Why hens?

Why hens? And why now?

1. Background

Prior to the mid twentieth century, Americans often kept chickens and sizable gardens in their backyards. In the decades following World War II, many urban and suburban communities instituted ordinances and covenants prohibiting such traditions. This was part of a larger shift in American culture defined by the embrace of modern convenience and the rejection of traditional domestic crafts and skills. The rationale for municipal ordinances banning chickens in American communities was less a matter of regulating nuisance than it was an attempt by communities to distance themselves from habits that seemed in anyway old fashioned.

Many Americans today, however, are eager to revive traditional domestic skills, from home repair to the keeping of chickens. This is part of a larger contemporary redefinition of urban and suburban living in American culture based on on ideals such as community, sustainability, walkable neighborhoods, and support for local businesses. Evidence of this trend in Hamden include building the Farmington Canal trail, rehabilitating neglected sidewalks, recovering industrial sites, implementing “traffic calming,” and establishing farmers’ markets and community gardens. Backyard hens, kept for non-commercial egg laying and companionship, should be seen as an additional expression of such sentiment, and the number of communities like Hamden across the United States who have revised ordinances to allow for chickens should be seen as a testament to its strength at the national scale.

2. The Environmental Benefits of Backyard Hens

According to the Hamden Green and Clean Commission, Hamden “promotes and encourages the use of environmentally responsible actions.” A small number of egg-laying hens is in keeping with that philosophy. Small flocks of hens allow their owners to reduce their carbon footprint by producing a portion of their own food. People who have backyard hens are less likely to use chemicals and pesticides in their yards and gardens because it’s healthier for their hens. In turn, hens naturally eat weeds and bugs, including tics and mosquitoes. Hen droppings, unlike cat and dog feces that harbor bacteria, are nitrogen-rich, natural fertilizers useful in domestic gardens. Backyard hens eat grass clippings and food scraps that might end up in the garbage and sewage, thereby reducing the city’s waste stream.

3. Hens Are Educational

Hen keeping offers suburban children the opportunity to learn where eggs come from and about healthy, sustainable, nutritious food. The Common Ground School and Brooksvale Park are just two examples of local institutions where educators use hens and local food production as tools to combat childhood obesity and to teach children about environmental stewardship and nutrition. The keeping of backyard hens can be an important addition to these efforts.

4. Hens and Emergency Preparedness

Many governments are asking community members to prepare for emergencies, whatever the cause. Backyard hens provide a constant stream of fresh eggs without regard to the availability of electricity or refrigeration.

5. Hens and the Economic Crisis

Due to rising oil prices and other factors, the cost of food continues to rise. Pasteurized eggs, free of added antibiotics and synthetic hormones cost upwards to $4 a dozen. In comparison, four or five backyard hens will lay about 120 dozen eggs in a year at an average cost of 12 cents per dozen. The annual savings may reach over $400 a year. The ability to raise a portion of our own food can help provide a greater sense of economic security in insecure times.

6. Hens and Property Values

Declining property values is a common myth associated with hen keeping in the city. Small backyard hen structures are typically small, clean, and attractive because hen-keepers

An Omlet Eglu coop

typically treat their hens as pets. Based on 2009 home values, the average sales price of homes in several hen-friendly cities is equal to or higher than homes in Hamden. These cities include Portland and Eugene, OR; Madison, WI; Fort Collins, CO; and Seattle, WA.

7. Water Quality and Runoff

Issues of manure runoff from egg‐producing hens are associated with huge factory‐style egg farms that generate tons of manure each day in a very concentrated area, not with small flocks of backyard hens. The average laying hen produces .2 ‐ .3 pound of droppings per day, as compared to the average dog, which produces 1 pound per day.

Backyard hens reduce the need for chemical fertilizers in domestic gardens, the run-off from which is detrimental to water quality. Unlike dog and cat waste, which contains pathogens and bacteria and cannot be composted, hen droppings can be composted for use on gardens. Likewise, hens reduce the need for pesticides and herbicides by eating bugs and weeds.

8. Hens Do Not Smell

While unsanitary conditions in large-scale commercial operations can result in a buildup of ammonia, this is not the case for small backyard flocks. Hens themselves do not smell, and their waste in small quantities is not offensive. Five hens generate less excrement than one medium-sized dog. But unlike dogs and cats, who leave waste on the lawns of their neighbors or in public places, hen droppings would be confined.

9. Hens Are Not Noisy

Hens are quiet birds. Only roosters crow, and roosters are not necessary for the production of eggs. The occasional clucking of hens is generally not audible beyond 25 feet. Some hens give a few squawks while actually laying an egg, but this noise is very short-lived and much quieter than barking dogs, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, weed whackers, passing trucks, children playing, and other common neighborhood sounds.

10. Hens Do Not Attract Predators

Hens, if left unprotected, are vulnerable to predators. But as the predators of hens are the same as those of the wild rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, small birds, and small house pets already present in abundance throughout Hamden, hens themselves would not attract predators to the area.

11. Hens Do Not Pose a Public Health Risk

The type of Avian Influenza that is contagious to humans has not been found in North America. Bird Flu is spread by contact with the contaminated feces of wild migratory waterfowl. Unlike rural farm birds that might range freely across large areas and co-mingle with migratory birds, or that might drink from a pond shared by other fowl, backyard chickens are contained in an enclosure and receive water inside this enclosure.

Unlike cats and dogs which are prime candidates for rabies, parasites, and tick-borne diseases, backyard chickens actually keep your yard healthier for humans by eating ticks and other insects.

Salmonella, which has been associated with raw eggs, is a problem with large-scale factory-farmed eggs, not with small flocks of backyard hens.

Are you convinced? Let the Hamden Planning and Zoning Office know that you support backyard hens. And then contact us!