Cluck, cluck, hurray!

When I was a boy, in a town not unlike Annapolis, we had backyard chickens.They were wonderful, supplying us with eggs, pleasant company, and a very local and personal connection with our food. They ate all our household food waste and produced a perfect fertilizer for our garden.

Those who've had them know that eggs from backyard chickens are nothing like the factory eggs sold in stores. They are fresher, tastier and free of the antibiotics and disease often associated with industrial eggs. Hens are a delightful family addition, fun to keep and giving children practical lessons in biology, animal care and food production. They are easy to keep, clean and safe.

Sadly, after the birth of the American suburb in the 1950s, anti-chicken ordinances swept the country. It was an age of conformity, with people increasingly intolerant of neighbors who did not behave and look just like themselves.

Racial and religious covenants proliferated to create and preserve bland, white bread neighborhoods. Developers stripped away native vegetation to make way for grass and nonindigenous plants. A new American suburban ideal manifested itself nearly everywhere, in strident uniformity.

Thankfully, this is changing. Discriminatory covenants have been invalidated by changes in law and by court rulings. There is growing public awareness of the value of natural vegetation with some legal requirements to protect it now appearing in the Critical Area law.

But legal bans on chickens, rooted mainly in prejudice and ignorance, persist. They prevent many people from having backyard chickens and deprive our community of many benefits.

A movement is now sweeping America, people again realizing the value of backyard hens and the enjoyment they provide. Anti-chicken ordinances are being repealed in town after town across the country, and Mayor Josh Cohen has introduced a bill to do that here. After a long interruption, Annapolis is poised again to allow families to have a few backyard hens for eggs.

Our near neighbors are delighted, expressing great enthusiasm for this reform. In a concession to those who object to crowing, no roosters will be allowed. Hens are very pleasant, their agreeable sounds coming only from occasional late-morning "hen parties" proudly signaling new eggs.

We hope that growing citizen interest in backyard chickens will be met with tolerance and support by the aldermen. We so look forward to getting a few chicks next spring so we can again start our day with a really good egg.

We thank the mayor and City Council for taking this up and hope they will vote to let Annapolis join other towns around the country that are liberating their citizens to keep family hens again.

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The writer is a former environmental executive, teaches environmental compliance management at Johns Hopkins University, is a member of the Severn River Commission and is active in Annapolis civic affairs.