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HUSBANDRY
Three shifty-eyed feathered rebels cluck and bob excitedly as their owner, an unlikely activist in an upscale midtown Toronto neighbourhood, slides open her kitchen door, steps into die backyard and, as a treat, scatters a handful of cracked corn. At the house next door, men carry furniture, signs of new neighbours moving in. "I may have to bribe them with some eggs," muses the woman.
Calling herself Toronto Chicken (TC) to protect her anonymity, she's part of a wave of urbanités newly obsessed with raising chickens in city backyards - even if they have to change die law to do it.
In recent years, challenges to antichicken-keeping laws have made the birds legal in cities such as Cleveland, Ohio, and Pordand, Oregon. Vancouver is expected to allow it this spring; New York, Chicago and smaller municipalities such as Niagara Falls, Ont., never banned chickens.
In other cities, the fight is ongoing. Moncton is trying a pilot project allowing one backyard coop; Halifax is reconsidering its ban after earlier forcing two chicken owners to get rid of their birds; and while the Waterloo, Ont., city council voted no, Toronto is studying chickens as part of a larger look at urban food production.
TC knows of a dozen...