Verner Column: Fowl play, replayed

There’s a George Booth cartoon from a while back that shows a man, ostensibly a writer, sitting at a table on which there is a typewriter (this shows how old school the cartoon is). He is clearly having
trouble thinking of something to write (a common affliction among writers).  Draped around the room on every conceivable surface are dozens of dogs in a variety of poses. His wife is standing at the door,
and she exclaims, “Write about dogs!”

I feel I should write about chickens since I have come across several references to their renewed popularity recently. Granted, chickens are not the most interesting creatures on the planet, but they are
making a comeback as more people turn to them as a convenient source of eggs and meat. Peacocks and swans may be more elegant, but they are also nasty-tempered. I am told that you would not
want to be attacked by a swan. They are beautiful, but they are also big and mean.

In a recent New Yorker article, the author wrote about the resurgence of interest in keeping chickens at home and her efforts to find chickens to raise in her back yard. She discovered that most
companies would only sell chickens as chicks in large quantities and that it was hard to tell which were hens and which were roosters. And she didn’t like traditional hen houses. Finally she found a
company that sold modern hen houses made of plastic and also offered four hens-all by mail. When her hens arrived, the post office called and said she had a package and that it was clucking. The
article made it clear that chickens come in a huge variety of types. Martha Stewart has a flock of fancy chickens, as you might expect.

Of course, chickens were mainstays of farm families for centuries. When families relocated to cities and towns, they took their chickens with them since they were easier to maintain in an urban
environment than, say, a herd of cows. As time went on, cities passed laws prohibiting the keeping of chickens (in part to deter cock fighting). It’s interesting that the D.C. city council is currently
considering changing its law prohibiting chickens in residential areas. Chickens have apparently become the new cool pet, but I think I’ll stick with cats.

It’s not that I’m not familiar with chickens. My parents kept a small flock on their farm which kept us and others supplied with eggs and the occasional chicken dinner. I didn’t like to go in the chicken
house since it was smelly and dusty and so I didn’t have much to do with them. I thought chickens were stupid and unsophisticated. Actually helping to keep them would have meant I would have to have
gotten up and done something. I was generally opposed to any sort of labor until I was about 25, when my German work ethic kicked in with a vengeance.

Historically, though, gathering eggs and taking care of chickens was considered the province of women and children. An 1893 book listing ways women could earn money included “lady journalist, dentist,
poet, and hen-keeper.” There were probably a lot more hen-keepers than anything else.

If you want to follow the chicken trend and keep chickens, at least in City of Manassas, the coop must be at least 250 feet away from the nearest residence, you must have a permit from the chief of
police, and your chickens would not be allowed to run at large. So, unless you have a lot of property, chickens don’t seem likely.  Prince William County prohibits farm animals unless the property is
zoned agricultural. (Consult your local codes for the final word. A Faithful Reader shared with me when I told her what this column was about that if you show a chicken at the county fair, you’re given a
permit to keep it as a pet, even in a residential area. No word on whether you have to walk it on a leash or not.)

Let me say, too that I like chickens — baked, broiled, fried, grilled or in a salad. I’m glad the Perdue family takes care of the messy business of raising them and preparing them for the table. If I kept
hens, I’d probably name them and wouldn’t have the heart to use them as food. I know when it comes to things like that, I’m just a big chicken.

Dan Verner is a Manassas resident. He contributes his thoughts and stories to the Perspective page on Fridays.