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New Whole Foods to Open Up Exactly Where it is Needed Least
Jack Evans Hops Aboard a SmartBike at Bike Lane Unveiling
The Weekly Feed: Experimentation Edition
Morning Roundup: Change Edition
The plight of the D.C. urban chicken owner has been a hot topic this year, with a big write-up in the Post about how awesome it is to have fresh eggs, and how much of a drag it is to be forced into adopting a clandestine approach to chicken ownership. Enter Ward 6's Tommy Wells, who, in addition to a chicken in every pot, would like to see a chicken in every backyard. Wells has introduced legislation that would do away with the current regulations, which prohibit fowl within 50 feet of any building “used for human habitation,” the Examiner reports.
Under the proposal, you'd have to get nearly all of your neighbors to consent before you could legally keep chickens in your backyard, which would be awfully tricky for some people, and you couldn't have a rooster, only hens. Now we'll just have to wait and see whether the rest of the Council are too chicken to go along.
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Tommy "Tommy" Wells is like the Fredo of the Council.
"Don't worry yourself with the budget or crime bills Tommy. Why don't you go handle that bag tax and chicken thing. Oh, and pick up my dry cleaning later. Thanks bud."
When you consider that his "official" portfolio includes the Department of Youth Rehabilitation, I'm not at all surprised he's looking for something -- anything -- he can do to keep his mind off the New Beginnings Youth Center. If I had to oversee New Beginnings, I'd run away. (Fortunately, this is very easy to do with New Beginnings.)
seriously, you're throwing bombs for the sake of throwing bombs, which is fine...this is the comment section of a blog full of snarky commenters (god knows i'm one of them), but wells does more that just "chicken legislation"
why can't he walk and chew gum at the same time? do you actually think the bag tax is a bad idea? if so, why?
i don't think there's anything wrong with incrementally trying to make the city a better place. god knows that's the only way anything ever gets done in this town.
Wells is my councilman. I would like to see him weigh in on the larger issues facing the city.
i would argue that he has. he's had a say in everything else that has come before the council to this point. you mentioned the budget. he live-tweeted the work that he and the rest of the council did to close the $666 million gap this year. what else is there that you'd like to see him do RE: the budget?
He does. He's strong on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, for example. :)
Avian flu pandemic anyone? As if DC didn't have enough of a problem with all those diseased cocks.
Horrible idea. Way to make public policy based on a fad.
There is absolutely no reason to keep any sort of livestock in a densely populated city. Most of these new "urban farmers" know nothing about disease control or animal health. But I guess that will be someone elses problem when people start getting sick.
Also, what happens when some of these chickes escape their coops, or when the fad dies out and people are sick of playing farmer? Feral chickens? DC enters the third world...
You want fresh eggs? There are farms within 30 minutes of DC that will happily work with you on getting you fresh eggs every day of the week.
I can think of more cost-effective ways of feeding chicken to rats, starting with those wingbones in the treebox.
I fully agree. I have been growing my own food for years. Raising veggies and one fruit tree are plenty of work on their own. I cannot imagine throwing a hen or 2 into the mix. How much veterinary support is needed and is there a local vet who is qualified to care for chickens? What do you do with the creatures on really cold nights? How do you rat proof the coop? I can get fresh eggs at any number of farm markets in the area or from the guy who runs the CSA that we participate in. I would much prefer to support an independent farmer that take the bunker mentality of being self sufficient.
I'm not an expert, but when it comes to a chicken with a potential market value of about $2.99/lb, I think the only "veterinary care" that's necessary is an axe.
"Raising veggies and one fruit tree are plenty of work on their own."
What kind of veggies and fruit tree require "plenty of work" beyond planting season? There's a little weeding (unless you use raised beds), and watering (there's automatic systems for that).
"I cannot imagine throwing a hen or 2 into the mix."
Two hens-simple. Five minutes of care a day, tops. You feed them veggie scraps and check their water then it's off to work. The coop can be cleaned once a week (15 minutes), or less often with the deep-litter method favored by urban Japanese (oh no, those backward, third-world Japanese.)
"How much veterinary support is needed and is there a local vet who is qualified to care for chickens?"
Not much support needed, particularly when they're allowed to range on grass (behind a fence, with supervision, on lawns not treated with chemicals). If they get sick, there are lots of local vets that can treat chickens; they are just like any other bird. People still keep parakeets, parrots, canaries.
