Apparently many communities are struggling with "the chicken question." Maybe this will help:
Consider our majestic chickens. They are decorative and beautiful. Chickens come in all colors including with spots and stripes and with various tail shapes, with or without leggings. And your beautiful chickens will fit right into your backyard landscape design.
They are very useful. Fresh-laid eggs from chickens that are not fed hormones and chemicals and who walk around in the sunshine are much tastier and much, much more healthful than the commercially raised variety.
Chickens eat harmful insects. The very costly mosquito control done by state and local governments could be reduced if more people had chickens, saving our tax dollars.
Chickens are relaxing. That cluck-cluck-cluck sound has put many a tired baby to sleep and has calmed the rage of someone who just got an expensive ticket for violating some government code.
Chickens are a great conversation starter: "Hey Calvin, how are them chickens of yours?" They are doctrinal in that many church leaders are advising us to become more self-sufficient: to "raise a few chickens" and to plant a garden. In addition, some biblical scholars believe that as a boy, Jesus was probably assigned the task of minding the family's few chickens. Who better to emulate than that?
Plus they're a great parenting tool to teach responsibility, kindness, self-reliance and self-defense (against being hen-pecked - a neglected skill these days).
Chickens can provide a nice nature lesson for kids. Watching a hen with a bunch of chicks is almost as much fun as hanging out at the Big Box parking lot or watching the traffic jam at the hub intersection. Keeping chickens is supporting our war on terror by following the Department of Homeland Security's directive to provide for our own food needs in the event of a major attack on our food supply.
They provide great fertilizer for your yard . . . self-spreading, by the way, if you let them roam. Therefore, chickens make for greener grass and prettier neighborhoods, which increases our property values.
Fresh, colorful eggs make the perfect gift for that hard-to-please person on your gift list. And, after getting all those benefits for yourself and your family and community, you'll feel proud of yourself, and increased self-esteem will lead to a better, happier attitude, which makes for a more peaceful and cooperative community, which supports a strong loving family, and all that is good for business!
Finally, we could put a sign at the state line: Welcome to Utah Ð The Chicken State. That might just help attract a few buyers for those unsold new developments that have been approved en masse the past couple of years and are now sitting vacant.
But even with all those reasons, it is conceivable that not everyone will catch the magic of chickens. So, we have to have rules exactly like we do for dogs and cats. You can only have a limited number and your chickens cannot bother your neighbors with noise, property infringement (getting out of their own yard), smell or whatever. You may have to cull the roosters if you like to sleep late.
But if you're supplying your neighbor with some nice green and blue and brown eggs, they may learn to love your chickens as much as you do.
Contact your local chicken enabler and ask him to do something positive and proactive for the community. Free the chickens! We can't wait until a disaster strikes because there is a delay before new chickens begin to have an impact.
Think where we would be if we had legalized chickens 10 years ago! Let's get the egg rolling!
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* CARY HOBBS lives in Midway and has a daily radio show on KTMP radio in Heber City and a few chickens.
