Editor:

    As we become more aware of the need to keep our
planet– and our families– healthier, more and more people are making
small changes in their lifestyles. It could be trying to eat fresher,
healthier, locally-grown foods (healthy for the body, the local
economy, and the environment by not trucking food thousands of miles);
it could be getting outside more to de-stress and reconnect with
nature, to slow down a little from our busy modern lives; it could be
trying to reuse and recycle as much as possible.

    My family grows vegetables in a small backyard
organic garden. It gives us a lot of pleasure to pick our dinner
veggies each night, and it’s a fantastic lesson for children to see
where food comes from: not always from the supermarket wrapped in
plastic! We would love to be able to walk out into the backyard to get
our breakfast, too, in the form of fresh organic eggs from our backyard
hens. The hens would eat garden scraps and, in return, give us fresh
eggs and fantastic compost for the garden.

    Towns and cities all over America have recognized
the value – to the community, neighborhoods, the environment, children,
and families– of relaxing their zoning laws to allow a few
carefully-tended, PET backyard hens. In urban and suburban areas,
backyard hens are kept as pets, not as farm animals. Hens are welcomed
in upscale neighborhoods  nationwide (including Cape Elizabeth),
where they reside in stylish backyard henhouses and are kept as clean
as any other pet. A rural farmer might clean his chicken coop once a
year but backyard coops are often cleaned daily! Hens (no crowing
roosters, of course!!) kept as pets don’t smell and when hand-raised
from chicks they can be affectionate pets. Suburban chickens are kept
enclosed in pretty garden sheds; they don’t wander freely in the
neighborhood. In fact, backyard chickens cause a lot less of a
nuisance, smell and noise than many pet dogs.

    We’re hoping that the city of South Portland will
join communities all over America in allowing backyard hens. The next
City Council Workshop on this issue is Monday, June 25th. Councilors
Hughes, Morgan, and Baxter support amending the zoning ordinance to
allow a few backyard hens.

    We’ve heard from many, many South Portland families
who also support this, and feel that –far from harming property values
as some councilors fear– this will make South Portland an even more
pleasant place to live. More information at www.SoPoChickens.org.

Stacey, Olivia, and Neil Collins

South Portland