Backyard chicken coops are fairly common in rural and suburban areas everywhere in north america because of both the quality eggs and economic benefits they bestow on their humans. The value of the eggs my chickens lay far exceeds the cost of the feed required to keep them going, especially if they also roam around the yard scratching up whatever they can find during the day.
In fact there are so many little mom and pop chicken coop operations selling or bartering high quality eggs with their neighbors that it's putting an increasingly large dent into the profits of the corporate operations and, like all corporate behemoths, they don't like the competition so they're using their clout with the Chamber of Commerce to do something about it. See there are regulations like zoning, farm status, taxes and the like that have been enacted through the years to protect the corporations from bucolic types like me ever trying undermine profits or terrorize the rich with fears of having to accept less.
It's been a dilemma for decades as enforcing those regulations would cost governments tons of dough that could only be paid by higher taxes-enethma for those same corporate types. But now the combination of domestic drones and a new generation of bio-metric sensors is begining to rule the roost. This month the authorities were able to round-up the rustlers of six cows with the help of a Predator B drone, the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs in North Dakota.
How long will it be before the drones are set loose on the fowl terrorists in our backyards? Maybe they already are. Yesterday i watched in horror as my chickens scrambled under the van, their sentinel's heads craned skyward looking for a predator. But alas there were no eagles circling, perhaps the predators they instinctively reacted to were at an altitude to high to be seen by the naked eye be it human or chicken.
Police employ Predator drone spy planes on home front
Are Drones Watching You?
