Kingston Backyard Hens:
An Eggcellent Idea
Whose Time Has Come
Prepared by
Urban Agriculture Kingston
April 2010
Table of Contents
About Urban Agriculture Kingston...... 2
Introduction...... 3
Hens and the History of Suburban Development...... 4
A Proposed Backyard Hens By-Law for Kingston...... 5
Backyard Hens Are Not Farm Animals...... X
Backyard Coops are Attractive and Clean...... X
Hens Are Not a Nuisance...... X
Hens Are Not Smelly...... X
Hens are Not Messy...... X
Hens Are Not Noisy...... X
Hens Do Not Annoy the Neighbours...... X
Hes Do Not Attract Pests………………………………………………………………………………………...X
Hens Do Not Attract Predators to the Area...... X
Many Residential Communities Allow Hens Without Causing A Nuisance...... X
Hens Do Not Pose a Public Health Risk...... X
Hens and the Environment...... X
Water Quality and Runoff...... X
Living Sustainably...... X
Lot Size Doesn’t Matter...... X
Hens Are Educational...... X
Hens and Emergency Preparedness...... X
Hens and the Economic Crisis...... X
Code Enforcement and Burdens on Government...... X
The Urban/Suburban Hen Movement...... X
Appendices...... X
Appendix A: Backyard Coop Designs...... X
Appendix B: Hen Owner Lays Low (Kingston Whig-Standard, April 1, 2010)...... X
Appendix C: A Hen in Every Yard; An Egg in Every Bowl (March 26, 2010)...... X
Appendix D: Is City Council Chicken? (Kingston Whig-Standard, March 19, 2010)..X
Appendix E: Backyard Chickens (Niagara Magazine, St. Catharines, Jan. 2010)....X
Appendix F: The New Coop de Ville (Newsweek, Nov. 17, 2008)...... X
Appendix G: Letters to the Editor, Kingston Publications 2010...... X
About Urban Agriculture Kingston
Who We Are
Urban Agriculture Kingston (UAK) is a working group of the Kingston branch of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG). We are a not-for-profit organization composed of concerned citizens who are striving to see our city become more environmentally and agriculturally sustainable. We will soon be incorporated an independent not-for-profit group.
Our Objectives
- Working to provide food sovereignty for all people in Kingston and region;
- Developing and disseminating programs which inform on food issues and sustainable food production in the urban environment, and which build food-growing and food-preparation skills in our community;
- Facilitating the initiation and ongoing function of Community Gardens, Allotment Gardens, and other forms of Urban Agriculture;
- Supporting gardeners, food entrepreneurs, community gardens and the region's farmers by improving communication, networking, and skill-sharing opportunities;
- Engaging youth through developing school garden programs, summer job programs, and internship opportunities;
- Advocating and lobbying for policy changes in government and institutions that will support increased food sovereignty for all people in Kingston and region;
- Celebrating the productive capacity of our urban environment to nourish us.
How To Contact Us
UAK can be reached at . More information about us can be found on our website at
Introduction to the Kingston Backyard Hen Campaign
In the decades after World War II, many urban and suburban communities across Canada and the U.S. instituted laws to distance people from their then-unfashionable rural roots.
It was a time when neighbourhoods were built without sidewalks, DDT was a fashionable pesticide, and backyard hens were a quaint, uncomfortable reminder that Grandma used to slaughter a chicken on her back porch for Sunday dinner each week. According to author Andrea Gaynor in her book Harvest of the Suburbs (2006),“In the 1960s… the increasing restriction on the keeping of productive animals was based as much on the abandonment of a perceived outdated rural era in favor of a progressive urban ideology as it was on concerns for health or the obviation of nuisances. This ‘urban ideology’ – part of the ‘modern outlook’ – included an element which lauded consumption and disparaged at least some types of production.”
In this brave new post-war world, cities passed thousands of bylaws banning hens and other livestock from backyards. According to Gaynor, “Resulting city by-laws [had the effect of] supporting consumerist trends in domestic life by regulating the amount of non-horticultural food production which could be undertaken on suburban blocks, but they can also be seen as participating in the creation of those trends. In other words, the exclusion of productive animals from residential areas was one way in which governments – generally operated by middle-class technocrats – sought to produce clean, modern communities with cosmopolitan commuters and consumers. Although vegetable gardening and fruit production remained acceptable suburban pastimes, in the ideal modern suburb, the whine of the lawnmower would no longer have to compete with cuckling and cackling.”
Indeed, the birth of the modern suburb was a time when many of us were seeking to define ourselves as sophisticated and more like those in the cosmopolitan city than like those in unfashionable rural small towns and farming communities. The car was a symbol of that cosmopolitan lifestyle, so we eliminated sidewalks – why, after all, would anyone walk who could afford to drive? The sidewalk became a symbol of poverty and backwardness. Later generations regretted that decision and many have retrofitted sidewalks and streetlights in their neighbourhoods.
