In Montreal, the rage in community gardens is to add a chicken coop.  In a recent newspaper article, I learned that Rosemont borough is adding a coop for 5 chickens. Sometime in September they pass the birds back to the chicken farm from whence they came as the article assured readers that no chickens would be “abbatu” (killed) that are kept in these community coops. And there I was getting hungry for some local chicken.

It was my Plateau borough that started the chicken-coop-in-community-garden rage but the 5 chickens WE have don’t put out enough to provide me even with one egg per year. Do they do this sort of foolishness elsewhere or do you have to live in a really big city that is really detached from agriculture (& polticulure?) before this kind of thing makes sense?  My pioneering Plateau borough had to first get the borough council together to work around existing by-laws that said “you shall not keep chickens in the city” and then they probably had to decide how many chickens they would allow to co-habitate and under what living conditions.  5 birds was likely the level where ammonia levels would not affect the health of the chickens or offend neighbours living too close to the community gardens (wouldn’t want to turn that plus into a minus). 

The above pictured chicken coop is the beautiful photography of my friend, Jane Andres, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.  Jane has been known to slip me a dozen eggs (including some cute, bluish green ones) when I make my sausage deliveries.  Of course, by the time I drive 7 hours back to Montreal with my eggs (and other Niagara region treasures-in-food) they don’t have the local food group seal of approval.  But to my mind, they still taste pretty good.  I can only politically-incorrectly imagine what one of those hens would taste like.  Mmm.