Politics & Government

Residents Seeks Signatures for Backyard Chickens Petition

The village of Arlington Heights ban on chickens will be challenged this fall.

Mary Green and Matt Scallon have started a petition to allow backyard chickens in Arlington Heights.

Green said they are seeking 200 signatures for the petition and five people ready to raise chickens in their backyards. Green and Scallon plan to challenge the village ordinance this fall.

Scallon asked the  in February for a variance to their municipal code, which does not allow the keeping of any animals other than those customarily kept as pets.

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Hank Zabawski, an Arlington Heights resident, who lives in the Ivy Hill neighborhood, wants chickens in his backyard.

“I want to give my kids the experience of seeing where food would come from and fresh eggs,” he said. Zabawski said he has a garden and the chickens would help with pest control and fertilizer.

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The Weston A. Price Foundation Northwest Cook County suburbs chapter held their regular meeting at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library Monday night.

The group, which is a non-profit, is dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the American diet through education, research and activism, discussed backyard chickens at length.

Jennifer Murtoff, an urban chicken consultant, was one of the group’s presenters Monday night. 

As the Midwest’s only chicken consultant, Murtoff receives “quizzical” looks when she tells people her title. Murtoff, however, helps people in Chicago raise chickens, leads workshops on backyard chickens and conducts presentations for organizations.

Some of the biggest obstacles in getting backyard chickens include legalization, the chicken coop and the skills to do so.

“Raising the chicks is something you need to do a lot of research on,” Murtoff said.

Murtoff said there’s definitely a lot of growth in the trend of backyard chickens.

“More families are interested, more people jumping on the bandwagon, it would be nice to see a number of families who are responsibly raising chickens, especially the heritage breeds,” she said. 

Heritage breeds are traditional breeds of chickens, raised by farmers in the past, before the drastic reduction of breed variety caused by the rise of industrial agriculture

“I would like to see more people investing time and money into breeding some of those heritage breeds, that are really important to our genetic diversity of our farm animal population,” Murtoff said. 

The second presenter on Monday night, Linda Nellet, brought her chicken and experience to the group’s discussion.

“I really like getting to know the chickens themselves and I like that I know I’m giving them a good life,” Nellet said.

Nellet has raised chickens in Chicago since 2007 and has become an activist for the backyard chickens movement.

"I think more people are interested in controlling their own food supply," she said. "There’s a lot of insecurity around food these days."


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