I'll bet they would allow roosters too if they could crow 'cock a doodle buy Monsanto product for a healthy life dooo'.

If you have a decent size back yard with a fence and keep the area and coop relatively clean, most neighbers will have no idea you have chickens. I had some for a few years and loved having them, after moving to a different house my yard is now too small for chickens. I miss them, they are so entertaining and the eggs are the best. But they do take work, like most things worth having.

The restrictions on backyard chickens are annoying but even more annoying is the push back some are getting for having vegetable gardens in front yards.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/garden/gardeners-fight-with-neighbors-and-city-hall-over-their-lawns.html?src=rechp&_r=1&

The neighbors will know you have chickens lol.  While the hens are quieter than the roosters they are still very vocal when they are laying eggs aka the egg song and when a hawk or something flies over.  Half a city block away they would hear the hens.   Now you could have Muscovy ducks and drakes and a next door neighbor not know it.....from 25 feet away you can't hear them.  They kind of make a hissing noise when excited but don't quack.  Even in a town like situation with a neighbor 50 feet away they would only know you had them if they saw them, they are almost noiseless.  They lay big wonderful eggs but are more seasonal.  The meat cooked medium rare you could pass off as beef.   They are great weeders and great bug eaters.  I love the ducks, have 21 (I think) and HATE the damn chickens, have 18, just a bloody nuisance.  

Wills,

Do you hate the chickens because of the scratching? That is the biggest downside that I discovered. You can't have more chickens than your area can support or it will be destroyed. If you want an area to stay like it is, you have to fence them out.  Funny about the egg song, I recognize it and I thought everyone around me heard my chickens. It turned out the only ones who knew I had them were the ones who saw them. Some breeds are more vocal and squacky than others for sure. I like ducks too, we had ducks, geese, and chickens when I was a child, they were my favorite then but the standard white ones we had weren't good layers(for us).

Calvin,

You very well may be right that the LOUDNESS is breed specific, I just figured it was because they were female lol.  I know the Barred rocks and Buff Orphingtons are just plain noisy.  The Rhode Island reds a bit less and the one laced Wyndotte is fairly quiet.

The scratching is part of it, they don't really destroy anything but I am constantly having to pull mulch away from the fruit trees.  The ducks on the other hand just run their bill through the mulch not disturbing it.  The chickens also jump.......any fruit lower than 3 feet is gone so have to fence the blueberries and have 3 beds, almost 200 plants.  Of course the fence has to be high enough of they will jump over it.....or dig under it while the ducks do neither of those things.   They are just horrible on the blackberries and the figs.....the ONLY plus is they do make more eggs than the ducks by far.

From figs to Monsanto dirty tricks to ducks v. chickens. Don't you just love biodiversity?

love waking up to sound of rooster. only happens when i'm camping out in certain rural area. i like them better than coyotes yapping.

Takes only a few minutes to join a petition to get GMOs labeled on food products.  There are several out there that google can help find, such as  "just label it". 

Talk of the devil:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/12/17/seralini-gmo-study-retracted.aspx?e_cid=20131217Z2_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20131217Z2&et_cid=DM35345&et_rid=369906573

Every forum member who gives a rat's ass should read this article just so they know what they're up against. Even scientific integrity is subverted by the oppressive 'invisible hand' wielded by this monster.

Petitions are fine motown, just so long as they garner enough support to leave your legislature no choice but to act in your interests - just for a change.

EDIT: Don't forget to read those comments at the end of the article. Monsatan indeed. 

Frightening and not surprising. I have seen squirrels with tumors. My guess is they are eating either corn put out for them or bits from the mixed seed they steal form the feeders. With the majority of corn being GMO and in nearly everything we eat, it leaves only two options - 1) Don't eat corn or 2) Grow your own from non-GMO seed somewhere far enough away from any other cornfield.

Those Lumps on squirrels are due to a Parasite.  Very Common.

Gross nonetheless, but good to know. Thanks. And still pretty sure Monsanto still sucks.

I should have stated a lot of the lumps are Bot fly larva. I am sure some could be tumors. Coming from a family that was primarily small scale wheat farmers I am no fan of Monsanto, or squirrels for that matter.

Umm, can we agree that topics like Obamacare should not be discussed on this forum?  There's many other websites that will allow you to vent your thoughts on political topics.  Let's try to keep it at least peripherally related to figs.

Are GMO foods safe? http://tinyurl.com/lfo4g9r

There is a reasonable underlying assumption that when a political candidate promises you change, that change will not make an already bad situation worse by taking you further down the road of a police state. Only then to reward him with a 2nd term! Amazing. In the end a docile, indifferent and passive electorate gets what it deserves.

More scary Monsanto news: I read a story that said Brazil is considering allowing the use of what it called "terminator seeds," which are currently banned. Genetic seeds that sterilize other plants. Basically, the corporations would no longer have to drag farmers to court to ruin them. Their plants will run people out of business.

These terminator seeds produce plants that give off pollen that nullifies the fertility of other plants. In other words, GMO pollen drifts onto a feed and the resulting hybrid seeds, which normally could still be saved and used, are sterile. Farmers who have infected fields will be planting the equivalent of plastic beads the following season. And because they refused to buy Monsanto seeds previously, they will now be on the blacklist, with no options for new seed. Game over.

Also, consider the long-term ramifications if this genetic monster is unleashed. As more and more fields get exposed, all non-GMO varieties will be eliminated, bred out. It would be like going into the field and castrating all the tigers. No reproduction eventually means extinction.

Thank you for the apocalypse, Monsanto (and Dow and others).

I'm hoping (possibly against hope) that this is just a scare story. Any country considering agricultural suicide seriously needs its collective head examined.

According to the story, those backing the use of such seeds claim that it would only be for non-food crops like lumber and medicinal plants like eucalyptus. But the track record is not good. Once and inch is given, a mile is soon to follow. Someone within the Brazilian government just got a holiday bonus from a corporate friend.

I am not aware of any terminator seeds ever being used ever.  It was considered at one time, however.