Urban chickens: is the time right?

By Ry Clarke - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on September 13, 2022.

Herald photo by Ry Clarke Kelti Baird discusses with audience members the benefits to urban chicken keeping last Thursday at the Lethbridge Seniors Citizens Organization.

The Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs hosted an informational session on urban chickens in the city last Thursday at the Lethbridge Senior Citizens Organization.

The presentation looked to spread awareness of the benefits hen keeping provides toward sustainability and the environment, and how urban planning should allow for small-scale food production in our backyards.

Kelti Baird, hen enthusiast and co-owner of Theoretically Brewing, and Gilles Leclair, founding member and past president of the Lethbridge Sustainable Living Association, shared their knowledge with audience members on the positive effect urban chickens have on society and life.

Baird had previously brought forward a motion to Lethbridge City Council for an Urban Hen Pilot Project back in 2018, which was not passed, and is still actively pursuing change to Bylaw 3383, which prohibits the raising of poultry within the city.

“I proposed a program based heavily on a very successful program in Red Deer, asking for a controlled pilot program of no more than 50 to 100 residences,” said Baird. “It would have been a four-to-five-year timeline with a maximum of four hens per household.”

Noting the city did a survey through the Citizens Lab at Lethbridge College of 882 respondents to determine if they supported households having urban hens, the results were roughly 60 per cent opposed. But Baird notes the questions were not as robust as she would have liked to truly explore the option and its benefits.

Baird and Leclair argue the time is right to pursue this issue again with the topics of sustainability and food security becoming a rising issue with growing populations and food shortages increasing.

“Food resilience and the importance of achieving a level of stability, in which global and economic forces do not undermine our access to food is important,” said Leclair. “Can you say that today’s generation is equipped to handle a 1930’s style depression if they were left to their own devices? We have a fragile system here where toilet paper and meat can be depleted from our stores.”

The pair assert urban chickens can aid in multiple aspects, having many niches to what they offer.

“It lends a lot to food sustainability and environmental,” said Baird. “Allowing people to take organic waste from their kitchen and recycle it into food production, hens eat everything. Nitrogen from waste enriches the compost for future soil. Hen production also adds to sustainability through eggs and meat too.”

“Using chickens to help us reduce our waste disposal cost, would seem radical to some, but to me it’s innovative. Important things about chickens are, they are omnivores, they eat just about everything. Invasive weeds, seeds, slugs, grasshoppers, other insects, and mice. Four chickens can covert up to ten pounds of kitchen scraps to compost every week,” said Leclair. “In southern Alberta we could always use a good soil amendment. If one family on one city block has four chickens, they alone could reduce the burden of organic waste by around 500 pounds per year. That’s one twentieth of food scraps being diverted from our disposal costs.”

A petition was passed out at the event, looking to gain traction from the community to present to City Council. The pair hope more community members will add their input after understanding the benefits urban chicken keeping offers.

“The petition is a way for us to get this idea in front of council with a lot of community support behind it. If we have 1,000 signatures on the petition or 10,000, that gives City Council a good basis for decision making. It’s not just one or two people standing up saying ‘I want chickens.’ It’s 1,000s of people saying we’re okay with this. Let’s explore this as an opportunity for the city.”