eat duck eggs? I have never heard of this.
Does this law/ordinance take in quail as well?
I grew up in Gurnee on less than an acre in a typical suburban neighborhood, we had about 6-7 hens at a time wandering around the yard and garden and never heard a complaint. As long as animal owners properly care for their stock, this should be a non-issue. In fact, my neighbor across the alley keeps a few hutches of rabbits outside and I'm pretty sure they are for meat as I've never seen kids over there, and what kid could resist hanging around the rabbit hutches every now and then? I'm also interested in Coturnix Quail and if they are able to be raised in the city limits as I know they take up very little space but are very profligate egg layers and breeders. Anyone in the city tried them before?
Von Erich - Of course you can eat duck eggs. They are served a many fancy restaurants, and taste a lot richer than chicken eggs.
As for quail, I don't think they are as easy to keep domestically as chicken are. It seems like they might need more room to roam around, but this is just my thinking, I don't have a source.
I love the idea of having urban chickens, but I don't own a yard or the tools to build a coop.
When I was a kid, my Grandma lived in the Back-of-the-Yards neighborhood (I think it's called New City now). She lived next to an apartment building of polish guys who kept chickens. They were weren't noisy or stinky. But their rooster never crowed at sunrise, he like afternoon better. The weirder sight was seeing these guys walking around in their underwear while hanging their clothes to dry.
To Von Erich
Sarcastic or not, can you even eat duck eggs? I have never heard of this.
Sure, you can eat duck eggs. Duck's eggs are bigger than chicken's. They taste a little different from chicken's.
But, I admit that I like chicken's more.