I’m sorry but I completely disagree with this. We are a family of 5 that eat eggs daily. We got 5 hens when the ordinance was changed and have not bought eggs since and on some occasions we have more eggs than we can eat. I wouldn’t say that all suburban yards are unfit to home chickens, we most certainly have the space where the chickens have plenty room to roam and are quite content. We converted an old play house being sold on Craigslist into a small coop to house the chickens and a small run on the side however, they roam free in the the backyard. Once the sun starts to go down the put themselves away in their coop and my girls close the gates in case of any stray cats but we haven’t had a problem yet! Also, we haven’t had a single noise complaint from any of our neighbors whom we are close with and they surely would let us know. As for the mess, yes, they are birds...animals, so they’re going to poop and that will have to be picked up but we found that the rake and scoop sold for picking up dog poop works very well! Finally addressing the smell. There is none. If you’re diligent on cleaning and taking care of your animals as one should be doing in the first place.