An Urban's Rural View

Tender hearted? Love animals? Why not head on down to the local shelter and adopt an abandoned dog, cat ... or chicken?

Yes, chicken. Ponder this headline on NBCNews.com:

"Backyard chickens dumped at shelters when hipsters can't cope, critics say." (http://tiny.cc/…)

OK, the places in question don't keep cats and dogs. They have names like Farm Sanctuary (which is said to operate three shelters on two coasts) and Chicken Run Rescue (one in Minneapolis).

But the problem is real. According to the NBC News article both organizations receive as many as 500 unwanted chickens a year. Seems raising your own eggs and meat behind the house isn't easy, however humane and sustainable it might sound.

"It's the stupid foodies," says the owner of Chicken Run Rescue. "We're just sick to death of it."

The article hears out the defenders of backyard poultry farms. Don't let a few mistakes condemn the whole program, one says: "Hundreds of thousands of people are realizing the wonderful benefits of raising a small flock of backyard chickens, the pets that make you breakfast."

The problem is that after a couple of years they sometimes don't. That's especially true if they've been given enhanced feed or light or other encouragements to lay. They may stop laying altogether but continue to live and devour feed.

Worse, chick sexing is easy to screw up. Roosters don't make anything you'd want for breakfast but they make enough noise that local laws often frown on them.

So what to do if you're a local-food type whose nostalgia for the days of self-sufficiency lays an egg -- or, rather, doesn't? That's right: Dump the flock on the local shelter.

It's unclear from the article how many animal lovers are taking home the rejected chickens as pets. But maybe they should. "Oh, my god, they're amazing," Farm Sanctuary's director tells NBC. "We have some of the sweetest ones here. They just sit beside you and they let you pet them. And they're big and dumpy."

Urban Lehner can be reached at urbanity@hotmail.com

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