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At first glance, the backyard in an upscale 1950s Toronto development seems to be typically Canadian. There's a barbecue, patio furniture, a well-kept lawn – and then there are the chickens.

Two hens peck at the grass, while a third broody one sits in the nest. With people in the yard, the curious chickens move toward the orange fencing of the run, their soft cooing barely audible over the hum of neighbours' air conditioners.

Their owner, a middle-aged woman wearing jeans and a black T-shirt with a stylish haircut and funky glasses – who wouldn't give her name for fear of being discovered by city officials – says she is one of about a half-dozen people in Toronto she knows of who secretly keeps chickens on their properties.

“It covers absolutely every type of person,” she says. “Young, old, every ethnic group.”

In cities and towns across the country, people are keeping chickens on the sly, in their backyards. Most Canadian municipalities don't allow for poultry within city limits, so otherwise law-abiding citizens are breaking the rules to keep their own hens. Their motivation? They want to connect with the origins of their food – and the taste of a backyard egg, they say, beats anything you can buy at the grocery store.

The movement is quickly gaining momentum. There are numerous blogs, message boards and e-mail groups where aficionados trade tips on how to build a raccoon-proof coop, corral the chickens at night and how to best store eggs. And wannabe urban chicken farmers are looking to the few Canadian cities like Niagara Falls, Ont.; Guelph, Ont.; Brampton, Ont., and Victoria, where backyard flocks are deemed okay, as they force the issue in their own municipalities.

In small towns and big cities alike, citizens are pressing city council to change the rules. Earlier this year, Vancouver's city council voted unanimously to ask staff to write a new bylaw, which has yet to be passed. In the Southern Ontario city of Owen Sound, councillor David Adair says he will bring forward a motion in August to allow laying hens in town. A group called the Waterloo Hen Association has persuaded the city of Waterloo, Ont., to allow about a dozen families to continue to raise hens until the city votes in the future. And in Toronto, city officials are studying the issue.

Citizens in other cities have been less successful. Halifax decided last year to forbid chickens after a debate. And in Kamloops, council has similarly turned down two proposals from the public asking for a bylaw change.

Bonnie Klohn, a resident of Kamloops, B.C., who has been leading the fight for legalization, says the underground chicken movement is so strong that in her city alone – where people risk a $100 fine and an order to immediately dispense of the birds if caught – there are more than 200 families with hens. She says she has also been contacted by people in cities like Ottawa, Halifax, Charlottetown and Calgary, asking for tips on how to fight the local government.

“My hunch would be that they are hen-keepers,” she says.

In Surrey, B.C., Heather Jarvey has two contraband chickens in a hen house with an adjacent run she built with her husband in the yard. While the city does permit fowl if the homeowner's lot spans at least an acre, hers is not big enough and thus, her chickens are illegal.

“It would have to be almost 10 times as big,” she says of her lot. “I don't like it. I don't want to have to [break the law].”

But it is worth it, she says. The chickens, two different heritage-breed birds, are like pets.

“They are really beautiful. And they are hilarious. They have humungous personalities,” she says. Not only do they provide companionship and entertainment, but they each lay an egg a day which she cracks to make an omelette for breakfast. “My husband calls them friends with benefits,” she says.

Ms. Jarvey's neighbours have no problem with her chickens – nor do the neighbours of the woman in Toronto.

“The neighbours love them,” says the Torontonian, explaining that she's always intended to share the eggs around but never seems to have any to spare. At night to protect the birds from predators, she keeps them in a sleek blue plastic enclosure called the Omelet, specially designed for a backyard. “It doesn't smell at all,” she says.

In Halifax, however, Louise Hanavan found out what happens when your neighbour doesn't like the idea of chickens in the city. Someone down the street complained to officials, claiming rats were attracted to the feed, and Ms. Hanavan was ordered to get rid of the hens.

Even in cities where chickens are permitted, it's best to get your neighbours on board, says Bernard von Schulman, who keeps six hens in Victoria. Before building a coop, Mr. von Schulman spoke with the folks next door who asked him to place it away from the property line. The result was a hen house that borders the sidewalk where passers-by can enjoy the birds.

While the chickens are kept for their eggs rather than for the meat, people can find themselves in a tricky situation when they can no longer keep the hen – the birds need a winterized coop to survive through the seasons.

Mr. von Schulman says it ends up being cheaper to keep chickens than to go the store for eggs, even though he has to pay for their feed. While commercial hens used in industrial egg production are kept for only short periods of time, backyard hens can live a number of years, laying an egg a day. And the eggs are better.

“The big difference between a store-bought egg and ours is that because they are fresh, the protein hasn't started to break down,” he says. “You can whip them into the most amazing meringues.”

He also likes that his four sons can understand where food comes from when they collect the eggs they will eat that day, a connection that has been lost in recent years, he says.

“In the fifties and sixties it was common to have a few hens in the backyard,” says Ms. Klohn in Kamloops, who hopes backyard birds will be allowed one day. “You can't keep a cow, but fresh eggs in the morning are amazing.”

Special to The Globe and Mail