"What do you do with the creatures on really cold nights?"
They're cozy in their insulated coop. During sunny days when in an outside run, they're fine if the wind is kept off. They like pecking in snow. Backyard flocks are kept outdoors in climates much more harsh than DC's. People raise them in Alaska, Canada, the Dakotas; surely we don't compare to the winters in Fargo.
"How do you rat proof the coop?"
Elevate the run 12" from the ground, put the coop above that and use fine-mesh hardware cloth anywhere a predator could get in. Lock it all up up around 8pm when they go to sleep. Keep feed indoors in a galvanized metal trash can with a tight lid.
"I can get fresh eggs at any number of farm markets in the area or from the guy who runs the CSA that we participate in. I would much prefer to support an independent farmer that take the bunker mentality of being self sufficient."
Some people much prefer raising their own though. How about allowing people to decide for themselves? Keeping hens can go beyond fresh eggs. They are hilarious creatures that come in infinite color and plumage combinations. Plus you get free organic fertilizer and they keep the ticks and other pests down.
If folks have serious questions and aren't just repeating ad nauseum these strange fallacies they've heard, just look it up on many of the urban chicken websites or better yet, find someone that actually has chickens.
DC population density - 9,639.0/sq mi
New York - 27,440 (allows chickens)
San Francisco - 17,323 (allows chickens)
More than 65 major American cities (many with double or triple the District's population, including Chicago and Los Angeles) allow backyard poultry in some form. Proper public education and regulation is key, particularly for such a sedentary, brainwashed culture as ours has become. However, one shouldn't be surprised to expect these comments from such a conservative, almost functionally-useless town as this one.
Has anyone posting here ever raised a chicken, let alone seen one outside of a plastic package? These comments are categorically ignorant. Properly managed hens in small flocks are no dirtier than dogs or other common pets, and issues of odor, health and sanitation are overblown. The Centers for Disease Control okays backyard flocks. Additionally, they are based in Atlanta, a city that allows chickens. From the CDC's avian flu website: "Q: We have a small flock of chickens. Is it safe to keep them? A. Yes. In the United States there is no need at present to remove a flock of chickens because of concerns regarding avian influenza. The U.S. Department of Agriculture monitors potential infection of poultry and poultry products by avian influenza viruses and other infectious disease agents." Please educate yourself before perpetuating myths based on your own fears of bogus pandemics and wild cocks sullying your recently-gentrified city block.
Until DC gets serious about pretty much everything (this issue included), it'll be a third-tier pseudo-city.
Sorry to sound so condescending, but I for one fear for this country. It seems as if most of our population (including the otherwise intelligent readers of this site) doesn't even have a rudimentary understanding of basic science or personal liberty. The councilmember should be commended for attempting to publicly address the issue through rational debate.
- A biologist
Until DC gets serious about pretty much everything (this issue included), it'll be a third-tier pseudo-city.
Like Eisengard?
honest-to-christ, this is so whiny. so you don't think raising chickens in the city would be easy. fine. don't do it. this rule wouldn't put a gun to your head and say, "build a coop, damnit!"
if other people want to raise chickens, can prove they can do it safely, and the neighbors don't have a problem, then i say go for it. sheesh.
Chickens out of the coop do not become vampires and terrorize the streets, they are about as threatening as your average squirrel or pigeon. Most great US cities allow chickens (listed elsewhere on the post), and on the very rare occasion you see one loose, it usually makes people smile more than cringe.
Illness is very rarely a problem in home chickens, and bird-born disease is no more dangerous than it is in any other birds flying around your place now. Do you propose poisoning all squirrels, pigeons, crows, robins, cardinals, and other birds in the city to ensure your imagined safety?
And many people like to be able to have their own chickens, not only is the egg supply cheaper, and fresher than even a local farm (those eggs can be expensive), but it can guarantee humane treatment of the animal for those who care about such things.
Chickens are generally no worse than any other pet bird. Parakeets, parrots, etc.
You are right about one thing though, chickens in DC are the certain gateway to becoming a developing nation ;)
Do you propose poisoning all squirrels, pigeons, crows, robins, cardinals, and other birds in the city to ensure your imagined safety?
