Thursday, July 23, 2009

Back-Yard Chickens

Or "urban chickens" as the neo-yuppies seem to be calling them.

Well, we had chickens on the farm of course. I've got nothing against chickens. (Well, I didn't until I moved to the Shenandoah valley and encountered big chicken sheds, which stink like...well, a whole buttload of chickens all packed together in a big shed...)

(I mean, I don't exactly like chickens. They are extraordinarily stupid, for one thing. One friend of mine, in arguments with animal rights types, insists that chickens are actually just "fast plants.")

But man, I hope these folks understand that they aren't going to have a self-sustaining...er...flock or whatever you call a mess of chickens. Unless they think they're going to have roosters. Which they aren't going to have. Because even if they did have them, their neighbors would soon kill the things. Cartoons give people the idea that roosters crow exactly once, exactly at dawn. But those $*%&^#s actually crow all the @#*& time. Definitely not something you want in a city.
(Maybe there are non-crowing breeds, though?)

Our town just rejected an ordinance to allow 'em, though, so this won't be something we have to worry about.

I'm waiting for the urban pig and backyard beef movements.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Phil said...

What a coincidence. My daughter and I just had a conversation on this topic. Her point was that since we are allowed to have cats and dogs, why not cows? When I brought up the matter of waste, she countered that the waste could be made into fuel, like some African cultures do.
I guess I don't have a point to make, apart from indicating that the meme is spreading.

10:53 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Yeah, I didn't have a point either, actually.

11:38 AM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

Well, this is a Los Angeles/Mexifornia issue, so I'll pop in here, since that's where I reside.

http://lablips.dailyradar.com/story/l_a_panel_calls_for_rooster_restrictions_los_angeles/


We had a rooster in our neighborhood, which I found organically pleasing, calling me back to the natural vibe and cycle of sunrise and sunset.

[And I made it 50-50 the the rooster spoke Spanish or yuppie, per our neighborhood demographics.]

Regardless, then, as a modern cityite whose hours do not conform to nature, I did seriously consider tracking it down and ninja-murdering it.

Fortunately, the recession hit, and I think they just ate the motherfucker.

Nature works, in its way.

1:04 AM  

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