Click HERE to listen to Leslie on Contact Radio’s “The Chemical-Free Living Show”.

I like to think I’m an urban environmentalist. I compost. I rely on pedal-power more than fossil-fuel to get around town. I buy local. And organic. But it seems I’m missing a key green accessory that all the groovy greens have. It’s no longer enough to have a hybrid in your driveway and solar panels on your roof. I don’t have…wait for it…backyard chickens.
Turns out that chickens aren’t just for farmers and commune-dwellers anymore. As one site puts it, urban greens are putting the “chic in chicken.”
Though I might sound like I’m joking (yolking? ha!), I find the notion quite appealing. I like chickens (and not just on a rotisserie!). They have that amusing jerky way of moving around – like Seinfeld’s Elaine on the dance floor. They eat grubs and control mosquitoes. They are a clucking, pecking composting machine.
I’m rescued, however, from my feathered fantasy by a friend who confesses his own poultry past. Having given it two attempts, the result (save for a few weeks of double-yolked eggs that he says were delicious) were hen carcasses littering the coop. I imagine my own two dogs licking their chops at the prospect of chicken dinners (we already had a rather sad experience with Stewey, a backyard bunny) and decide that backyard chickens are one green accessory I’m going to have to do without.
I hear rumours, however, that goats are gaining in popularity. And just think of the things I wouldn’t have to landfill if I had a pet goat!