We need chickens in Philadelphia!

[UrbanHomesteadr]

Raising chickens is taking off in NYC as part of the movement towards fresh, local produce. Let's do the same here in Philadelphia. The web site Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction has set up a page about chickens in Philadelphia and started a petition. Sign up today!

Chickens provide fresh eggs and meat, are easy to care for. Philadelphians are raising chickens anyway, let's come out of the dark.

[OldMaestro]

Take a walk around 3rd and cambria.

[Seanibus]

Raising chickens is taking off in NYC as part of the movement towards fresh, local produce. Let's do the same here in Philadelphia. The web site Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction has set up a page about chickens in Philadelphia and started a petition. Sign up today!

Chickens provide fresh eggs and meat, are easy to care for. Philadelphians are raising chickens anyway, let's come out of the dark.

That's just what we need in fairmount - more creatures leaving poop on the sidewalk.

[sometimesilie]

Raising chickens is taking off in NYC as part of the movement towards fresh, local produce. Let's do the same here in Philadelphia. The web site Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction has set up a page about chickens in Philadelphia and started a petition. Sign up today!

Chickens provide fresh eggs and meat, are easy to care for. Philadelphians are raising chickens anyway, let's come out of the dark.

Don't chickens get up with the sun? 5 days a week would be fine by me but day 6 and 7 might see me wringing their necks.

[UrbanHomesteadr]

Don't chickens get up with the sun? 5 days a week would be fine by me but day 6 and 7 might see me wringing their necks.

Without roosters there won't be much noise. (Roosters make a mighty fine meal in a crockpot if you get hold of one.) Sometimes hens can crow and take on a male role for the brood but those hens become dinner.

There's a lot of covert chicken owners throughout Philadelphia, perhaps even your neighbor, and you wouldn't even know it. NYC is doing just fine with them, minus the occasional nuisance owner or stray rooster. But those kinds of things happen with the legal animals in the city too and are inevitable.

[OldMaestro]

You have the chicken, the hen and the rooster. The rooster has sex with the hen. Who's having sex with the chicken?

[seand]

I know folks who keep chickens for eggs in the city. No problems with neighbors. Chickens eat the kitchen scraps, give them eggs, chicken poop goes in garden for fertilizer. But stupidly this is illegal in Philadelphia thanks to legislation passed by City Council back in 2001. As part of Council's never ending quest to avoid the politically hair issues involving patronage by focusing on non-issues they unfortunately focused on urban gardeners who keep a couple of hens in the name of "progress". Idiocy as usual.

Oh and if you are a chicken who rides a fixy bike while buying stuff in plastic bags, forget it.

[UrbanHomesteadr]

I know folks who keep chickens for eggs in the city. No problems with neighbors. Chickens eat the kitchen scraps, give them eggs, chicken poop goes in garden for fertilizer. But stupidly this is illegal in Philadelphia thanks to legislation passed by City Council back in 2001. As part of Council's never ending quest to avoid the politically hair issues involving patronage by focusing on non-issues they unfortunately focused on urban gardeners who keep a couple of hens in the name of "progress". Idiocy as usual.

Oh and if you are a chicken who rides a fixy bike while buying stuff in plastic bags, forget it.

Well said, seand.

[sometimesilie]

Without roosters there won't be much noise. (Roosters make a mighty fine meal in a crockpot if you get hold of one.) Sometimes hens can crow and take on a male role for the brood but those hens become dinner.

There's a lot of covert chicken owners throughout Philadelphia, perhaps even your neighbor, and you wouldn't even know it. NYC is doing just fine with them, minus the occasional nuisance owner or stray rooster. But those kinds of things happen with the legal animals in the city too and are inevitable.

Hey, that's good info.!

My mom's friend was a (not so) covert chicken owner and raised 'em within city limits for years, until they recently left for the burbs. Whether it was my imagination or not, the frequent deliveries of fresh brown eggs were the most delicious I've ever had.

[steco]

A pack of wild chickens has colonized the 600 block of Pierce Street in South Philadelphia.

Everyone on the block knows about them — it's impossible not to. From the roosters' first early-morning cock-a-doodle-doos to the final muffled clucking of the brood as it settles down for the night, the chickens make a din that can be heard on either side of the block and, indeed, from a few blocks away.

