Ann Arbor OK's chickens in your back yard

By a vote of 7-4, the ownage of up to four hens was approved by Ann Arbor City Council last night. Some stipulations were put in place as far as housing of said chickens and you would need an OK from your neighbors, but as of now, Ann Arbor has taken the lead in spreading the bird flu (and omelettes) in Washtenaw County. The four who voted NO on owning chickens were Joan Lowenstein, Stephen Rapundalo, Leigh Greden and Chris Easthope.

Will you be getting a chicken or four?

The Ann Arbor 'chicken ordinance' gets the go ahead to advance

Over the objections of two members, the Ann Arbor City Council voted to hold public hearings on the possibility of keeping up to four hens, with proper fencing and shelter for the chickens and tacit approval from nearby neighbors.

We find this interesting, amusing, but in a way, we can also see that the next door neighbor who may not want to live near chickens, could be cast as the 'heavy' in all this (As Mayor John Hieftje who we dog on a lot brought to light, very correctly). "Everything was fine until my jackass neighbor said no". So we'll keep watching, and listening to those on both sides and see where this goes.

We DO wonder the press this might get in mmmm, say the Columbus Post-Dispatch as Ann Arbor becomes "Chicken Town"...

We interrupt this St. Patrick's Day fun for a strange proposal in Ann Arbor

"Chicken make lousy housepet"

Ann Arbor City Council Member Steve Kunselman wants to change existing laws to allow Ann Arbor residents own and use for valuable egg purposes up to FOUR hens.. Roosters would be expressly prohibited. You also cannot under any circumstances use your chickens for slaughter or meat purposes which on it's face is ridiculous, if you can only have four it doesn't sound like Orwell's Animal Farm ya know? If they are YOUR chickens, and you can legally own them, where does the Ann Arbor City Council's legal interest in keeping you from some tasty BBQ? Answer, they HAVE no interest legally or otherwise. If they say you can own hens, and how you must keep them in coops, that's where the control will stop. Besides, try enforcing that.

"Jimbo, I noticed you had 4 hens yesterday and you ate BBQ last night and today you have 3 hens, by God, I'm calling the police."

YCD is a live and let live kinda place. If Ann Arbor wants chickens in every yard, sobeit. We'll be right here fanning the flames on the BBQ.