This morning, I received a phone call from Dan Olson, City Planner of Northfield.* He advised me that he'd received a complaint about our chickens. Well, the complaint wasn't really about the chickens, the complaint was that there are chickens in our yard. And that's illegal.
Like many folks in town, I keep chickens. Three of them. Girls. Hens, rather. Sydney, Dixie, and Tallulah. They lay yummy eggs. They scratch around their coop, eat the slugs in my hosta garden, and generally entertain me with their wacky chicken antics. They also remind me that food doesn't just show up on the shelves of the grocery store. And as I learned today, they also make me in violation of Section 34-840, subsection C, line 7 of Northfield Municipal Code which limits agriculture in my zone (Residental 2) to "crops and forestry." (Note: I did check the Muni Code before getting chickens 2 years ago, but looked in the "prohibited animals" section that does not mention chickens and thought I was in the clear...alas.) Dan asked me to comply with the City's code, which I suppose means get rid of the chickens. He also told me that the City Council is considering changing code to allow folks in residential areas to keep hens, but that it won't be considered before this fall.
And a blog was born.
The purpose of this blog is to educate folks about chickens and keeping chickens and to promote Northfield's adoption of new municipal code that allows hens in town.
Updates to come.
*Dan Olson was doing his job, and my disagreement is not with him. He was polite and and emailed me the draft language for the new code. :)
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