Dear friends —

Well, apparently our townhouse complex isn’t the only place having a debate about where chickens belong. In today’s newspaper I saw a letter to the editor from a woman protesting a statute the county is considering that would ban the keeping of backyard chickens. Well, not all chickens, actually. Roosters, specifically.

As it turns out, what the county hopes to do is allow the keeping of laying hens. Laying hens are useful birds; we can eat their eggs. We can whip those eggs omelets with cheese and ham. We can add a few ingredients and bake a cake. We can make a lovely custard sprinkled with cinnamon.

Occasionally, you might hear some clucking from a hen or notice a a disgruntled cackle and a little wing flapping between two biddies who claim the same place to roost. But they’re quiet and biddable for the most part. Roosters crow — loud and long and early in the morning. Therein lies the problem. Feeding us is all well and good. Waking us up, at least according to the county supervisors hereabouts, isn’t something they can sanction.

Of course, what I wonder about the ordinance the county has proposed is whether it favors hens over roosters. Does it declare one sex of chicken to be superior to the other? Could such a statute be considered sex discrimination?

The homeowner who wrote the letter in the newspaper was outraged that such a ban is even under consideration. Since she breeds chickens for fun and profit, banning roosters would devastate her business and deprive her of her livelihood – because without roosters there would be no chicks.

So is this a variation on the age-old the question: which came first, the rooster or the egg?

Just wondering –