The soaring cost of living is pushing every one of us to reconsider which groceries remain a priority. 

For some, this may mean going without limes in their evening cocktails, but for many, the reality is that fresh fruit, vegetables and many forms of meat are no longer affordable for each and every meal.  

Adjusting one's intake of the aforementioned will undoubtedly have a negative effect on people's health in time to come.  

Proof of that can already be seen along with other socioeconomic impacts in areas of the country where people never been able to afford a consistently high standard of food. 

Many are now buying chooks and learning the finer points of animal husbandry in order to avoid the soaring cost of eggs from supermarkets and other purveyors of these omelette essentials.  

The move makes a lot of sense - but knowing about your councils' bylaws regarding how our fickle, feathered, fowl friends can be kept is also a major consideration. 

The last thing you want is your neighbour running foul to the council justifiably, because your feathered eggs Benedict machines have become smelly, or because they’ve begun to attract rodents to your once peaceful collection of backyards in Cashmere. 

Every council is different, and it’d be well worth while finding out about your bylaws to prevent feeling henpecked by your complaining neighbours.  

The good people living within the confines of Kawerau District Council are fully aware now of the costs imposed by their leading rooster, or mayor. 

In Kawerau, there’s an annual fee of $25 to pay along with other requirements that must be met. Kawerau District Council will need to inspect your chickens hotel and exercise facility to ensure that some of the basics are met - so that you'll have happy chooks, willingly providing the key components of your poached eggs.  

Make sure you find out what your local council requires. Some require you to have a land area greater than 3 metres square, a proper chook house that’s waterproof for sleeping and laying, a chook run attached to the chook house, a secluded nesting area along with perches. 

The rules that always ruffle feathers if they’re not met, are the ones relating to proximity to boundaries and dwellings: your little scrambled eggs factory must be 3 metres from a neighbour's fence and 10 metres from any occupied dwelling - yours or your neighbours. 

Keeping chooks is no poultry matter, so if you’re looking into the concept, make sure you know what your council requirements are and then pop around to a neighbour who’s already running a tight chicken ship and get their egg-spirt advice.