And by that I mean it is 2012, and as of Monday (Gung Hay Fat Choi!!) we’re now in the Year of the Dragon as well.
I am not someone who likes to pontificate about new years’ resolutions, so I live in terms of goals and needs which need to be met. It is a lot easier this way.
One of my largest goals for the year will be to get the topic of urban farming onto the city of Pittsburg list of Things Which Need Addressing Right Now. This will mean city council meetings and the like, once my lung issues are sorted out and I’m no longer a bazooka-cougher.
Why the farming? Well, remember the bullshit I went through at the end of October, after attending a city goat-tending class in Berkeley? I got smacked upside the head because the class leader is having hell of issues with cities now, because the people adopting goats are basically jackasses with visions of chevre in their eyes, but little else. And, well, you know… I am not part of her circle, so I am probably one of those jackasses myself. Fuck it, I am leaving it at this for now; I’d rather get chickens legalized here.
Pittsburg has nothing logical, much less legal, in its code about people raising poultry for eggs. Or quails for food, or rabbits for food. Never mind goats. Well, what it has is grossly hypocritical. “You can keep your livestock if you have ___ acres, and live in an appropriately zoned area. And did we mention that zone will be OUTSIDE city limits? Neener neener!!!” The nice lady I spoke to in zoning and planning said they realize they need to fix this post-haste because people raise chickens for survival at this point. It’s cheaper to have a laying flock scratch in the backyard and eat kitchen veggie and fruit scraps, than it is to buy eggs; let’s face it. Way healthier, too.
My neighborhood is packed with poultry now. Not because of us, but because the residents are resorting to old fashioned animal husbandry to feed their families. We had a good rooster friend a few blocks away, Charlie. Charlie chased stray dogs away from his block, kept stray cats from pooping in his front yard, and he kept an eye on all the little kids in that small row of bungalows. But, well, he was a rooster. So he was inevitably dinner. We’re guessing he went into a huge pot of tamales for the feast of the Epiphany, because we no longer saw him once we were eating rosca de reyes bread with our evening coffee. We went out for evening walks nightly, would always stop to stroke his purty feathers where he was roosted on the fence for the evening, and would remind him to watch his back. I am just glad he was not a victim of cock-fighting, frankly. Charlie made excellent dining, I am sure.
But livestock…
We have neighbors asking for help with chickens and such, and will we kill and sell one, or sell eggs, etc. That’d be “no” and “no” on those questions. But we share laying flock manure, offer assistance on building a coop or tractor, and offer assistance on where to source chicks and organic feed, etc. No serious takers so far. Maybe this year, I dunno. And everyone who is interested has met the Laying Lady All-stars, gawked at the yard, and asked about growing the ladies corn (in a nutshell, corn does poorly in Pittsburg), and don’t we need roosters to get eggs?? At least the questions are being asked 
My goal for this year is to get livestock addressed by city council. On the home front we are going to start growing “pasture” for the birds, start raising quail, and hopefully start raising rabbits as well. It is a start.
3 Responses to “so we’re in a new year, holy cow and holy cats”
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This sounds like a wonderful goal. I wish you luck with it and hope that it doesn’t involve a lot of frustration. Lots of towns are allowing chickens now. I’ve been checking on this with all my interest in moving.
Why quail, though?
Ya know, I am actually not sure about being sure on the quail, but a lot of backyarders include quail in their array of food sources. For starters, they have a very good conversion rate of feed / kitchen scraps / backyard bugs to actual flesh and/or eggs. They’re tasty, too, if small.
And you’re right a lot of towns are allowing chickens now. Except the ones near farming and agriculture regions, at least in CA, which is just wild. There was a local mom in Sacramento who made the news a couple years ago because the city tried to confiscate the hens she was feeding kitchen scraps to in order to ensure her kids had healthy eggs for breakfast. Justine can’t get hens down around Fresno either, which makes no sense at all. Well, it sort of does. These two cities have adopted this “we’re suburban, NOT country” attitudes, and it gets hard to shake that kind of logic.
I hear ya about rural towns not wanting to allow chickens. Elmira is like that. We have cornfields righ tin town, even a farm with some cows up in Horseheads right on the main drag, but we are NOT allowed to have chickens, ducks, bees, or any such other “country” type animal. I guess we’re lucky to be allowed to grow veggies in the front yard.
I have heard that quail are noisy, but maybe that is if they are running around loose. And they are pretty darn small–I read about a guy who got his city to accept he needed to raise 12 quails to feed his family one meal a month, which I think has four people in it. They average 4-5 oz each, from a website I read. OTOH, if they made good eggs, and I know some people really value quail eggs, it would be worth it to grow them for that and sell the eggs. I think they would be good to pickle, because they are small. Here you have to have a special permit to have them even outside of town because they are considered wild. They sure are cute.