In recent years, chickens have come home to roost in backyards across the country. While the numbers are hard to document, cities and towns all over the U.S. are taking up the issue and modifying their laws to allow backyard chickens. Nearly every week in the news, a story appears reporting another town or city considering amendments to local laws that would allow backyard chickens. Proponents in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, and Nixa, Missouri have been working to amend the law; while just last week, local government in Hampton, Virginia and Howard County, Maryland, approved ordinance amendments to allow backyard chickens.

Seeing this trend as an extension of the local, urban food movement, people are realizing that chickens make great, productive pets. There’s evidence that eggs from backyard chickens have greater nutritional value than commercial eggs, and chickens eat pretty much anything – ticks, grasshoppers, kitchen scraps, weeds, you name it. They even have the added bonuses of being adorable and kids loving them. How could you not love that beak?

Photo Credit: stevenljohnson @ flickr

However, in 2012 an outbreak of salmonella that was traced back to several backyard flocks made at least one NPR blogger wary of the recent trend – dubbing backyard chickens “spreaders of salmonella.” A CDC report found that most of the people infected in this outbreak handled live chickens and that many of them had purchased chicks from one Ohio mail-order hatchery. A single hatchery, in this case, was responsible for the outbreak that affected 195 people in 27 states.

The story, unfortunately, focused on the chickens themselves when instead it should have focused on the bigger picture: when outbreaks can be pinpointed to a single source, it demonstrates the vulnerabilities of a large, global food economy. When there’s a problem, like an outbreak, it tends to spread faster, and farther in our interdependent, global economy. For example, in 2010, a salmonella outbreak that sickened hundreds across the country was traced back to one Iowa egg company and the company had to recall 380 million of its eggs.

And this blogger is not a lone voice in decrying backyard chickens. Alongside the stories of municipalities voting to change laws to allow backyard chickens, you will find stories of municipalities voting to ban backyard chickens, often in the name of public safety. It makes me wonder, how have we come so far as a society to be more skeptical of the food produced right before our eyes than food produced primarily behind closed doors and transported more than a thousand miles before reaching our plates?

Industrial food-animal production is largely responsible for the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance, while the lack of appropriate handling of waste at many of these facilities contaminates nearby air and waters with harmful nutrients and toxins. In addition, the focus on profits means animals are raised in as little space as possible and not surprisingly, these cramped, dirty conditions are fertile breeding grounds for diseases. On the other hand, a decentralized, local, scaled-down food economy offers numerous benefits. Local food significantly reduces these types of risks, makes us more resilient, and the food produced tends to be healthier too.

So do backyard chickens pose a public health risk? The facts just don’t bear this out. Consider this: salmonella causes about 1.2 million cases of food poisoning each year in the U.S. The outbreak that was traced back to the mail-order hatchery constitutes 0.01% of the total number of cases.

Photo Credit: edenpictures @ flickr

In addition, research suggests backyard chickens present no more of a health risk than other animals that may be kept as pets. If chickens are well-cared for and are kept in a clean environment, as with all pets, they are more likely to stay healthy. Very few poultry diseases are transmissible to man and salmonella is not an airborne disease (read: salmonella will not simply float from the chickens in your neighbor’s yard into your home). If you do decide to handle a chicken, simply wash your hands afterwards.

For the better part of mankind’s history, food was produced and consumed locally. Prior to World War II, nearly one-third of Americans lived on farms and even if you didn’t live on a farm, you probably bought your meat, milk, and eggs directly from your local farmer. During this time salmonella and avian flu certainly did not run rampant. These diseases that now make the news cycle on a near daily basis – and emerging concerns about antibiotic resistance and indiscriminate pesticide use – are products of our large, industrialized food system. Backyard chickens are a part of a solution that will strengthen our local food economy and at the same time, create foods that are both better for us and the environment.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about bringing backyard chickens back to Rhode Island and paid special attention to the ongoing effort to repeal Woonsocket’s chicken ban. A few days later, the Washington Post ran a feature-length article on low-income Woonsocket residents’ struggles to feed their families.

My last post focused on the ways that historical justifications for chicken bans have become outdated, and also noted some health and environmental benefits of backyard chickens. The Post article casts the Woonsocket chicken issue in a new light: Woonsocket suffers from food insecurity, and backyard chickens can help.

