Already legal in Salem

As we slowly slog towards a rational accommodation for urban hens, it's worth remembering that, in Salem, pot bellied pigs are already specifically allowed -- with no limits on the numbers either. And they can be pretty substantial in size -- here's a Salem Craigslist ad tonight:

Friendly male pot belly piglet, enjoys the company of other animals and good with children. Currently 8 weeks old. Pictured with his mother who is 35lbs, his father is 50lbs, mainly black. Thanks.

The weird bias against hens goes back to the urge to impose a class-based restriction on what can be a pet in neighborhoods --- the bias says that an animal has to be useless, that it have no practical value, to help maintain the fiction that we're all lords of our little estates and that we don't need to work or grow our own food or anything like that ... that's for "those people" out in the sticks, not for us high-class "city people." Absurd as that sounds, that's pretty much the basis for zoning out urban hens when cows and full-size stock animals were zoned out of Salem in the 70's. What's especially noteworthy is how smoothly the zone code was changed to allow a pet for the rich folks who like pot-belly pigs when they became all trendy.