Don't be ridiculous. Putting that much poison around town would be lethal for pets and children. It would be much more eco-friendly to take the animals to Jack Nicholson's house, slip the animals quaaludes, sodomize them, and then escape to Switzerland to avoid prosecution.
This sounds like the underground movement in Miami to save Mr.-Clucky-the-handlebar-riding-rooster.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/communities/story/1222361.html
"Urban chickens"? That sounds like two words that shouldn't form a phrase, like "rural hipster".
Oh boy, are you beind on your New York times Sunday reading. Brooklynites have been working on their beards, fleeing New York and starting miniature organic pretend farms for a couple of years now.
The Washington Post is scheduled to write about that in about 2012 or so.
would have loved to be in the DCist office when somebody did a google image search for "chicken on a street corner"
Ha! Comment of the day!
The picture reminds me of my last trip to New Orleans. Our future, no doubt!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamietre/3511073566/
Oh thank God. I was terrified that you were going to show me a photo of a New Orleans "chicken" on a street corner. I was shielding my eyes when I followed the link.
The transnational poultry industry is the root of the bird flu problem. If you pack thousands and thousands of fowl into densely packed factory farms, unsurprisingly viruses mutate, amplify and become lethal. When you transport the same fowl for miles and miles through integrated trade networks, disease spreads. This isn't rocket science.
Juxtapose that with backyard flocks of a few hens. There isn't a sufficient pool of bodies for the flu virus to mutate enough to make the leap from affecting the intestines of the fowl to infecting the lungs of a mammal (or human).
For many people that want this bill to pass, it's about creating a sustainable food chain. In DC, community gardens have grown exponentially in number, to the extent that nearly every garden in the city has a very long waiting list. People like being able to know where their food comes from. They like being able to save money by not having spend exorbitant amounts for fresh, safe food.
Plus, it just tastes better. Have you ever had a fresh egg from a free range chicken? There's no comparison.
But how does an anarcho find the time to raise chickens when he or she spends all their time planting ghost bikes all over the city?
You are missing an obvious synergy betwixt ghost bikes and feathers.
Now, where is that urban turpentine distillery?
Typical BS about "factory farms." Commercial agriculture has a massive financial incentive to preven disease among livestock, that's whay these companies are on the forefront of nearly all research into animal health. Our food supply is as safe as it is today because commercial agricultural companies have spent the money to make it safe. The incidents of problems with the food supply in the world are so small as to be totally isignificant, especially when compared to the massive volume of safe food produced every day.
By the way, the food chain in DC is perfectly sustainable without the few hundreds of community gardeners and the 5 people that will own chickens. In fact, the world's food supply is sustainable as well (leading to better health, longer life spans, better nutrition, and overall higher quality of life in all countries) because of the advances made by commercial agriculture.
Learn the facts before you spread your BS.
Hmm. . . 'sustainable' if incredibly high level of hormones and antibiotics is considered sustainable (ask the bizarrely sexed fish in the Chesapeake Bay about that one)
Not to mention that in general commercial eggs taste like cardboard. Indeed, my TWO YEAR OLD can tell the difference - she won't touch grocery store eggs.
Did you know that those pathetic pale yolks contain an incredibly high amount of cholesterol (as compared to the sunset orange yolks of real eggs)?
Feeding chickens kitchen scraps is a much better than throwing all that in the garbage, too.
Sustainability is about so much more than keeping animals illness free. . .
Actually the CDC has plenty of information on the negative impacts and dangers of Concentraded Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) - http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/Topics/CAFO.htm
Maybe the meat is "safe" but the groundwater and workers impacted by the CAFO are certainly not.
Yes, the spend millions of dollars in order to continue feeding corn and chicken shit to cows, and then taking care of any resulting E. Coli by spraying the meat with ammonia. Deee-licious!
Hillvada,
I've got a 20-acre farm and have plenty of negative things to say about the industrial food system. Are you a lobbyist for big-ag?
Let's start with an easy one...CAFO's and the drug companies that support them are actually in the business of promoting disease, then treating it. Their idea of animal health is to develop pharmaceuticals to sell to farmers to fix problems that result from bad practices they promote in the first place. It's that simple. You want to talk about cattle feedlot operations vs. pasturing of ruminants?
