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On the chance you missed it, earlier this summer
the Champaign City Council voted to revise the municipal code and allow
residents to keep a certain number of hens at home. The change was motivated by
a citizen effort led in part by Karen Carney, a long-time resident of the city
who also happens to be my long-time spouse. I met with her over coffee recently
to discuss the benefits of keeping hens, environmental and other.
She told me the idea first grabbed her as she
listened to an installment of “In My Backyard,” [find it here] the WILL radio feature by Lisa
Bralts of Urbana, a city that never enacted rules against keeping hens. She
said, “Hearing people talk about the ways having chickens connected them to
their neighbors made me think, ‘That would be a really cool thing to do.’”
She sees keeping a small flock of egg-laying hens as
a natural next step in our family’s progress toward eating more locally
produced foods. She acknowledges that there are options for
buying eggs from nearby
farms where humane and environmentally responsible practices are the norm, but
likens the satisfaction of getting eggs from your own chickens to growing your
own tomatoes. [Photos by author. Carney holds a hen belonging to a friend for now, but anticipates having her own next year (above) and hens foraging in the friend's backyard (below.)]
Carney also called attention to a link noted by
Bralts and others between chicken keeping and the way people relate to the
system of food production as a whole. “You might call it a ‘gateway’ behavior,”
she said. “Once you begin to participate directly in producing your own food,
you become more aware of the environmental and ethical issues associated with
the foods you buy, which can prompt you to make better choices.”
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One of the chief benefits of keeping hens Carney
cites is that it enables gardeners to “close the loop” of their food
production. “Think about the radish tops in our garden,” she said. “We’ll be able
to feed those to chickens, who will convert them into eggs, which we’ll eat,
and manure, which we’ll use to fertilize the garden. What was ‘waste’ before
will now stay in the system.” (She also shared another name some gardeners have
for chicken poop, “black gold.”)
Carney also pointed out that backyard chicken
keeping can play an important role in maintaining genetic diversity among
chickens nationwide and around the world. That’s because hens used by large
operations are bred for one trait only—productivity. When people select hens to
keep at home, they’re often interested in other qualities as well, especially
appearance and personality. So you wind up with a demand for heritage breeds that
wouldn’t be there otherwise.
The resistance to changing the city ordinance in
Champaign—which turned out to be pretty minimal—was driven in part by concerns
that keeping chickens would offend other people with unpleasant noise or
smells. But research by staff in advance of the chicken study session this
summer showed cities that allow residents to keep hens have not found them to
be a significant source of tension among neighbors.
Indeed, Carney sees chicken keeping as a community
building enterprise. She said, “Chickens foraging in a yard can be fascinating
to watch, and people who keep them sometimes find that neighbors, especially
kids, drop by just to see them out.” In addition, she cited the supportive
groups that form naturally among people who keep hens.
If you’d like to connect with Champaign residents
who are looking forward to keeping chickens you can reach Karen Carney at carneykar@gmail.com.
