The Village of Morton Grove, IL has an ordinance banning the keeping of backyard chickens. We are asking the Board of Trustees to revise the ordinance against the keeping of backyard hens/fowl in Morton Grove, IL. 

Keeping Hens for eggs provides a healthy, sustainable, hyperlocal food source for a household. They reduce household waste, eat and reduce backyard pests/weeds, and provide healthier and more humane eggs compared to corporate farming. A small flock of backyard hens produce less waste than a medium sized dog and significantly less noise than a barking dog. 

Many other communities in the Northshore including Highland Park, Deerfield, Evanston, Northfield, Northbrook and Des Plaines allow chicken keeping with little to no issues. Let's keep working towards a Greener Morton Grove.

The idea of the petition was propelled by several negative experiences when purchasing food from grocery stores. The price of eggs has gone up 200% in the past five years. According to an article (https://www.thesling.org/its-not-the-flu-feed-or-fuel-profiteering-is-driving-record-egg-prices/ the cause of this was large egg producers price gauging by creating an artificial scarcity for the purpose of profiteering. Another example of a negative experience was me landing in the emergency room due to having swallowed glass which I found in the tofu that I purchased from a large grocery chain which produces mostly organic food. This made me become aware of how little regulation and oversight there is in the food production that we outsource to others. Many local farmers have started critiquing that large corporations have for example watered down what the word “organic” means. They have expressed how  over time more and more items are now considered organic which would not have been considered organic years prior.

With autoimmune conditions skyrocketing and rates of chronic diseases on the rise, please allow consumers to have at least some additional choices with less health risks than factory farming (such as PFAS a.k.a. forever chemicals which are tied to factory farming) and change this ordinance for the betterment of Morton Grove residents!