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Chickens come home to roost

City of Penticton's plan to encourage backyard chicken coops could have unintended consequences

Re: The Chicken Department, Hens Incorporated, Hen Pilots, whatever the new project is. What is City Hall thinking tainting our clean fresh air with the smell of chicken manure?

What will the tourists think while they have a picnic in the park or are lounging at the beach when that smell comes wafting by? Not to mention the residents or the people who live beside or near the neighbours that have chickens.

A chicken coop on a hot day is certainly not anything you would want to be near.

Is the city providing a drop-off centre for all the chicken poop and straw that has to be cleaned out of the coop weekly? Or where will that go?

Free range chickens do require care and feeding, grain is not cheap. They also do not lay eggs every day, and if you’re lucky you may get up to two dozen eggs a month. The sound of a hen laying an egg is quite a cackle, and for about an hour, not something you want to wake up to.

So why not give your business to a deserving farmer and save yourself a lot of work, expenses and unapproving looks from your neighbours? Also, the coyotes, raccoons and other wildlife will surely increase with chickens. What’s next, owning milk cows? That’s no bull!

F. Willford

 

Penticton