The Post article is worth your time to read (here’s another link to it), but here are a few important takeaways: Every month, the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) injects $2 million in benefits (formerly called food stamps) into the Woonsocket economy. With a local unemployment rate of 12% and only low-paying jobs available to many employed residents, a full one-third of Woonsocket residents receive SNAP benefits. In fact, some local grocery stores make up to 25% of their monthly profits on the first of the month, the day when SNAP benefits are transferred to recipients. Together, these numbers – and the article’s well-drawn profiles of several Woonsocket residents – present a picture of food insecurity.

Backyard chickens are not a panacea by any means, but they can help to alleviate food insecurity and promote economic self-reliance. They can turn food scraps, beetles, and grubs into fresh eggs. And their droppings (if dealt with appropriately) are great for growing vegetables too. They add resilience to a broken food system. You can read more about chickens and chicken care by poking around Southside Community Land Trust’s website.

Once you’re satisfied that backyard chickens make sense, you should come out to Woonsocket City Hall on Monday, April 1 at 7 p.m. to show your support for repealing Woonsocket’s chicken ban!

A genuine Rhode Island chicken. Image courtesy of eschipul @ flickr.

All over Rhode Island, people want to keep backyard chickens. The trouble is that the law often doesn’t let them.

Until 2010, Providence banned chicken-keeping entirely. That year, a coalition of residents worked together to overturn the ban. These efforts paid off – now, chickens peck away happily at sites ranging from Southside Community Land Trust’s almost-a-whole-block City Farm to my friends’ snug 1700-square-foot lot in the West End.

After this success in Providence, other cities and towns looked more closely at allowing chickens. Swanky Barrington followed Providence. The City Council in Cranston, where I live, repealed the city’s chicken ban; unfortunately, though, our mayor vetoed the repeal so the ban remains on the books (for now). As spring approaches and our thoughts turn to our backyards, a city and town in northern Rhode Island – Woonsocket and North Smithfield – are considering lifting their backyard chicken bans.

The effort to repeal the Woonsocket ban began the same way most repeal campaigns seem to: a Woonsocket zoning officer ordered a responsible chicken owner to get rid of his birds. Alex Kithes says his neighbors didn’t even realize he had chickens until he offered to share some eggs. As word spread, the city found out and issued a citation. Alex is fighting back. He has drafted a city council member to introduce a bill allowing chickens in Woonsocket, and he is lining up individuals and organizations to lend support.

CLF supports eliminating barriers to local food, and that includes legalizing backyard chickens in Woonsocket. When people keep chickens, they can cheaply opt out of industrial egg-suppliers.  A more direct benefit of backyard chickens is that small broods’ droppings make great fertilizer, while concentrated droppings from large egg-laying operations are toxic. Backyard chickens also add resiliency to our increasingly concentrated food system. And backyard chickens can even encourage organic waste diversion, eating table scraps that otherwise might be landfilled. These are the types of broad-ranging benefits that panelists recently promoted at the Rhode Island Local Food Forum.

Legalizing backyard chickens also allows residents full use of their property to grow food and helps to foster community. To better understand these points, we have to take a brief look back in history. Municipal bans on backyard chickens began with New York City in 1877, followed by Boston in 1896. Both cities were motivated primarily by concerns with unsanitary chicken slaughter; wholesale bans on chickens, however, were much easier to enforce than targeted bans on slaughter.

Over time, however, slaughter of backyard chickens has all but vanished (and is still banned in most modern chicken ordinances, though off-site processors may be available for those who want to eat their birds and not just their eggs). Sanitary concerns have largely disappeared (and sanitation is regulated in most modern chicken ordinances). And chicken bans remain on the books primarily due to worries about nuisance and image. But any well-tailored chicken ordinance will take a dual approach to nuisance: both proactive (setting minimum conditions for housing and feeding chickens, and banning noisy roosters) and reactive (allowing neighbors or municipalities to fight actual nuisance conditions). This approach allows people to keep clean, quiet birds on their property if they choose to do so.

And clean, quiet birds not only are perfectly consistent with a positive community image but can in fact foster community. Backyard chickens can be quite stylish (this coop, for example, looks even better in person!) or even all but invisible – I didn’t realize my West End friends had chickens until they paused our daughters’ play date to go outside and feed the birds. Chickens tend to be great with children, and egg-sharing can bring neighbors together. Finally, there are no known data suggesting that backyard chickens negatively affect nearby property values. The fact is that out-and-out chicken bans restrict property rights and prevent environmental benefits for no good reason at all. Everybody loses.

For all these reasons, CLF supports amending the Woonsocket backyard chicken ban. I plan to speak in favor of repealing the ban at Woonsocket’s April 1 City Council meeting, and I hope you will consider joining the growing pro-chicken coalition as well.