Published: June 16, 2008 08:49 am         

Krohn Column: Urban chickens

It’s been like a 2-by-4 aside the head.

There’s nothing like $4 gas and $3.50 milk to get people thinking differently.

For 30 some years the tree-loving, hemp-wearing crowd has been preaching to an SUV-driving, 4,000-square-foot split-level living congregation who were wholly uninterested in their message.

What is remarkable is the speed of the transformation we appear to be in. Big vehicles are being abandoned at a pace that forced GM to sever most of its SUV big truck production. One of the hottest vehicles on the after-market is the 1990 Geo Metro — three-cylinder, no air, 50 mpg — that only an owner totally devoid of pride would have been caught in when it came out.

When clothes hanging on a line in the yard would have once triggered the neighborhood association to call for a ban on eyesores, the idea now looks pretty smart.

Rain barrels to collect water from the roof are chic. Those big solar panels on the roof don’t look quite so dorky. Learning how to grow and can vegetables is trendy.

Running out of money three weeks into the month brings a sense of enlightenment no number of aging hippies could ever inspire.

The cheerless economic outlook dovetails gloomily with a growing worry about just what unseen pathogen might be in that head of lettuce, tomato or package of chicken you buy from the store.

For the first time in our history, we’ve become almost completely separated from our food. Food scares and escalating prices might be changing that.

Enter Jenny Britton. The Mankato woman is hoping to start a crusade to get Mankato to allow people to raise chickens — hens only — in town.

Britton, who lives a few blocks off the Madison Avenue hilltop, said she began studying the “urban chicken movement” and hoped to raise a couple, until learning it was banned.

“The eggs are a lot more nutritious. It’s a good thing to do. I think people are a lot more interested in where their food is coming from,” Britton said.

One of the main complaints with chickens is the early morning noise from roosters. But roosters aren’t needed for egg production. Hens lay them no matter what, they just aren’t fertilized and can’t hatch.

There is, indeed, a nationwide city chicken movement. Type “urban chickens” into Google and you can read about it for the rest of your life. Cities across the country have relaxed chicken raising rules, including New York, Houston and Oakland. Madison, Wis., allowed it after a push by residents. Many allow hens only.

A hen lays about 300 eggs (25 dozen) a year and home-raised ones taste better. The chickens are tastier, too, once you get past that head-chopping thing.

There are books and Internet stories on everything from making your own mechanical chicken plucker to dealing with a hen who goes “broody” (won’t get off her nest).

There are all sorts of designs for backyard chicken coops, including my favorite — a big round coop decorated as a KFC bucket with Col. Sanders smiling on.

You can buy a nice one called the Eglu. It’s touted as an all-in-one urban chicken coop, made of nylon and plastic with an attachable fencing area.

Mankato City Manager Pat Hentges says the city’s ban on chickens came about, as he remembers, from complaints of “some rogue chickens and crowing roosters.”

Hentges is sure of one thing. If an urban chickens proposal is brought to the council, it’ll likely turn ugly. “It would be a hotly debated issue.”

He recalls a controversy when he first began in city government in Faribault in the 1970s. A council member proposed a leash law for cats to protect song birds.

“It was one of the most grueling debates I’ve ever seen. You had the cat lovers and the bird lovers squared off in the council chambers,” he said. The cat lovers won.

“This (chicken proposal) would probably reach the same controversy level.”

It might cause Hentges headaches, but I say allowing chickens in town makes sense. It helps people be more self sustaining, save money, eat better and get them and the neighborhood kids back to lear-ning about where food comes from.

Besides, if you lose your house to foreclosure, that Eglu chicken coop tent might look pretty cozy.



Tim Krohn is a Free Press staff writer. He can be contacted at 344-6383 or

email him Tim by clicking here