Chickens Are A Scourge And Should Not Be In Park Slope (Or Anywhere)
As you may have heard by now, some people in Park Slope are pretty pissed about a chicken coop that’s moved into a local community garden. The eight hens are adorable and a great addition to the garden, say some. They’re loud, disgusting rodent-bait being kept in an annoying exclusive garden, say others. Petitions and angry community meetings abound.
A tale as old as time.
Now, normally my feelings on this would just be along the noncommittal lines of “Good fences make good neighbors,” or, “Hey, no big deal, but if you wanna be that quaint, maybe live somewhere other than one of the world’s largest, busiest urban metropolises.”
However, as a person with a yard adjacent to not only chickens but a fucking rooster (who has yet to be corralled in spite of numerous calls to animal control, I would note), I feel comfortable and qualified to pass swift, harsh, irrevocable judgment on these idiot chicken-havers.
While chickens (and not roosters) are legal within city limits, it is a slippery, slippery slope into becoming a nightmare of a neighbor who not only contributes extra on-the-ground poop (and poop smells) to the neighborhood, but deprives several buildings worth of people of sleep. Good fences make good neighbors, but so does not keeping horrible, city-inappropriate animals in your yard. Living in New York or having chickens seems like more than a fair trade-off.
Anyway, apparently the community will soon hold a vote on the fate of these intrusive hens. Let’s hope Park Slope residents come down on the right side of history. The anti-city-chicken side.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.
