The city of Dayton is looking for the public’s opinion on whether or not residents should be able to keep and raise chickens on their properties.
Officials have been looking into eliminating the current ban on backyard poultry.
But there is a lot to consider. Click here for more on what people are saying.
People have started hoarding chickens in cities like Boston, Massachusetts and Madison, Wisc., illegally in their backyards in an underground “urban chicken” movement.
There are already 160 U.S. cities that permit backyard chickens, according to some estimates.
Is this just a passing phase or something that’s coming to stay?
Here are some pros and cons of backyard birds:
Pros
- Fresh, locally grown eggs would become more available to the community. People now have a larger interest in where their food comes from and this can put them at ease. This is also a way to bypass the third-party providers.
- Chickens love to eat insects and can do so on your property, keeping away unwanted critters. Some bugs that chickens love to eat are termites, ticks, stink bugs, flies and grasshoppers. Along with pest control, chickens are also good for soil. They have the possibility to turn a backyard into a fertile garden.
- Another pro with lifting this ban is that it could help boost green gardens along with encouraging healthy eating.
Cons
- There is lot of maintenance when it comes to keeping a chicken coop. They can be dirty, produce unpleasant odors and it can be a hassle to control the chickens.
- Chickens have been known to carry diseases. The avian flu was so bad last year that all bird exhibitions were canceled for most of the year in Ohio. More than 40 million chickens were killed by the avian flu in the U.S. in 2015. Find out more about this viral disease.
- While chickens may be able to help with pests in the form of insects, they can also bring some hungry, unwanted guest themselves. Birds raised for their meat can create noises that give hungry dogs and other predators an opportunity to find your poultry.
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