Chicken Ownership In Philadelphia Might Hatch Soon
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Emily Dickinson said, "'Hope' is the thing with feathers," and Maureen Breen has a lot of feathers: A flock of backyard chickens and the hope of making them legal.
Breen is leading a group of Philadelphians who are hatching a scheme to get chickens exempted from a 2004 law that banned eight kinds of livestock in the city, including goats, sheep, pigs, cows and four kinds of fowl.
They've been lobbying council members, talking up the benefits of backyard chickens, which include the nutritional value to families of an easy source of high quality protein in the eggs, as well as the environmental value of the natural fertilizer in chicken droppings and keeping kitchen scraps out of the waste stream by using them as chicken feed.
They think they see progress.
"We're really happy because the only anti-chicken person on council right now is Brian O'Neill," says Breen.
O'Neill does not consider himself anti-chicken.
"I don't have a problem with any of my colleagues who would want to have any of the farm animals legal in their districts," he says. "I would ask for an exception for my district."
O'Neill sponsored the livestock ban after constituents complained about neighbors who kept chickens in a common back yard and failed to take proper care of them.
"The sanitary conditions and the smells were terrible," he says.
At first, he'd planned just to propose a chicken ban but the Health Commissioner at the time asked that he include the other animals as well.
"The problems I used to encounter I don't encounter any more," he says, "and my constituents don't so I think everything's working."
Chicken-keepers disagree. Nearly 900 people have joined Breen's "Philadelphia Backyard Chickens" group and are calling, writing, even visiting council members.
"I've actually had a live chicken come to visit me," says freshman Al Taubenberger who, as an agronomy major, may be the group's most sympathetic ear.
"They produce eggs, which are nutritional, and it's great to know where your food is coming from and there's no better place than your own back yard."
Taubenberger, who serves at-large, says he'd support a measure to legalize chickens but thinks sponsoring the legislation should be up to district council members, who bear the brunt of complaints.
He is, though, one of the sponsors of a resolution that set up public hearings on Urban Farming, scheduled for September 21 at 1 p.m.
Breen hopes to testify.
One of her arguments is that policing backyard chickens is a waste of the Animal Care and Control team's time and effort.
"If I have a quiet, peaceful chicken in my back yard, they have to come out to my house," she says. "We'd like those limited resources used on dangerous dogs or things that really are threatening people."
O'Neill, though, says ACCT is only sent if there's a complaint.
"No one goes looking for chickens or eggs in people's back yards," he says. "If there's a call about a problem that involves farm animals, they have an enforcement tool to go out and deal with it."