They're everywhere — lurking in the tall grasses of the block's vacant lots, clambering over the concrete walls that separate neighbors' yards, seeking out friendly humans with a bite to eat, escorting the chicks, like ducklings, across the road.

No one knows how many there are.
more

[phillyaggie]

You have the chicken, the hen and the rooster. The rooster has sex with the hen. Who's having sex with the chicken?

Do the chickens have large talons?

[eldondre]

they definitely have chickens in the puerto rican neighborhood. cockfighting is common there as well, it's legal in PR. "it's 3 am and I'm at a cock fight, what am I holding on to?"

[johnnie]

But a chicken has personality!

[UrbanHomesteadr]

A pack of wild chickens has colonized the 600 block of Pierce Street in South Philadelphia.

Great article. Surprisingly fair. I particularly like the end:

"I'm used to them," says Lemwannd Loet, 14. "If they weren't there, I'd feel weird."

Indeed, almost everyone I talked to on the diverse block — from whites to African-Americans to Cambodians, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans — expressed a kind of live-and-let-live tolerance for the chickens.

Even some of the old-timers, who have lived in the neighborhood their whole lives, seem remarkably laissez-faireabout the whole thing.

"I don't mind 'em," says Freddie Reitano, an Italian-American resident who moved to his house on Watkins in the mid-1950s (hauling his things by horse and carriage, he says).

"As long as nobody complains, it's OK with me. I got a rabbit downstairs. I'm an animal lover myself."

[cerberus413]

NYC is doing just fine with them

FYI this isnt NYC...

[UrbanHomesteadr]

FYI this isnt NYC...

Thanks for the heads up! I was wondering where the Statue of Liberty was!

I think if NYC can handle chickens, then Philly definitely can. Or were you making a point that Philadelphians are too delicate and sensitive to be able to handle more freedom and liberty? If that's the case, I'd have to disagree. At least not my friends and family.

[cerberus413]

Thanks for the heads up! I was wondering where the Statue of Liberty was!

I think if NYC can handle chickens, then Philly definitely can. Or were you making a point that Philadelphians are too delicate and sensitive to be able to handle more freedom and liberty? If that's the case, I'd have to disagree. At least not my friends and family.

No Im just sick and tired of the "if xxx can do it so can we" statement...thats all.



Its bad enough I have to deal with dog feces and urine smell....adding chicken **** on top of that list would make it oh so lovely.

If I want to live on a farm ill move there...

[UrbanHomesteadr]

No Im just sick and tired of the "if xxx can do it so can we" statement...thats all.



Its bad enough I have to deal with dog feces and urine smell....adding chicken **** on top of that list would make it oh so lovely.

If I want to live on a farm ill move there...

I can understand your concerns but I think they're misplaced. I doubt Philadelphia would turn into Lancaster County. If chickens were legal, how many people do you know who would run out and buy them? Only reason I bring up NYC is that it is another major metro area not because it is a facsimile.

I guess it is my libertarian side is showing when I talk about personal freedom and liberty. I don't want government bureaucrats trying to tell me I can't have a chicken just like I don't want them touching my guns or my right to carry (noticed your sig).

[OldMaestro]

they definitely have chickens in the puerto rican neighborhood. cockfighting is common there as well, it's legal in PR. "it's 3 am and I'm at a cock fight, what am I holding on to?"

Little Yerry Seinfeld?

[Preesi]

Chicken Busters:

In certain areas of the City, there is a concentration of chickens wandering along neighborhood streets. Since April 2003, a joint team of Firefighters, Code Enforcement Officers, and NET personnel has dedicated time (once a month) to ridding neighborhoods of these chickens. Because of this operation, it has become evident that loose chickens are much more of a problem than anticipated, with captured chickens numbering in the thousands. Captured chickens are sold to farms in Homestead and the proceeds go to charities in the City (including the Mayor’s Holiday Celebration). The newly-formed Department of Code Enforcement continues this coordinated effort.

• Total # of chickens caught, since April, 2003: 6427
• Total amount of revenue from sold chickens since April, 2003: $10,650