Homestead Pretty^TM

In a recent Daily Camera article, the interest to raise chickens and keep bees in Louisville, Colorado is discussed. Currently it is illegal to keep bees in this town, and keeping chickens is not officially legal.

“Opponents cite noise, stink and the possibility that chickens will attract more predators to neighborhoods.”

These opponents cite issues that go beyond housing backyard chickens. Citing noise, stink and predators as reasons to not have chickens in the suburbs illustrates where our society has developed, generally, in our relationship to food. Food production, especially for animal proteins can be messy, noisy and potentially dangerous. Many people while they enjoy animal food products simply do not want the production in their backyard, believing livestock belong on farms. Yet, in light of recent awareness surrounding the conditions of factory farms raising your own appears to be the more favorable option. Micheal Pollan writes:

It is routine practice to cram laying hens into cages so small that the birds are sometimes driven to cannibalize their cagemates. The solution to this “vice” — as the industry and the Department of Agriculture call such counterproductive behaviors in livestock (talk about blaming the victims!) — is to snip the beaks off the hens with hot knives, without anesthetic. Similarly, the U.S.D.A.’s recommended solution for the “vice” of tail-biting among hogs driven mad by close confinement is to snip off their tails — with a pliers, without anesthetic. To peer over the increasingly high walls of our industrial animal agriculture is not only to lose your appetite but to feel revulsion and shame.

This is why I want to raise my own, and encourage towns and cities around the nation to allow their residents to raise their own also. Our system of food production needs to change due to the treatment of animals, pollution, energy costs, food insecurity and lack of knowledge where our food originates.