Sanderson Farms is reviving plans to build a $121.4 million chicken-processing plant in Kinston, giving an economic boost to Lenoir County.

The Mississippi company had postponed plans for the plant in June 2008 amid soaring feed and fuel costs.

The complex will include a new feed mill, poultry processing plant and hatchery. It's expected to employ 1,500 people, require 130 contract growers and process 1.25 million birds a week. Construction is expected to start later this summer.

"We are pleased that better overall market conditions, our financial performance and a strong balance sheet have put us in a position to continue to grow our company," said CEO Joe F. Sanderson Jr.

With planning, having your own hen house can be a sunny-side-up experience

Get a glance behind-the-scenes of the annual Henside the Beltline Tour d'Coop.

Sam Talley, a farmer in Siler City, is struggling to make ends meet after Pilgrim's Pride ended two contracts, cutting Talley's poultry income in ... more

City councilman Eugene Brown, known as "Sound-Bite Brown" by some of his colleagues, took his stand on Durham's long-running chicken question just before the council voted last night:

"There is the old expression — philosophical, biological — Which came first, the chicken or the egg?' And that has been debated for centuries. And at times it seems like we have deated this ordinance for centuries.

"But tonight, the question is not Why did the chicken cross the road? but, Will we allow chickens to cross the city line and reside in the city of durham?

"This very long debate that we’ve had, since I guess last summer and beyond, certainly it’s been tiresome at times. I’ve stated obviously there are more important issues. But tonight it’s going to be decided.

"And when you look back, this ordinance we’re talking about, this ordinance is much like an egg: It’s been scrambled, it’s been fried, and tonight it will be hopefully served on a platter sunny side up."

Neighborhood email traffic, which has been hot and heavy on the pros and cons of backyard chickens ever since the proposition hit the city council two months ago, has taken a new turn.

Foxes.

Since foxes are known to frequent some inner-Durham neighborhoods, and foxes love chicken almost as much as preachers, the question has been raised:

If Durham allows citizens to raise hens in their yards, won't that attract even more foxes?

And if the foxes find good eating, won't they be breeding more little foxes?

Couldn't an influx of domestic chickens lead to an explosion in the fox population?

If the fox population explodes, won't it outpace the food supply, leading to hungry foxes all over town?

Are street foxes, scrounging a living from trash cans, really what Durham wants?

Silly? No more so than some of what's been said in city council hearings on the subject.

Hey, foxes gotta eat, too.

After more than an hour of discussion and citizen testimony Monday, the Durham City Council voted to put off deciding the chicken question for another two weeks.

Durham HENS is planning a major show of support at tonight’s City Council public hearing on a proposal to allow backyard hens.

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at City Hall on Mangum Street, beginning with Mayor Bell's State of the City annual report and a few other matters before the hearing.

Local organizer and former council member Frank Hyman sent an e-mail this morning encouraging supporters to pick up “one of our very cool” Durham HENS T-shirts (Healthy Eggs in Neighborhoods Soon) at Barnes Supply on Ninth Street for $15 and wear it to the hearing. The money will help with education efforts, he says.

At some point organizers plan to ask all supporters to stand up and be counted. Councilmembers are hearing opposition from some constituents, Hyman says, despite newspaper stories showing other cities aren't having problems with backyard hens. As my colleague Jim Wise reports below, Councilman Eugene Brown wants a decision tonight. 

Read Barry Saunders take on Durham's chicken fight here.

City Council member Eugene Brown, in a Sunday memo to his colleagues, urged bringing the long-running chicken question to resolution when it meets tonight.

Whether to allow city residents to raise hens in their yards has absorbed hours of council meeting time over the past two months, and Brown wrote that that may have given the council an unfavorable image among the taxpaying and voting public.

In part, Brown wrote: "Apparently, [Monday night] our attorney's office will present a compromise to us on some of these issues which have been discussed. This is good for although this is an important item,it may only affect a very small number of our citizens, and we also have more important items to deal with, especially in this economy. If at all possible, I believe we should reach a decision on the hen issue tomorrow night. After a while the public may ascertain that we are only engaged in trivia pursuits, the "fiddling while Rome burned" syndrome. So, regardless if we fry it, scramble it, or poach it, tomorrow night we need to pass it,or close the door on the chicken coop debate."

The council meets at 7 p.m.

City Council member Farad Ali on this afternoon's work session:

"We have an economy that's going to hell and we're talking about chickens."