Her hens are gone, but city chicken fan fights on
There are three dogs at Louise Hanavan’s house and some goldfish in the living room. But if you’ve come to this Edinburgh Street bungalow in Halifax looking for chickens, you’re out of luck.
Out the back door and a dozen feet beyond the grapevine-ceilinged deck, Hanavan points to where her three hens — Bernadette, Captain Crochet and Chicken — used to peck away their days.
What used to be the chicken run, before her poultry’s 2008 eviction for violating a Halifax Regional Municipality land-use bylaw, is now a leaf mulch pile.
Since she sent her birds to live on a Bridgewater farm, Hanavan has worked with quiet diligence to change the city’s mind about urban hens. Always patient. Always following due process.
"It’s been almost four years," the 28-year-old says with a meaningful sigh.
"It’s just ridiculous."
So?
So Hanavan is leading a workshop on Nov. 12 called Keeping Chickens in the City.
Can you tell she’s done with following the rules?
"I am really excited that I’m encouraging people to break the law," she says.
Hanavan’s workshop, part of the 12th annual ACORN (Atlantic Canadian Regional Organic Network) conference, Nov. 11-13, in Dartmouth, will teach aspiring urban farmers about hen health, rodent control and how to keep chickens cozy all winter.
It’s everything people need to know to tend an egg-producing backyard flock. Just as scores of folks do in Ann Arbor, Mich., Brampton, Ont., and Victoria, B.C.
"Every time I read about (a new urban hen bylaw) in the newspaper, it just breaks my heart," Hanavan says. "We should be leading this movement. This was really the first city where it came up in Canada."
Halifax’s only current urban flock lives in a chic shack on Bloomfield Street at the home of Fred Connors and Joel Flewelling.
Connors has been in an unrepentant cockfight with HRM since 2010, openly defying the land-use bylaw with his six chickens and two ducks.
Hanavan is warming to the approach.
"I think Fred really has the right idea," Hanavan says. "He’s saying to the city, ‘OK, arrest me for keeping chickens.’ I think that’s the right attitude at this point."
Hanavan opened the HRM letter bidding her birds farewell in January 2008, after a neighbour complained about rats.
"I was so heartened by the public conversation," she says. "It really got people talking about what role food plays in cities and what rights we have as citizens to produce our own food."
She didn’t want to give up her hens but Hanavan figured maybe "something bigger would happen."
Two staff reports, a planning advisory committee report, a public information session, a survey and two councillors later, Hanavan is still waiting for the issue to hatch. A third report is expected at peninsula community council, possibly in December.
Coun. Jennifer Watts (Connaught-Quinpool) says the trick isn’t asking whether urban hens are good or bad but whether they can work in the context of the peninsula.
"There are people who are interested in the ability to have this happen and (there are) people who are really concerned about the impact of chickens," Watts says. "I want to know: is there a way to find a mechanism that will balance both?"
That’s the work of this year’s ACORN conference, too.
Hanavan’s talk is one of 40 happening over the three-day event. ACORN workshops typically focus on farming nitty-gritty, with topics decided on by a program committee from that year’s host province.
"This year’s conference is about more urban issues, topics that have been identified as important to Nova Scotia by Nova Scotians," says ACORN executive director Beth McMahon.
Turns out Hanavan’s a hot ticket.
"People have been calling specifically for this workshop," McMahon says.
Today, Louise Hanavan’s chicken run is gone.
Her former coop sits in the driveway. The 4-by-3-by-3-foot plywood and tin box is used to store garbage.
Hanavan isn’t saving it for her hens’ return.
First off, Bernadette, Captain Crochet and Chicken are dead.
"They were so domesticated they really didn’t know how to run away from predators."
And besides, Hanavan doesn’t plan on keeping urban hens on Edinburgh Street.
She might delight in encouraging urban-dwellers to mess with the law but not with their neighbours.
"At this point, I prioritize my relationship with my neighbours over having chickens."
And what about the rodent complaint that launched this whole business?
"Four years later," says Hanavan, "and we still have rats."