I never expected to be in the middle of a movement. But you never know where an elementary school science project might lead.
A Visit from Animal Control
Some months ago I was upstairs folding laundry in our home on Capitol Hill when I heard dogs barking. I immediately ran outside to make sure our six-week-old chicks were safe. I was relieved to see them peacefully pecking under the holly tree, collecting grubs, worms and other bugs from our back yard. My daughters Leah, six, and Ada, four, were helping me herd the chickens back into their run when a police car pulled up. An officer, tipped off by a passerby, demanded to know if those chickens were ours. When I confirmed they were, he announced gruffly that it’s illegal to have chickens in the city and that Animal Control would arrive shortly to take them away.
As the officer drove off, my daughters and I stood in stunned silence. “What did he just say?” asked Leah. The two girls choked back sobs.
I was near tears myself. I had felt like a proud Mama Hen the day we hatched eight fuzzy, multi-colored chicks in our incubator. In the six short weeks that we had them, I had grown to love their funny antics and individual personalities.
We had purchased fertilized eggs for two classes at my daughters’ school and decided to get a dozen to hatch at home. We worked it out with the Virginia farmer who sold them to us that when we and the school were ready, we could return the chicks to the farm. It never occurred to me that we might run afoul of the District’s health codes.
A few days after the law came down on us, I contacted my City Council member, Tommy Wells. Wells and his staff were immediately supportive. After we determined that the District’s codes, dating back to the 1960s, made it almost impossible, although not illegal, to keep backyard hens, Wells introduced the Urban Farming Amendment Act of 2009. The law does not permit roosters, which are too noisy. It requires that 80 percent of neighbors within 100 feet of anyone applying to raise chickens give their written consent and that enclosures are kept clean and odor-free.
The idea of chickens living in urban back yards is almost certain to trigger a public debate. It’s my hope that when D.C. residents learn how quiet and unobtrusive chickens are, what a great source of nutritious food their eggs can be, they will embrace the idea of backyard chickens the way so many other urban jurisdictions have–even New York City.
You can help us push for change. Sign this petition [on the right] in support of the Urban Farming Amendment Act of 2009. Let’s bring this legislation to a public hearing, and let’s make it a law!
The Clean Green Pet
During our two months of hatching and raising chicks, we took our own crash course in chicken culture. Here’s what we learned:
You don’t need a rooster to get eggs. A hen will produce an egg a day during her prime laying years without ever laying eyes on a rooster.
Chickens are highly social animals. In the right living conditions, they build strong bonds with each other and with the people who care for them. (Six months after moving back to the farm and sharing living quarters with 20 other hens, our four hens continue to spend all of their time together, seeking each other out of the crowd.) They can be socialized like any other pet, enjoying a cuddle in your lap, eating out of your hand, or perching on your shoulder.
Chickens don’t smell, but as with all animals, their poop does. Just like dogs or cats, you have to clean up after them. Coops need to be cleaned weekly to prevent odors. But unlike other pet waste, chicken manure is black gold for gardeners – the best fertilizer money can buy.
Hens are not noisy – they just get a bad rep from their male counterparts (roosters). Hens make a quiet, pleasant clucking and cooing noise that is barely audible more than 20 yards away.
Chickens cannot fly. They jump and flap, and occasionally catch some air, but generally can’t get more than a few feet off the ground. This means they’re easy to contain, but vulnerable to predators. They must be kept in a safe, secure enclosure.
Ousted by Industrial Food Production
From many of my neighbors – longtime District residents – I learned that it used to be common for families to keep chickens in the District. Will Hill says that when he moved to Capitol Hill fifty years ago, “everyone had chickens. Some used to hop over the fence into my yard.”
Others confirm that backyard chickens were common on the Hill. “In the ‘50’s we had ‘Victory Gardens.’ Growing food locally was encouraged, even patriotic,” explained Ed Copenhaver. “Historic Capitol Hill backyards featured fruit trees, small vegetable patches, clotheslines, welded wire fencing, coal chutes – and hens.”
Then came industrial food production and factory farming. Meat and eggs from large-scale operations were cheap and accessible at the supermarket, reducing demand for backyard hens and putting many local, family farms out of business. Keeping backyard hens was no longer considered modern, so cities across the country started passing laws to discourage it. Many cities banned backyard hens entirely.
I researched the District’s Animal Control Code and learned that it is, in fact, legal to keep hens in the city, in spite of what police and animal control officers assert. We met all of the requirements of the existing code, except for a rule that says hen houses cannot be within 50 feet of any place of residence (Section 902.7 (a). Animal Control Code). By creating this provision, city leaders essentially banned hens from densely populated neighborhoods.
Local Food Movement Changes Laws
As I researched laws around the country, I discovered there is a national movement to re-introduce chickens in cities as part of the movement away from industrial food and back to wholesome, locally produced food. Cities all over the country — 30 in just the last year! — have been changing their local ordinances to allow backyard hens (read more in this New Yorker article, and this USA Today article).
Rather than setting strict limits on where chickens can be raised, these new laws focus on responsible ownership. The laws address concerns about noise, odor and pests by not allowing roosters, requiring hens be kept in clean, secure and sanitary enclosures, and providing neighbors and authorities with means to monitor and enforce those requirements.
Why is there a chicken movement underway? There may be more closet chicken lovers than we know. But more importantly, many people have decided they want to feed their families sustainably with food grown and raised under humane and environmentally-friendly conditions. They no longer want to buy apples that have been shipped 6,000 miles, when they can buy ones that were grown locally. They don’t want to eat factory-raised beef that’s been pumped with antibiotics and hormones, when they can get beef from a local farm that’s been raised under healthy conditions. They don’t want to buy eggs from chickens that were kept in tiny cages and fed animal by-products, when they can grab a fresh egg from their own backyard – an egg that happens to be more nutritious than the factory-farmed egg at the supermarket.
The local food movement is leading the charge to bring back the backyard hen! Sign this petition in support of the Urban Farming Amendment Act of 2009 – and contact us at dcfoodforall@gmail.com if you want to get involved!
