Dirty, noisy chickens don't belong in residential yards
To the Editor:
Seeing as the Westerville News & Public Opinion gave the equivalent of a front page advertisement to people who want to raise chickens in the city with its article, "Backyard chickens: WACKS wants 'em allowed in Westerville" (April 27), I can only assume the paper approves of this lunacy.
I'm glad WACKS founder Mark Passerrello read a whole article in Mother Earth News seven years ago and is now an authority on chicken farming. Anyone who has raised them -- and I have -- knows they are noisy, dirty and dumb, even in small numbers.
Where is all the chicken excrement going to go? (And there is a lot.) If you try to compost it, it stinks and will pollute any water it comes in contact with. If you have chickens, you're going to have predator problems -- as if there aren't enough wild things roaming the streets of Westerville now.
People can't even keep their pets out of my yard or their dogs from raising a ruckus at the movement of every leaf. Now chickens? This idea is so bad, it's not even wrong.
Mike Barr
People can't even keep their pets out of my yard or their dogs from raising a ruckus at the movement of every leaf. Now chickens? This idea is so bad, it's not even wrong.
Mike Barr
Our friend Mr. Barr seems poorly informed about chickens. He says he has kept them, but he seems to know so little about them!
Just how can backyard chickens be considered "lunacy"? Small backyard flocks are fitting into neighborhoods all across the country. The proof that Mr. Barr is in error is out there in suburban and urban backyards in cities large and small, from Anchorage, Alaska to Portland, Maine-and many places in between.
Chickens noisy, dirty and dumb? Sounds like a human. Chickens make less noise than a dog, are plenty clean if their human keeper will let them be so, and are not nearly the "dumb clucks" many take them for.( Cover a treat with a bucket and the chicken knows it is still there and will demonstrate patience waiting for the bucket to be removed. A human toddler can't grasp the concept that the item still exists).
Chickens make "a lot of excrement"? How can a five pound animal make "lots" of excrement? Some how pet owners safely deal with the pounds of excrement their dogs put out.
Mr. Barr seems to know little about composting either. A compost pile with the right balance of "brown" and "green" items does not smell, in fact compost piles don't smell-but a lazy man's trash heap will!
In short, Mr. Barr seems to freely express his opinion as if it were fact-which it is not!
This is the sort of opposition that legal hens in Westerville will face: strong opinions that are not always backed up with solid facts.
Hello, I am in Columbus Ohio and trying to walk through the chicken maze to have them here. The rules are expensive and strict, more so then for a dog. I would like to meet and speak with others in Columbus who have had chickens. THanks, Terry
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