Army Veteran of Iowa on Trial Over Chickens

There's an ordinance against livestock in the city limits...as there should be. Farm animals belong on a farm, not in a city backyard. IMO lines must be drawn, and having lived in close housing neighborhoods, I can say that there are people who shouldn't even have dogs because they allow them to become a nuisance.

The average person can cope with a cat or dog, but raising livestock has it's own set of problems regarding disease and parasite control, sanitation, breeding, required space and noise issues that have to be contended with. Imagine every one in the neighborhood jumping on the chicken raising bandwagon or what ever animal is the flavor of the month.

The second thing about this story is there seems to be a journalistic trend to sensationalize or capitalize on the "poor mistreated veteran" stories. Had the guy been a non-vet average Joe Blow you wouldn't even be hearing about him fighting city hall to grow chickens in his backyard. Don't get me wrong, I respect members of the military that give up so much to serve the country, but some of these stories are non-issues in my book.

I think the real story had more to do with the gun control bruhaha, than him being a veteran. Being successful with that, he wanted to push the envelope. When city ordinances are violated, property owners are generally issued an escalating set of warnings in an effort to get the violator to comply.

City ordinances usually fall under civil matters, not criminal, so what's the rest of the story? Where animals are concerned, they are usually seized with a warrant by animal control. Unless there was animal endangerment or abuse involved, I don't see this as a criminal case, but a civil case with a fine involved.


In short, if you want to raise livestock move to the country. You can also paint your house any color you want, or not at all if you wish.
 
Point taken Ozarkgal, it there's an ordinance, then anyone raising poultry would have to abide by the laws.
 
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Having lived for 20 years next door to a Pheasant breeding Italian who kept a few chooks in with them for eggs and his own pot, on a small city block, I agree with OG. 100%

Ever hear the screams of those bloody Pheasants? Hell the temporary roosters were nothing! He sold the spare pheasants to fancy restaurants and showed some of the better ones. Apparently from observation the best ones must have been the noisiest.

We never complained though, they had too many good points to balance that little aggravation out, and you got used to it, eventually. To my knowledge no one else around did either, he had them for years and the Council were nazis about most everything so any complaint would have bought a squad to his door.

Whenever Mum would mention being woken I reminded her that I woke them almost every night or very early morning getting the car into our garage which was within 8 feet of their bedroom window. They never said a word about that either, but it must have annoyed them. Nothing I could do about it though and the garage was there before they built their house so.....

Warri and others would remember the tales that went round when the Asian boaties first started arriving. Every week or so would be some shock horror story of the Vietnamese taking all the kitchen cupboard doors off in their flat (appartment) replacing them with mesh and keeping chooks in them. At least a few were true.

Councils got antsy about the M.E. version of the backyard barbie too. That consisted of buying a sheep or goat at the markets, bringing it home in the car, cutting it's throat, skinning and cooking it on a spit in full view of the traumatized neighbours. They couldn't see much wrong about that, we just paid too much for barbecue meat in their opinion. They thought we were crazy wusses.

I think the Council nazis will still get my vote over those kind of multicultural 'rights' in the city though.
 
Warri and others would remember the tales that went round when the Asian boaties first started arriving. Every week or so would be some shock horror story of the Vietnamese taking all the kitchen cupboard doors off in their flat (appartment) replacing them with mesh and keeping chooks in them. At least a few were true.

Councils got antsy about the M.E. version of the backyard barbie too. That consisted of buying a sheep or goat at the markets, bringing it home in the car, cutting it's throat, skinning and cooking it on a spit in full view of the traumatized neighbours. They couldn't see much wrong about that, we just paid too much for barbecue meat in their opinion. They thought we were crazy wusses.
I never heard about the chooks in kitchen cupboards but the ritual slaughter of sheep was a real problem until people were prosecuted.

We had chooks (that's Aussie for hens) in our backyard circa 1948-1952 and I don't mind the sound of a rooster greeting the sun. A neighbour of mine has two free range hens in her fairly small backyard and they are very happy chookies.

The birds that are very hard to take are peacocks and peahens. They sound frightful.
 
I wouldn't mind the chickens, my closest neighbor use to raise them and I loved getting free fresh eggs. However, one of my friend's neighbor use to raise a hog for 6 months every year for meat. The smell was terrible and the flies it attracted were really bad. During the warmer months, which is most of the time around here, they couldn't enjoy being in their own yard. I would not have wanted to live next to that. It amazes me sometimes how people think certain things should be allowed until it moves next door to them. People who choose to live within a city limit tend to live closer to their neighbors. I think farm animals should be raised on a farm.

In this situation I agree that the media is sensationalizing the fact he is a veteran just trying to feed his family. I think there is probably another side to this story
 
The birds that are very hard to take are peacocks and peahens. They sound frightful.

I remember the peacock calls as a kid visiting the local game preserve -

"He-elp! He-elp!"

I always wondered why they needed so much help ...
 


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