CHICKEN TALK

Last night the city held a public hearing on whether backyard chickens should be allowed in the city. The proposed ordinance would allow up to 6 hens and would also specify coop size, distance from neighbors, no chicken slaughtering, etc. What an outcry of hysterical exaggerated testimony ensued. Property values will go down! The smell! The noise! The next thing you know we will have wandering cows running through the street like they do in India! ( someone actually said this). You know, it's the slippery slope - get one chicken in there and soon it will snowball out of control and we'll have rampant farm animals polluting the streets and meat slaughtering in every back yard.

And never mind that Boulder has extremely high property values but still manages to allow chickens. In fact, chickens are allowed in most major cities including San Francisco and New York, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles and many, many more cities.

But in fairness, there was also a lot of testimony that was pro-chicken, and much discussion about healthy, non-antibiotic treated eggs, self sustaining food growing, access to local food, educational benefits for children and so forth. I got the impression that the city wants to move forward on the issue. More hearings will occur in December.