Permit granted for experimental farm in Moncton neighbourhood

It’s always risky to count your chickens before they’re hatched, but it looks like a go for a plan to raise egg-producing hens in a suburban Moncton neighbourhood.

The Greater Moncton District Planning Commission has granted a local group a one-year temporary permit to run an urban experimental farm. The project, sponsored by Post Carbon Greater Moncton, will involve the keeping of up to four hens within the city boundaries. The group hatched the plan as a response to concerns that rising oil prices will one day force people to return to being more involved in their food production.

Is having your own hens laying eggs all it’s cracked up to be? Will the quiet hamlet (or is that omelette?) of Sunny Acres West (or is that Sunny Side Up Acres?) ever be the same? What’s the best way to run a hen-house without running off half-cocked?

That’s what the folks of the local post carbon group hope to find out through a careful study. This is not simply a “let the chicks fall where they may” approach to the issue of farm animals and humans co-existing in an urban setting, but rather something that will be carefully monitored.

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