52nd City

Are You Chicken?

My trip to the Missouri State Fair over the weekend was sort of a bust. It rained almost the entire weekend so I didn’t get to shoot all the film I wanted…no carnies on the midway, no dusty cowboys in stiff Wranglers, no chubby preteens carrying wilting paper plates of funnel cakes. A downpour forced me to retreat to the poultry building, where I quickly burned a roll of film on an astonishing number of breeds. The birds were freaky; crazy Tina Turner types with feathers sprouting like fountains out of their scalps, roosters with combs as big and thick as my hand, and one variety that looked like a giant tan powdery puff—no trace of a face.

I briefly became enamored with the idea of raising chickens in my backyard (like I need another project). Normally, I wouldn’t consider such a daunting responsibility as animal ownership except that my parents already have a small brood of chickens. Listening to a crowing rooster at daybreak brings a special satisfaction—the world seems entirely wholesome during those indifferent interludes of cock-a-doodling. So I did some quick internet research, which revealed that the city of St. Louis allows four chickens (as pets) per backyard.*

However, further investigation caused me to question my plan. Over the last ten years many possums and raccoons have called my deep and lush backyard home. I haven’t had much luck persuading them to live elsewhere. I’d be crushed if these critters were caught in the hen house. So the whole idea quickly became complicated. I need to think about it some more. Right now, I’m too chicken to try.

The website Path To Freedom has all sorts of useful urban homesteading advice, including raising chickens in the city.

* C. No person shall raise or keep chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, guineas, peafowl or rabbits within the City, and the raising or keeping thereof is declared a public nuisance; except that such animals may be raised or kept within biological laboratories, hospitals, pet shops, slaughter houses, stockyards, zoological gardens, or itinerant or temporary shows; and except that such animals may be raised or kept where not more than four in the aggregate of all animals, including domestic animals and a pot-bellied pig, are kept as pets within any one parcel of property unless the owner obtains a noncommercial kennel permit. (Ord. 62853 § 7, 1993.)