Across this country there is a heated debate as to whether or not all citizens should be allowed to raise chickens in their back yards in order to ensure food security .
This quest is often spawned by various environmental pressure groups as a sacrosanct mandate with scant regard for the existing norms of their respective communities.
Please don't get me wrong. My early years on this planet were spent on my grandfather's farm where we kept pigs, cattle, hundreds of chickens and yes roosters!
I fondly remember this experience. We would collect the fertilized eggs from time to time and have the broody hens sit on them till they hatched. We would carefully rear them in controlled brooders till they were able to join the rest of the group....wonderful. And yes the eggs; better than anything you can buy in the supermarkets. We reared male birds (cockerals) for our special meals...chicken was a delicacy in those heady post war 50's days (no prepacked chicken breasts or thighs in the stores) and we felt RICH.
In rural areas this experience is still mirrored and this is good. Urban and suburban people can visit such areas and purchase fresh produce and fresh eggs. They can go to Farmers Markets in their towns and buy these things. The producers benefit and so do the buyers.
Now there are groups of people who want to play at this lifestyle. They cloak their agenda under a "need for food security". This will certainly be an issue soon but not quite yet! Chickens can be raised in areas from the equator to the arctic and their keeping can be started as and when needed. Plant agriculture is altogether different and will be soon problematic due to climate change. In this light, keeping chickens is somewhat independent of present food security needs and can be tabled for later when things get really tough.
Such pressure groups strive to create an environment in their communities which will simulate an alleviation of this perceived lack of security..sort of training us for the future.
In short they want us to be ready. On the surface this appears to be a good thing . But sometimes the situation can become rather forced.
Take a young couple thirty or so years ago who bought a piece of land in a semi-urban area and built their first home. They signed an agreement (covenant) that they would not rear any livestock including poultry and that was that.
Anyway, the area was prone to bear, coyote and raccoon incursion and their lot was quite small. Thirty years later a group of people came into town and settled. They looked around and felt they would like fresh farm eggs and what better way than to rear the chickens in their own small back yards.
So what if there was a bylaw in place which has been there for forty or fifty years...they'll just get it changed! Familiar story?
Well that's where we are at in my own town. The Council has budget constraints and even if they agreed to a bylaw change they would probably not be able to enforce the necessary controls on the keeping of the back-yard chickens. Neighbours would start to scrap with each other over the noise, smell and undesirable wild critter incursions. Due to the current municipal act they would be obliged to report their good neighbour(s) in writing and give their name. Any rapport they had created over the years would be shot to pieces.
A sad situation to contemplate.
Note: In the case of my own land, I am protected by a covenant set up on the date of purchase. This covenant supercedes any municipal changes to the existing bylaws. If anyone reading this might be affected by movements to establish adjacent chicken coops then be assured that you are protected should you have a similar covenant for your property and wish not to have backyard hens near you.. You are advised to check with your Land Registry and act accordingly. However it maybe that your District will just not allow back-yard hens in your urban areas anyway.
So: Friday Sept.24th. 2010 (Squamish Chief Newspaper)...."Bear reported killing chickens in Brackendale"....Do we need this!!?
Also, over the week following: 28 chickens, one duck and one rooster, at five different residences in Brackendale, have been killed. I think this clinches the case against keeping chickens in back yards in our area.
And this is how it should be done in the RIGHT place (we need to support good commercial producers of food):
Rabbit River Farms is western Canada's original producer of Certified Organic Eggs.
They are advocates of Cage Free, humane animal husbandry. Their commitment is to produce wholesome, natural foods that are healthy for you and your family. Their farming practices are sustainable and environmentally friendly. All the eggs they produce and sell are from cage free hens.
Omega 3 - Free Run:
Rabbit River Farms produces the only Free Run - Omega 3 eggs in Canada. Chickens are cage free inside the barn on shavings and are fed an all vegetarian diet* that contains ground flax to provide Omega 3 and Omega 6 essential fatty acids. The feed is also Vitamin E enhanced. They, apparently, are also allowed out on an adjacent area of grass for a period of time each day....but do not range outside on pasture.
*( The system does not use fish meal. Most fish meal comes from forage fish which are an important part of the ocean ecosytem so here we have an extra "green" feature!)