Dear Editor:
Regarding your April 6 editorial, About Clucking Time:
I hope this editorial is an Easter joke, if not, it's a bird-brained idea.
While chickens in the yard invoke warm images of our pastoral rural past, there are numerous problems with keeping poultry in urban and sub-urban environments. Among them: crowing and crapping. With the former, there is a mistaken belief that only roosters crow at dawn, but the fact is, both roosters and hens crow regularly - and often - both day and night. The accumulation and proper disposal of the latter is an obvious issue. Another problem is diseases carried by poultry (such as avian flu) which previously weren't communicable to humans, but the viruses can mutate as a result of close proximity, with disastrous results. Lastly, chickens in urban and sub-urban environments draw predators such as foxes, cougars and coyotes.
If people want to keep chickens for fresh eggs and meat, they should move to a farm in a rural setting.
Steve Keffer North Vancouver
