Backyard Chickens? NIMBY! NIMBY! NIMBY!
Whew! The racket coming from Clay County, Florida is pretty funny. The county is considering an ordinance that would allow homeowners to own up to four chickens apiece, just no roosters.
Backyard chickens are a growing fad all over the country. But three Homeowners Associations on Fleming Island are kicking up a fuss. They don’t mind chickens elsewhere, but just no chickens where gentrified people can see them. The excuses they give (in the story linked below) are pretty amusing. They’re afraid if a dog sees a chicken and jumps the fence it might injure a child. (Huh?) They’re also afraid a county ordinance would supersede their contractual covenant rights. (It won’t.)
But the squawking and henpecking is really something to behold.
I’ve got a great solution for chicken lovers. Just release a truckload of chickens and roosters into the middle of these HOAs. If you’ve ever vacationed on Kauai you’ve undoubtedly seen some of the tens of thousands of chickens and roosters running wild. Seems a hurricane or two knocked down their pens and they’ve been breeding faster than anyone can hunt them. The screeching and crowing is beyond description.
To me, that sounds like it would be a hoot!
(link to story on Florida chicken controversy)