So What Makes a Pet?

Six months ago, our family began a friendship.
It blossomed, as many family friendships do, because of our kids.

Every spring,  since our kids were old enough to make their wishes known, a visit to Tractor Supply prompted a plea from them to bring home some furry yellow chicks for Easter.

Our kids know well the history of our 4th generation family homestead, and the coop under the garage where their great uncle used to raise roosters for 4H still exists.

So this past March, after checking township regulations, we let the kids have some chicks to call their own. We reasoned that it would be a good way to teach them responsibility and caring for a pet. As they would be laying hens, it would give them an awareness of where their food comes from as well.

When we got them at a week old, we could easily hold and pet them in the palm of our hands. We watched them grow; the fluff turn to feathers; and wings tested for flying.

Their first home was a big cardboard box with a heat lamp on the enclosed porch. When they outgrew the box, the old greyhound dog crate stood in, while our son worked with my Dad to build a custom movable coop from plans we found online.

It was only after it got warm enough in May did the chickens move outside to it. And when it started to get a little cramped in the coop, we built them a fully fenced-in run, again with the help of my Dad. 
We located it on the site where chickens used to get their exercise on our homestead fifty years ago.
But now this friendship must come to an end because of a backyard neighbor who wants to sell his house -- a neighbor who never approached us in the three years we've lived here.  And a miscalculation on the size of our land.

You see, Lower Macungie Township regulation states...Ordinance 1998-11, DEFINITIONS HOUSEHOLD PETS DOMESTIC ANIMALS (actually, in the paperwork we received, animals is spelled wrong) NORMALLY CONSIDERED TO BE KEPT IN OR IN CONJUNCTION WITH A DWELLING UNIT FOR THE PLEASURE OF THE RESIDENT FAMILY AND SHALL INCLUDE ANIMALS (again, spelled wrong) SUCH AS DOGS, CATS, GERBILS, AND OTHER SIMULAR (spelled wrong) PETS NORMALLY SOLD BY RETAIL PET STORES. (I think tractor supply could be a retail pet store, they sold a pet) THE TERM HOUSHOLD (spelled wrong) PETS SHALL NOT INCLUDE ANY DANGEROUS OR ENDANGERED SPECIES.  LIVESTOCK OR POULTRY MAY BE MAINTAINED AS HOUSHOLD PETS PROVIDED THAT 1.NO MORE THEN FOUR MAY BE MAINTAINED AT ANY ONE TIME 2. THE PARCEL MUST BE AN ACRE OF LAND OR MORE (this is where we are 1/5th short) 3. THE PET MUST BE MAINTAINED WITHIN A FENCED AREA SET BACK AT LEAST TWENTY FIVE FEET FROM ALL PROPERTY BOUNDRIES. (this one applies, it's even more than 25 feet).

We knew that our property was a fraction under an acre, but we didn't know the figure; it turns out that it's about 4/5ths, which apparently isn't enough, even though the coop is located in the center of our lot, hundreds of feet away from any neighbor.

So that means not a single animal that cannot be bought in a "pet" store. They're "livestock," after all.

And even though they still get excited when we get near; let us hold and feed them by hand; and perch on our shoulder, our chickens apparently aren't appropriate pets in what's become the suburbs.  Our kids are heartbroken.

I certainly am not looking to have our story turn into the exception to the rule, but I do want to make aware the fact that more and more families today are working toward homesteading, growing their food, using the property they own to the best of their ability by growing food, not grass, by planting grape vines and fruit trees, by using what God gave us to the best of our ability.  It has always been our desire to work the land that has been in our family for  102 years now, to teach our children how their great grandparents used the land and how we would like to use it to our best advantage as well.  Yes, we could have looked at the measurments further, I won't disagree there, but in today's society, why can't neighbors talk to one another, why can't we be what we use to be, neighbors that talked to each other, picnic'd together and worked WITH each other NOT against each other.  

Through all of this, I am definitely teaching my children a lesson, I know that for sure, everyday of their lives we try to teach them something that will carry them through as they grow, learn from mistakes and take joy in our accomplishments.

Right now we have some heartache, but we also have the promise that Mom and Dad are working very hard to get laws changed, to make people aware and to bring to the forefront the ever growing field of homesteading.