Call your city council members. Let them know you're pro-poultry.

These are the home phones listed on the City of Muncie website, so don't call too late.

Your city council members work for you. It is their job to listen to your input and, based on our experience, they are all cordial and happy to do so. Believe it or not, the best way to get in touch with them is via telephone. In fact, tell them who you are, where you live, where you work(ed), and that you might be interested in getting more involved in decision-making in the city. Please do this, since they need to hear from YOU and not just the most vocal residents of Muncie!

With your input, we can get this done, and perhaps more.Attend the city council meetings which take place at city hall on the first Monday of every month starting at 7:30 pm. (This month is an exception: it is tonight, July 12.) The last part of the meeting is reserved for public comment. This is a good opportunity to have your voice heard about chickens or anything else.

Recent chicken journalism

First, chickens in the Wall Street Journal, now chickens in the Wall Street Journal. More NYC poultry and closer to home, Grand Rapids may soon go pro-chicken.

I invited this fortune teller to my picnic and....

Other Muncie Municipal codes worth revisiting:
Sec. 95.07. Picnics.
No public picnic shall be held in any park without a written permit of the superintendent, in which shall be designated the place where the picnic is to be held. Picnics permitted for Sunday and secular schools must always be attended by teachers and masters of the schools, who will be held personally responsible for all infringements of the rules set out in this chapter by the participants. No person shall intrude upon a picnic without the consent of those in charge of it, nor disturb any picnic within a park. Parties holding picnics in parks must clean up the ground that has been occupied by them and remove all paper and litter.
(Code 1968, § 95.07)
Cross reference—Penalty, § 10.99.

Sec. 95.08. Sleeping on benches; gambling.
No person shall be allowed to sleep on the benches of any park, or to beg, tell fortunes, or play at any game of chance or with any instrument of gaming in the park. Gambling and playing cards in any form are prohibited in any park.
(Code, § 95.08)
Cross reference—Penalty, § 10.99.

Muncie Urban Chickens = Front Page News

The July 3 edition of The Star Press published this story about our backyard chickens on its front page. The switchboards here at Urban Bird headquarters have really lit up! We are happy to report that we have received an overwhelmingly positive response about all this. Michelle Kinsey did a wonderful job with the research and interview. Thanks again Michelle!

It is interesting to consider that of the 70+ comments left on the online version of the story, only a handful of them were negative. Typically, the comments on this site quickly degrade into personal and petty tirades, but any negativity here was rather vague and toothless.

So what is the next step? To get the ordinance changed, the Muncie City Council must introduce and pass a new ordinance that replaces the old one. Then the Mayor has to sign it. Urban Bird Muncie has already proposed and distributed what we think is a sensible replacement ordinance. Read it here. Please let us know what you think.

Backyard chickens book roundup

Below are a couple books on the topic at hand. Links lead you to the Muncie Public Library catalog.

Keeping Chickens with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Care for a Happy, Healthy Flock
Published this year.




Barnyard in Your Backyard







City Chicken
Not very informative. (Not meant to be.)






This book is not available at Muncie Public Library, but some of it is available online.
Chickens in Your Backyard





What other good urban chicken-keeping books are out there?

Chickens in Bloomington

The Bloomington, Indiana city council passed legislation 3 1/2 years ago that allows limited chicken keeping in the city. They allow up to five chickens per household, permitted only after city inspection and consent of adjacent neighbors. This video suggests that there are very few troubles with this arrangement.

Cleveland's chickens and bees

Read this good article on how the urban farming situation in Cleveland is developing as a result of last year's famed legislation.

Brown says that in the first year of the “chicken and bee” ordinance in 2009, there were 14 applications for permits or licenses, mainly for backyard chicken coops, and only two complaints ...– both regarding the keeping of pigs, and none about chickens or bees.

Also keep in mind the similarities (writ small) that Muncie has with the "rust belt" cities of Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, each of which are advancing strong urban gardening/farming programs that make use of increasing available space.

Like other cities, notably Detroit, confronted with rampant home foreclosures and vacant parcels, hundreds of acres of urban land are lying fallow. In the 77-square-mile area within city limits, there are currently 18,000 vacant lots totaling 3,500 acres. While the primary goal is neighborhood redevelopment – including an emphasis on arts and entertainment and building on anchor institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic and universities—the city has also launched several initiatives to try to encourage activity despite dwindling population and stalled private-sector activity.

Among them: stabilizing vacant lots with urban gardens and native plantings, demolition of structures while maintaining foundations to allow the construction of greenhouses, allowing sideyard expansion, and using vacant lots for geo-thermal wells to heat neighboring structures. But perhaps the most interesting effort is re-writing zoning to allow urban farming—dramatically reducing setback requirements for chicken coops and beehives on empty parcels, and clarifying the process for allowing such uses.

Sectors of Muncie are already thinking along these lines, including community groups like North Street Urban Garden, Urban Light Community Church, Muncie Delaware Clean and Beautiful, Department of Stormwater Management, and others, but we still have a long way to go.