Therapeutic Chickens

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In Debary, Florida, a family had some chickens for their two year old autistic son who found them quite therapeutic and to supplement his diet.

The city didn't like it.

Aw - this is horrible. I'm really glad you posted it, I just think what happened is horrible.

Some cities are allowing backyard chickens now, and some allow therapeutic pets in their by-laws. Someone is pretty sick to go and kill the chickens. I used to keep chickens and they really were therapeutic - for my boys, too.

that is not nice nor sensible. people are allowed to have birds such as parrots in their homes, so why not chickens? i love mine, and they are like pets to me which have the added bonus of giving me edible eggs.

many regions these days allow for hens within city limits, but restrict roosters because of their crowing.

How many chickens are we talking here, exactly? I can see the town being annoyed if they're keeping two dozen chickens or something like that; or perhaps one or two particularly vocal roosters. But, say, four or five hens... yeah, they're "livestock", but they're small and unobtrusive. No nuisance there. I think the family should go to the town council, or whoever runs their town, and get a law passed that makes an exception for small numbers of small livestock (rabbits, pigeons, poultry) being kept as pets rather than for profit. These animals would be subject to the same laws as any other pets--they can't disturb the neighbors either by noise or smell, they have to be given any vaccines required by law, they must be cared for properly, and the number of animals has to be reasonable--you can't be running a chicken farm in your suburban backyard (thus the "not for profit" stipulation--that's a matter of zoning). DeBary is a town of about twenty thousand people--reasonably small, small enough that a family could get a hearing at a town council or similar. They shouldn't have too much trouble, if they have a reasonable number of well-cared-for pet chickens.

Oh, and whoever killed the chickens needs to be prosecuted for either property destruction or animal cruelty, depending on whether they are legally considered livestock or pets.

I remember being two years old and finding out my father had died. I kept repeating what my mom had said, over and over, and my mom told her friends that I didn't know what I was saying. I feel for the kid. Losing family members is painful, whether they are humans or chickens. But still--he is two years old and he has a caring family. He'll recover. Autistic kids aren't fragile little china dolls; we're tough. We have to be, to survive in this crazy world.

Whoever killed the chickens evidently had a big problem with them. It wasn't the town that did it, or the police wouldn't be investigating.

I have to bump this post!

First thing, i want to offer condolensces as it is horrible that humans could do such a hateful thing towards your family an chickens. That is so traumatizing i would have been traumatized to the point of unstoppable meltdown

Did your area try starting a petition? In Brevard there have been several areas petitioning to have backyard chickens.

We also live in Florida (county below kinda), are town doesn't have chicken laws since we're country, however 20mins away where my Mother in law lives they are fighting to have backyard chickens.

We have 6 chickens in our backyard, they are so great! We have 5 hens and 1 Roo.
The Rooster is a Barred Rock
2 hens are Rhode Island Reds
1 hen is Americauna
1 is a Barred/Mix we rescued
1 is a Black Australorp
and the littlest of them all is an Old English Game Bantam (she's tiny)

Our chickens are so sweet, they are great with children, our neighbor's little niece loves them!
I think a lot of different animals are very good therapy!
I hope the police catch the murderer, thats so horrible.. maybe it's a bad teenager? We had one down the road at a fish campp where animals went missing so i stay away from there now.

That's awful, what they did to that little boy's chickens. If it's something that makes a child feel happy and secure, why wrench it away from them so cruelly? I just don't understand that about society these days; the way it takes away what people need most to feel safe...like when my stepfather found out I was taking a stuffed animal to school (but leaving it in my backpack all day) and he took it from me and kept it in the glovebox of his Car all night. I know it's an entirely different matter than slaughtered chickens, but I just wanted to give another example of how ruthless our society seems to have become in making people conform and be able to "perform" without so-called "emotional crutches."