I wasn’t going to post this story from the Province about Vancouver’s low numbers of registered chickens, with everything else going on this week.
But I woke up this morning in the middle of a dream that two chickens — horribly, scrawny ones with most of their feathers gone and their red, scabby skin showing — had somehow gotten into my bedroom during the night through the window, which is a long way up from the street, and were running around in the room. I think I was waiting for city licence inspector Tom Hammel to come and get them out of my house, but in the meantime, they were actually scary and creating quite an uproar in the house.
I’m fairly certain it was all generated by reading Tom Hammel’s quote about chickens just walking down the middle of the road.
So I’m seeing it as a sign from the Chicken Gods that I should link to this story.
32 responses so far ↓
1 Morven // Jan 14, 2011 at 9:27 am
Surely we are not crying fowl about this issue once again?
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2 Agustin // Jan 14, 2011 at 11:28 am
So there’s a quote in a newspaper article about chickens walking down the road, and absolutely no reference to any of them getting to the other side?
3 IanS // Jan 14, 2011 at 12:58 pm
“So there’s a quote in a newspaper article about chickens walking down the road…”
Perhaps we need some form of separated chicken lane, to assist them?
4 Bill McCreery // Jan 14, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Is walking down the road how you play chicken?
5 Agustin // Jan 14, 2011 at 2:51 pm
@IanS, #3: Are you kidding? They don’t wear helmets, they don’t wear lights, they have absolutely no respect for the laws of the road. Until chickens are licensed and forced to carry insurance, they don’t get their own lanes!
Why, just the other day I was cycling down the Hornby lane and a chicken stepped out in front of me without looking where he was going. He just strolled across the lane, puffing his chest out, like nobody else mattered but him. They have to learn what’s what if they want their own lanes!
6 IanS // Jan 14, 2011 at 2:58 pm
@ Augustin #5,
Perhaps you are correct, education is the answer. Perhaps the City could set up some kind of program to teach them the rules of the road at an early age. If get them when they’re chicks, hopefully the whole process of crossing the road will become safer for everyone.
7 The Fourth Horseman // Jan 14, 2011 at 3:15 pm
I just wanna tell ‘em to flock off.
8 Morven // Jan 14, 2011 at 3:20 pm
We trust Council will not be egged on by special interest groups.
Just shell shocked I can tell you.
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9 Frances Bula // Jan 14, 2011 at 3:39 pm
I cannot believe the series of horrendously bad puns that are being laid on this post. Talk about birds of a feather flocking together.
10 Morven // Jan 14, 2011 at 3:50 pm
And that said, when there are bad policies, the chickens come home to roost.
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11 IanS // Jan 14, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Frances, I agree about the terrible quality of the puns. Perhaps everyone should just cluck off.
12 Richard // Jan 14, 2011 at 6:46 pm
@Morven
Seems like the only negative of the backyard chicken policy has been bad puns. As usual, in spite of all the nattering nabobs of negative, the sky has not fallen.
13 Richard // Jan 14, 2011 at 6:46 pm
I meant to say negativity.
14 spartikus // Jan 14, 2011 at 7:25 pm
It’s like watching Wayne and Shuster.
15 The Fourth Horseman // Jan 14, 2011 at 9:05 pm
We’re here all week, folks…try the veal!
16 The Fourth Horseman // Jan 14, 2011 at 9:06 pm
…the chickens will appreciate it…
17 Morven // Jan 14, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Evidently the city has abandoned plans, if they ever indeed existed, for a shelter for homeless chickens.
Pity. It would have been nice to have a coop d’etat in the city.
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18 Bill McCreery // Jan 14, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Frances 9, maybe we could hear from the other regulars. No doubt they can lay an egg or two.
19 George // Jan 14, 2011 at 10:13 pm
But I’m confused, what came first, the chicken or the egg?
20 landlord // Jan 15, 2011 at 1:05 am
Pay, I say, pay attention,boy!
To bgaaaawk or not to bgaaaawk, that is the question.
http://www.savagechickens.com/2006/03/alas-poor-yorick.html
21 George // Jan 15, 2011 at 1:36 am
landlord..
eggzactly what this conversation needed visuals…very funny
22 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Jan 15, 2011 at 2:27 am
A chicken and an egg are lying in bed together, both a little flustered and out of breath.
The egg lights a smoke and leans back, looking quite content.
The chicken appears to be a little pissed off and on edge, and remarks in a huffy tone, “Well, I guess we answered THAT question.”
23 Norman // Jan 15, 2011 at 8:30 am
Bring them on over to my chicken rescue. I have already rescued a couple and I can do with about one every Sunday.