The keeping of hens and other food-producing animals became similarly unfashionable in the decades following World War II, and for similar reasons. The problem wasn’t one of hens creating a nuisance; it was one of wanting to seem modern, cosmopolitan, and sophisticated.
The Times Are Changing:
A Proposed Backyard Hens By-Law for Kingston
In recent years, millions of people in Canada and the U.S. alike have begun to realize that maintaining a close connection to our food supply is a positive choice – a way to a healthier and more ecologically sustainable lifestyle. Farmers’ markets, including the weekly one in downtown Kingston, have since experienced a huge revival, people are gardening more, and communities across Canada are changing decades-old laws forbidding the keeping of hens.
Urban Agriculture Kingston therefore propose that hens be removed from the City of Kingston’s Animal Regulation By-law (No. 2004-144). If the city feels that hen-keeping needs to be controlled more than is already adequately addressed by current noise and property maintenance by-laws, we propose that a by-law pertaining only to hens be created.
After consultations with each of the dozen Canadian cities that allow backyard hens, Urban Agriculture Kingston proposes the following by-law guidelines. UAK believes that the following regulations will succeed in smoothly re-integrating hens into community backyards:
* Maximum of 8 hens per property;
* Coops must be 4.5 metres from any dwelling;
* Coops must not be built onto a shared fence;
* Hens must be confined to coop between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m.;
* Roosters are prohibited;
* Home slaughter is prohibited;
* Feed must be stored securely;
* Manure must be composted in enclosed bin; chicken run must be kept clean.
* All other animal control bylaws will apply: noise, odour, animals-at-large;
* Sale of eggs or manure is prohibited.
Backyard Hens Are Not Farm Animals
For thousands of years, hens, like dogs and cats, have lived alongside people in backyards large and small in cities and small towns. Unlike a half-ton bull or 400-pound hog, a four-pound hen is not inherently a farm animal.
The typical laying hen starts to produce at four to six months, lays nearly daily until she is 5 or 6, and then lays less often over her remaining two years. A crucial point is that for backyard hens (unlike their counterparts on farms), the end of productivity does not bring on the end of life. Commercial hens are bred to produce large numbers of eggs very quickly and then to be culled and used for such things as animal food and fertilizer. Suburban hens, however, are treated as individuals. They are typically named, and when they stop producing eggs, they are ‘retired’ and treated as pets for the remaining year or two of their lives.
Veterinarians in Kingston report that they would treat ill hens, and would dispose of their bodies after death as for any household pet. In circumstances where it was deemed necessary, vets would also eutbanize.
Hens are friendly, social, intelligent, affectionate, entertaining, low-maintenance, small, quiet, and inexpensive to keep. They are quieter and cleaner than most dogs. They uniquely offer suburban and city-dwelling children the opportunity to understand a little more clearly where their food comes from. And they offer all of us the opportunity to produce a little of our own food – healthy, fresh, nutritious food that will contribute to the well-being of local families.
Backyard Coops are Attractive and Clean
Unlike large commercial poultry operations or rural farms, people in cities and suburbs who keep hens in their backyards tend to keep them in attractive, well-maintained enclosures and treat their hens as pets. Backyard coops are no more of an inherent eyesore than a trampoline, play structure, or hot tub, and in fact many are portable so that the hens are never in one place long. Appendix A contains examples of backyard coops on suburban and city lots.
Hens Are Not a Nuisance
Hens Are Not Smelly
Myth: Hens are messy and smelly.
Facts: Hens themselves do not smell: It is only their feces that have the potential to smell which is also true of feces from dogs, cats, rabbits or any other animal that is outside. A 4-pound laying hen produces one-fifth to one-quarter of a pound of manure per day. An average dog generates three-quarters of a pound of manure a day that cannot be composted because of the harmful bacteria and parasites (hookworms, roundworms and tapeworms) that can infect humans. This waste is considered a major source of bacterial pollution in urban watersheds.
Source:
Dog waste contains higher concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus than cows, hens or pigs and is a major contributor of excessive nutrients that flow into ground and surface waters through runoff from city sidewalks and lawns.
Source:
The reason people fear an odour problem is because their only experience with hens, if they have any at all, is on a farm or commercial poultry operation. Under these circumstances, hundreds if not thousands of hens are sometimes kept in crowded conditions with poor ventilation infrequent manure removal. As a result, ammonia can build up and these facilities can smell. There is a huge differencebetween these environments and a small backyard flock.
UAK’s proposed by-lawspecifies that the maximum number of hens allowed per residential lot be limited to 8, and that the run be kept clean.
Hens are Not Messy
Hen enclosures used in urban settings tend to be attractive and are easily maintained. Small flocks are managed with a minimum of time and energy on the part of their owners. Their care regime can be compared to that of any other household pet.
Hens Are Not Noisy
Myth: Hens are noisy.