I'm not against progress or medication when needed, but these folks have us all running scared and totally ignorant of food- what real food is, how it's grown, the advantages of one production system vs another. It's crazy.
Now we'll just have to wait and see whether the rest of the Council are too chicken to go along.
Bad pun and/or, worse, an endorsement made of ignorance. Wells is useless to me as a council member. Any council member that would vote to support this is foolishly wasting resources.
Keep f**king that chicken, Tommy.
What? No cocks? tease
Went to Wells' website to register my disapproval and his contact email is black against a dark green background. That is some quality web design.
I encourage you to read a study recently released by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. The study presents very hard evidence on how large scale factory farming has created unacceptable public health and environmental risks. The issue is far more complicated and serious than you seem to understand.
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea, including Mr. Wells, should watch this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2C1E1_BN1Y&feature=related
Woman swimming with chicken. Awesome.
Not sure if this FYI is needed, but it seems to be: Chickens are female, and are about as noisy as your average backyard bird. Meanwhile, roosters are males, look completely different in most cases, and make a lot of noise. Thus the restriction on roosters and the discussion about chickens.
Wells obviously is doing this on behalf of some Eastern Market enviro-mom who only wants to feed her little pookums fresh eggs. However, the real impact will be felt in Mt. Pleasant.
Let's bring cock fighting back!!
You didn't get the memo? I brought cock fighting back--in my pants!
Again, you sort of miss the proposed restriction on roosters... does anyone out there know the different between a male and female fowl?
No need for roosters to have eggs. Ban roosters and cockfighting outright, impose a fine of $500 or more for possession of a rooster, $2500 or more plus jail-time for cockfighting. It's not hard to find illegal roosters-they're loud. Fines result in more revenue for the city, and enforcement isn't a problem with DC's nosy neighbors. Sounds like someone thinks Latinos will be a problem. Good job there pinpointing a demographic, compadre!
Seriously, you guys are just too easy.
This is a fine idea. It's entertaining how opinionated people are about stuff they know nothing about. If this bill passes, I guarantee you, none of your chicken-hating lives will change one inch.
You'll be singing a different tune when all those thuggish crews of diseased cocks start attacking children and pets. And that tune will not be "Chicken in the Straw." It'll be "Detachable Penis."
i don't think king missle will license the tune, actually...
Do you have to bring Marion Barry into everything?!
Please see my response to this at #48. (I failed to check the box.) I would like to add how entertaining it is to discover from a total stranger that I know nothing.
I've just messed my pants. Best comments ever.
And what's behind that guarantee? More snark for strangers? Keep it on Kenyon Street, please, beyond the monosyllabic comfort of the core, where we are too busy fighting rats and tourists to care about the next great opinion hailing from the Heights or the Plains. Mount Pleasant indeed!
you can't possibly be against urban chickens unless you have never raised them. Chicks hardly take any space to raise and are very quiet. I could understand opposing a rooster - they do get obnoxious.
There are people I know in Baltimore that raise chicks in their tiny rear fenced areas behind the rowhouse - fresh eggs every morning. technically there is a law against it, but they don't really enforce that. The only way I could see opposing it is if you had never tired doing it and had no idea what you were talking about ... but that's most people.
You can call me Judgey McJudgerson if you want, but it seems kind of gross. I imagine it would be a smelly endeavor, with all the feces and what not.
We had a fundraising benefit for cheetahs Tuesday night and the cheetah was running out of raw chicken breasts. Not good. Off to Whole Foods we went. Maybe next year I can jump a neighbor's fence and pluck myself a juicy, warm and fresh chicken! Thanks Tommy "Purdue" Wells!
Cool. BTW, when does cheetah hunting season start? I heard they were extending the season this year.
We all know cougars love their meat young and fresh, but this is ridiculous. What's next? Why not a play about the common house cat, or the King of Siam? Give it up, Liz.
2 words: milch goats.
If you're a geek like me and actually read what the Tommy Wells bill says, you'll find that it amends the wrong DC law section (it would be putting raising chickens under the Barber & Beautician laws).
-1 for Tommy's law writing abilities.
wow, cranky, great catch!
Look, if you're going through all the trouble of taking the chickens to Jack Nicholson's house, slipping them quaaludes, sodomizing them, and then escaping to Switzerland to avoid prosecution, is it too much to ask that the chickens look presentable?