The Geiger Counter

Tim Roehl, a Middleton Town Board supervisor, recently referred to backyard chickens as a “fad.” (See “Town Cries Fowl,” our page 3 story in the August 9 edition.)

I have news for Mr. Roehl. The domesticated chicken has a genealogy stretching back between 7,000 and 10,000 years, according to Smithsonian magazine. Throughout 99.8 percent of that time, families, on a relatively small scale, have kept chickens in the backyard.

The actual fad is raising poultry on putrid, cramped, filthy factory farms, injecting them with drugs so copious they’d make even the good Dr. Hunter S. Thompson cringe.

If keeping chickens on your property is a fad, then so too are things like the wheel, clothing, math and written language.