Facts: The main rule for keeping urban hens is “No roosters allowed.” Hens do not make a ruckus in the morning like their male counterparts and they are fast asleep in their coop by the time the sun goes down. Hens do lay eggs without the aid of a rooster; roosters are only needed if you want to have fertilized eggs for baby chicks.Hens make a soft clucking noise.
UAK’s proposed by-law requires that hens be maintained in a manner free from excessive noise and that hens and enclosures be kept a minimum of 4.5 meters from habitable dwellings, a distance at which most normal hen noises are barely audible. UAK’s proposed by-law also requires that roosters be prohibited.
Hens Do Not Annoy the Neighbours
Ontario municipalities including Niagara Falls, Guelph and Brampton, and eight other Canadian Citiesreport very few problems with their hen-keeping residents. See Appendix XX.
Hens Do Not Attract Pests
It’s ironic that backyard hens are thought to attract flies. In fact, hens love to eat insects of all kinds including worms, beetles, grasshoppers, earwigs, mosquitoes and their larvae, fly larvae, ticks and more and are one of the best methods of insect control. Chickens have even been known from time to time to eat small mice.Rodents such as mice, rats, squirrels, raccoons and skunks exist in Kingston and thrive on garbage and unprotected animal feeds. As long as their feed is properly stored just as dog, cat, or bird food should be, it will not attract added rodent pests.
Hens Do Not Increase Predator Populations
It is another myth thathens will lead to more coyotes, raccoons, skunks, and other predator species.Thesethese predators already exist in Kingston and are attracted to any vulnerable prey: cats, small dogs, rabbits, and most certainly hens.
Backyard hens should never be outside their secure coop/run or hen tractor unless under direct supervision.
Hens, if left unprotected, are vulnerable to predators. But as the predators of hens are the same as those of the wild rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, small birds, and other local wild prey animals already present in our community, they do not themselves attract predators to the area. Because hens are penned up in the backyard (unlike wild rabbits, for instance, which hide from predators in tall grass, brush and shrubbery), the predators may be seen more often. Coyotes, for instance, are seen more often when they take a cat or small dog than when they take a rabbit. But the presence of hens does not attract predators to the area; predators are already here.
UAK’s proposed by-lawspecifies that animal feed and any other food sources provided to the hens shall be stored in predator-proof containers. Coops shall be designed and maintained in such a way as to be impermeable to rodents, wild birds, and predators, including, but not limited to, cats coyotes, dogs, raccoons and skunks.
Many Communities Allow Hens Without Causing A Nuisance
UAK’s proposed by-law offers Kingston residents protection in the unlikely case a neighbour would raise hens in an irresponsible manner, but still allows the greatest possible freedom for members of our community.
Hens Do Not Pose a Public Health Risk
Myth: Hens will create a health hazard.
Facts: In Canada, there is no need at present to remove a flock of hens because of concerns regarding avian influenza. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada monitors potential infection of poultry and poultry products by avian influenza viruses and other infectious disease agents.
H5N1 virus (Avian Flu) does not usually infect people, but since November 2003, nearly 400 cases of human infection with highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N1) viruses have been reported by more than a dozen countries in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, Europe and the Near East. Highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N1) viruses havenever been detected among wild birds, domestic poultry, or the Canadian people.
Research shows that there are actually more diseases that can be spread from dogs and cats than from hens. Dogs and cats can spread parasites, bacteria, fungi and viruses to humans. Rabies is an example of a viral infection that can be transmitted to people from the saliva or bite of a dog. Cat Scratch Fever is a bacterial infection passed to people by cats. Each year, 3000cases are diagnosed across Canada. Ringworm, a highly contagious fungal infection, can be transmitted to humans by touching an infected animal’s fur or skin and is common in cats that roam freely. Roundworm, hookworm and tapeworm are intestinal parasites that can be passed to humans from pet waste. There are also a number of tick-borne diseases, including Lyme Disease, that can be brought home by dogs and cats. Hens can actually keep your yard healthier because they eat ticks and insects.
The type of Avian Influenza that is contagious to humans has not been found in North America. Bird Flu is spread by contact with the contaminated feces of wild migratory waterfowl. So the key issues are sanitation and contact with wild birds. Unlike rural farm birds which might co-mingle with migratory birds or drink from a shared pond, backyard hens are contained in an enclosure and watered inside this enclosure.
As reported in Newsweek Magazine (see Appendix D), “the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute (an environmental research group) pointed out in a report last month, experts including the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production have said that if we do see it, it'll be more likely to be found in factory-farmed poultry than backyard hens. As GRAIN, an international sustainable agriculture group, concluded in a 2006 report: “When it comes to bird flu, diverse small-scale poultry farming is the solution, not the problem.”
Unlike cats and dogs which are prime vectors for rabies, parasites, and tick-borne diseases, backyard hens actually keep yards healthier for humans by eating ticks and other insects.