24 Jason king // Jan 15, 2011 at 9:51 am
You know it’s funny…I grew up with backyard chickens. We had several instances where the damn birds got out and were literally running down the street in oak bay. It makes for a fun visual on a city street….
Nothing wrong with backyard chickens…but it’s the sort of thing that should have been a 5 min council discussion instead of a major policy initiative…
25 The Fourth Horseman // Jan 15, 2011 at 10:09 am
Foghorn Leghorn: He’s One of Us!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LCsiWL6gn0
26 Higgins // Jan 15, 2011 at 1:40 pm
How much money did the City, Mayor and Council spent on this in the past two years? Studies, meetings, more meetings, Power Point Presentations.
Backyard chicken? Suuure…
Children’s Petting Zoo in Stanley Park?
THAT, they could terminate.
Tell you what, if I’ll never see these Vision bunch, ever, it would be too soon!
27 The Fourth Horseman // Jan 15, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Higgsy,
That’s true.
It wasn’t chicken feed.
28 Mo // Jan 16, 2011 at 11:00 am
“a chicken in every pot ”
Got mine last week from my neighbour as he had a dozen.
29 Richard // Jan 16, 2011 at 3:07 pm
@Higgins, Jason king
A good question. Might want to have a chat with Bill McCreery. He is always suggesting more studies on issues and as you mentioned, there is a cost of all this studying and planning. There obviously is a balance. However, it is all the doubting Thomases ( Thomas’s, Thomi) many of whom are regular posters who seem to want more studies and plans.
30 Bill McCreery // Jan 16, 2011 at 7:18 pm
I’d be pleased to chat with Higgins, Jason or others who would like to have a sincere discussion of what appropriate planning priorities, methodologies and studies are about and what sort of things might be appropriate in a given situation.
Although this Vision Council has made the chicken thing a “major policy initiative” I tend to agree with Higgins and Jason that it does not warrant such status. And, I have credited staff above for having had the good sense to take a wait and see on this one. That means no more studies Richard.
I also want to correct Richard once again and make it clear that when I speak about ‘planning studies’, I normally do so within the context of an issue or proposal before Council.
Among other things, in addition to ignoring their promised “open and transparent” governance this Vision Council has, based on what they and staff are doing on the ground, a secret agenda which will deliver their ideological objectives. They have, but not publicly available by and large ‘ increased density plans’ for neighbourhoods all over the City. They, unfortunately, do not feel it is necessary to reveal what these ‘plans’ are. For instance, the resignation of the Chair of the BAC last week confirms that even one of Vision’s closest’s stakeholder groups has been left out of meaningful involvement in the planning of the Dunsmuir and Hornby bike lanes.
The Vision Council have and continue to double book 2 inter-related public meetings on a given evening. Last week it was the Safeway Design Panel and Shannon Mews, this week it’s Marine Drive and Cambie and tall buildings on Monday, and Riley Park and Ecodensity on Wednesday. Their excuse is that there is to much going on. Why? What’s the hurry? What is your agenda Vision? By your actions you demonstrate you want to control the message, and you do not respect public input into the planning processes which determine their own neighbourhoods.
In addition, the multitude of spot rezonings being processed all over the City are being presented in a disingenuous manner by the City. The City repeats over and over again that these spot rezoning PROPOSALS are not necessarily cast in stone, that the public will have ‘meaningful’ input in spite of the fact that these PROPOSALS typically ignore the existing neighbourhood plan and are well in excess of zoning by-law requirements. It remains to be seen how “meaningful” the public’s involvement will be.
Based on what we have seen to date, expectations should not be high. Public trust is being seriously eroded.
31 Roger Kemble // Jan 17, 2011 at 4:57 am
“People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately.” . . . Oscar Wilde.
In my youth I was a very junior member on the design team that built the Abbottsford experimental chicken farm: huge plywood sheds. Is it still there?
Odorous! The din was cacophonous: fluttering, clucking, gyrations only the birds understood: a sight to see.
Which brings me to my earlier New Years comment. To wit: “I have learned very much reading and participating on this blog!
THANQU
32 Dan Cooper // Jan 17, 2011 at 9:07 am
Indeed, this should have been a five minute discussion (the more so as every other city in the area and most of North America already allows chickens, with no notable problems). Let us not forget, tho’, the role of the cluckin’ news media that ranted and raved on and on about how the city was insane for even thinking of the idea, and making it a Huge Big Deal for months in article after article. “OMG, the chickens are coming! Prepare for the Apocalypse and Plunging Property Values (if there’s a difference)!” Frances, as usual, had the best term for this phenomenon. What was it again, The Great Vancouver Chicken Shunning? *heh*
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