Community Corner

Would You Live Next to a Chicken?

Easton is revisiting a ban on keeping backyard hens.

Perhaps the most entertaining police item we've seen all summer came out of Bethlehem Friday morning.

Police there cited a man named Armstrong Millien for keeping chickens. Bethlehem passed a law in 2006 which only allows people have the birds for so long. But Millien said it wouldn't be a problem: he plans to eat the chickens this weekend.
If Armstrong lived in Easton, he might find himself in the same boat. The city has made keeping chickens illegal for about as long as Bethlehem.

But that might change. The city is due to discuss its ban on backyard chickens at next month's planning meeting, City Councilman Roger Ruggles told the Express-Times Thursday.

Keeping chickens is not an easy task, as the Morning Call noted in its coverage of the Nurture Nature Center's "Chicken Dialogues" forum.

"Educate, educate, educate," New Jersey chicken owner Tanya Kilhullen said. "The challenge is upkeep."

Urban chicken farming is a big deal these days, as NPR reported last month.

The story was in response to a number of other articles about an apparent trend in "hipster" farmers trying their hand at raising chickens and then abandoning their birds when they got to be too much work.

The NPR piece says the real issue is that a lot of urban farmers order hens online, but end up getting roosters. And roosters can be noisy and aggressive. Even some cities that allow chickens draw the line at roosters.

So maybe no one want a rooster around. But would you live next to a chicken? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.


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