Backyard chickens provide an inexpensive, nutritious, and regular source of protein with minimal investment. Cities can do more to help Canadians adopt them.
With inflation hitting all areas of spending, Canadians say food prices are hit the hardest. From May 2021 to May 2022, the price of food increased by 9.7%. And in a survey conducted by Statistics Canada in April, 43% of respondents said rising food prices affected them the most in the past six months, followed by rising transportation prices, at 32%.
Staple foods increased across the board in May 2022, from fresh fruit (+10%) to meat (+10.1%) and fresh vegetables (+8.2%). While growing vegetables in your backyard allows people to grow their own food source (along with the wellness benefits of tending a garden), complex protein sources are harder to come by. That’s where backyard chickens come into play. Chickens lay an average of one egg a day for 200 to 250 days a year. They are a reliable source of fresh protein with little initial and ongoing cost.
As the price of groceries rises, growing your own food can be a powerful tool to affordably feed households and make cities more food secure. Backyard chickens can be part of this strategy.
The idea: Support urban food security by allowing citizens to raise laying hens in their backyards.
How does it work: For the past decade, cities across Canada have been piloting urban chicken programs. Saint John was the first city in the Maritimes to allow owners to raise chickens, in 2013, while Toronto’s UrbanHensTO pilot program began five years later. Vancouver and Calgary began allowing backyard chickens in 2022, though Calgary, which recently followed suit, capped its program at 100 applicants for the first year.
Rules vary by city, but chicken farmers usually need to apply for a permit or register their chickens. Vancouver allows a maximum of four hens, while Calgary stipulates a minimum of two and a maximum of four, since the hens must be part of a flock. The statutes also cover the size of the enclosures, along with doors that can be locked at night to protect them from predators, such as coyotes.
Paul Hughes, CEO of Grow Calgary, a nonprofit community farm, has long been an advocate for urban chickens. “They fit in really well in an urban setting because of their size and how easy it is to feed them table scraps,” explains Hughes, helping to reduce household waste. Alternatively, he says a $10 bag of feed sustains three hens for two months. Enclosures can run the gamut of costs, but Hughes built his out of scrap materials. The hens themselves are also cheap, costing about $10 each for a standard laying hen, and up to $50 or more for traditional varieties that lay eggs in unconventional colors.
However, there are opponents of the move, citing concerns about cleanliness, hygiene and noise. The city of Tecumseh, in southwestern Ontario, discontinued its two-year urban chicken pilot program in March 2022 due to complaints that the coops attracted rodents. But Hughes says that mice and rats are prevalent in urban settings and that the presence of chickens is not a significant factor in their proliferation. Although chickens are susceptible to bird flu, the segregated nature of backyard flocks makes it easy to identify and isolate problems to prevent the spread of disease.
As for noise complaints, Hughes reminds us that it’s the roosters that crow, not the hens, which is why most urban chicken programs don’t allow roosters. “Chickens are very, very calm,” he says. “They’ll make a little noise when they’re eating an egg because they’re so proud. That is his big event of the day.”
The panorama: Urban chickens are not the only solution to feeding cities, but they can be part of it. “Our food security in Canada is very low,” explains Hughes. “Each small initiative will greatly increase our ability to feed ourselves. Families who choose to keep chickens will improve the food security of their household.” Hughes believes that cities can and should do more to encourage citizens to raise chickens through municipal campaigns, similar to recycling campaigns. “[Cities can] promoting chickens as a way to reduce organic waste and as a way to access nutritious food,” he says.
Just as cities offer free compost for gardens, cities could also subsidize the materials needed to raise chickens as an incentive, or subsidize the chickens themselves. In 2010, the city of Mouscron in Belgium gave away 50 pairs of chickens as a means of waste management and egg production.
As a bonus, Hughes reminds us of the emotional support chickens provide. “We call them pets with benefit pets,” he says. “A dog doesn’t give you anything back. A cat doesn’t give you anything back. But a hen gives you an egg.”
This story is part of a series on food insecurity in Canada funded by the Maple Leaf Center for Action on Food Safetyin alliance with Community Food Centers Canada.