Chickens, Democracy for WorcesterSerena GalleshawMay 3, 2011

Thanks to best selling authors like Michael Pollan and award winning films

like Food Inc., the unappetizing truths of the American factory farm industry have

entered into mainstream consciousness. Farmers markets, food co-ops, and

community supported agriculture swaps are multiplying nationwide, and

community gardens are sprouting up where empty lots once sat collecting litter.

Worcester is home to 41 of these vegetable oases. Now, an exciting new opportunity

for food justice lays waiting in our city.

It’s currently illegal in Worcester to raise livestock- including chickens,

within city limits. But plans are in the works to change this. Chicken enthusiast and

District IV councilor Barbara Haller is working on a town ordinance that would

allow residents to keep a coop of up to five hens in their backyard. When Worcester

city council approves this ordinance, Worcester will join the likes of Providence,

New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and dozens of other cities across the

country that are standing up for local food and taking back their right to food

security by allowing chickens back in the backyard.

Why chickens? They’re inexpensive and a prolific producer of a staple

protein: eggs. Farms often give away chicks for free and they’re available on

websites like Craigslist, and backyardchickens.com for under five dollars for classic

domestic breeds. When they grow into hens, they can provide 250-350 eggs a year.

Chicken feed is available for ten dollars for a few months worth. Worcester’s

ordinance would require a chicken coop registration fee similar to registering a dog

in Worcester- around fifteen dollars.

Housing the birds wouldn’t be very expensive either. There are endless

websites dedicated to backyard chickens with do it-yourself instructions for

building coops. Adding to the financial benefits of keeping chickens, they also

produce top notch fertilizer and devour backyard undesirables like ticks. And it

turns out, these pest-annihilating, fertilizing, protein producing little hens can also

provide a new hobby.

Jason Przypek, a teacher in Hardwick Mass, has lived with chickens for most

of his life. He says caring for them is an easy task; “it’s almost instinctive… they’re

perfectly happy co-existing with you”. And Robert McMinn, producer of Bucky

Buckaw’s Backyard Chicken Broadcast and urban chickener in New York City

actually lives with his birds in his apartment.

“They’re very entertaining,” he said to a captive

audience at the Regional Environmental Council’s

Spring Garden Festival in April. It was obvious- the

little cluck clucking hens even cuddled up to some

chilly festival goers.

Pryzpek did admit, however, that his

chickens, despite peacefully co-existing with him

do try to escape occasionally, as they enjoy

roosting in trees. But like training kids with a time

out, he plucks the docile creatures from their

perch and sets them back in the coop until they

get it right.

Escapees and noise complaints are the first reasons that opponents of

chickening legislations in other cities are concerned with. The truth is, hens cluck

softly during the day, and sleep at night. Roosters, the early morning cock-a-doodle-

doing culprits wouldn’t be allowed by Worcester’s ordinance.

Opponents also believe backyard coops will initiate serious neighbor conflict,

purportedly because of the potential for incidences and escapades like those seen in

the animated classic, the Chicken Run. So far, the facts have nullified these concerns.

One year into legalized chickening in Missoula Montana, the animal control officer

has reported only fourteen complaints- much less than the city has ever received for

dog complaints. One resident of Missoula said that neighbor relations are actually

better off with the chickens; neighborhood kids visit to see the chickens and learn

about them.

Experiential learning of this kind may lead to a new generation of kids who

know that chickens aren’t nugget shaped, and eggs are not only stark white. The

future implications of backyard chickening could lead to informed kids who are

more likely to become more informed consumers and better nutrition decision

makers. Local food activist, and proponent of

the chicken legislation Joe Scully says the

ordinance is “an important lesson in local food.

More people are beginning to care about where

their food comes from, they want to be a part of

the process.”

Allowing people to be in charge of their

nutrition is not only a health issue, it’s food

democracy. Backyard chickens enables good

eggs for all who want them. It’s not the end of

food injustice in America, but it’s a start. It’s

blow to the mechanized, impersonal and

distant system that sends our food in plastic wrapped packages- “it’s a step towards

reducing our reliability on conventional food sources, which are inherently creating

food injustice” says Amanda Barker, a graduate student in Environmental Science

and Policy at Clark University.

By standing up for our own food choices, we’re taking back our fundamental

right to food. What senator is going to say no- you cannot be in charge of your food.

We don’t regulate the planting of fruit trees, tomatoes or carrots. Why should we be

denied the right to raise chickens? Backyard chickening makes good, democratic

sense.

As for why we ever stopped raising chickens in the first place, that’s a good

question. Robert McMinn made the story clear: “After the depression (and the

beginning of the industrial revolution)… consumers were persuaded that having

someone else, far away, grow and prepare all your food improved the quality of life

and was one of the greatest benefits of prosperity”. The atrocities and injustices

created by the factory farming industry have revealed that this is not the case. Now

we know better, and the people of Worcester have the opportunity to take part in a

food revolution.