Hens and Joliet boy together again

Life is getting back to normal with hens in the backyard again.

Andrea Kanive is the only officially recognized chicken owner in Joliet, although anecdotally speaking, she is hardly the only one.

Chickens can be found in backyards around the city if you look closely enough, which isn’t done much.

But when one of the hens from Kanive’s backyard got loose a year ago, Joliet Township Animal Control got involved and a series of events followed that led to Kanive losing her chickens and eventually applying for a special-use permit with the main factor being her son, Marion Rickmon.

Marion has autism, which, his mother, his teachers, and others argued, makes backyard hens particularly helpful as he learns to socialize, control emotions, take on responsibility and do the other things that 8-year-old boys do as they grow up.

“When they were gone, it was definitely a void,” Kanive said as she sat in the backyard of their home in the Reedwood neghborhood of Joliet last week near the hen house as Marion mingled with the four chickens now sanctioned with a special-use permit granted by the city.

“Things weren’t right. Things weren’t the same,” Kanive said of the year with no hens. “You don’t take them for granted.”

“Lonely,” Marion replied when asked what it was like with the hens gone.

“Happy,” he said when asked what it was like to have them back.

Marion gets along well with the hens, feeding them, handling them, saying how they influence his outlook on the future.

“I want a zoo and a farm,” he said, describing his current ambitions in life.

The backyard is a small-scale zoo and a farm that helps Marion mingle with the neighbor kids.

“They want to come over here and see the hens with him,” Kanive said. “It’s like a little petting zoo over here.”

The family has a coop and a run, a nice-looking henhouse that sits discreetly in their backyard and isn’t noticeable to passersby.

When the hens were gone, Kanive said, Marion would avoid the area.

“Marion was seriously in denial for months,” she said. “He wouldn’t even come back here. He wouldn’t go near the coop.”

Now, Kanive said, it’s a backyard oasis for Marion as well as a training ground.

“It helps him with routine,” Kanive said. “Each day we come home from school – as soon as we get out of the car, before we do anything else, it’s let’s check the chickens.”

It’s a slice of farm life in the city.

“He has to check them after school and in the morning to make sure they have water,” Kanive said. “We have to lock the [henhouse] door at night.”

It’s a slice of farm life generally not allowed in Joliet.

City zoning does not allow farm animals, even if they do exist in spots around town.

But city planning staff worked with Kanive to present a request to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a special-use permit for hens at her house based on an appeal from Marion’s mother, teachers, therapist and a caretaker.

The zoning board approved the permit in July.

“Once they had that they were good to go,” Joliet Planning Director Jim Torri said.

It was a one-of-a-kind case, Torri said. The city did not get any complaints. It did not get any new requests for chicken permits. And staff are not considering more-lenient rules regarding farm animals in the city.

“We were supportive because of the therapeutic nature of the hens,” Torri said. “And the family had the support of their neighbors. We would not want to change our rules citywide.”

The city did impose certain conditions, including a limit to six hens, a ban on roosters and a requirement that the henhouse be supplied with electricity.

Kanive is happy to comply.

“It feels like life and things are back on track,” she said.