Jeanie Mellem often begins her day in her Bloomington backyard, spending a few contemplative moments with "The Ladies" before departing for work.

They are her chickens: Gretchen, Grace, Carolyn and Emma.

Mellem settles in a folding chair and listens as the hens softly cluck. Two of the feathery girls tolerate being held and petted. The other two would rather scratch and peck the ground in their straw-covered run.

Mellem and her husband, Todd Topel, raised the hens from chicks they bought last June, adding a chicken coop to the beehives they've tended for three years. But turning their backyard into a mini-hobby farm has run smack into Bloomington's zoning code.

In February, the couple returned from vacation to find a voice mail from the city that said the chickens and hives violate a city rule: Any enclosure holding farm animals, including bees, must be at least 100 feet from any property line.

While their yard near Hyland Park is large, the backyard isn't terribly deep, making it impossible to meet the city requirements.

Mellem appealed to City Council members earlier this month, citing other cities that have made it easier for urban and suburban residents to keep chickens. While Mellem and a supportive neighbor got a cordial reception from city officials, unless someone on the council pushes her case, she will have to get rid of both bees and birds by April 16.

Mellem said she will move the bees to property she and her husband own up north. But unless the city yields, she will have to give the chickens away.

They are more than producers of thick-shelled, pastel brown, green and blue eggs, she said. They are her pets.

"There's something really relaxing about just sitting there and watching them scratch," she said. "Maybe it's a simpler life. Until you do it, you just don't understand.

"If they're not bothering anybody, it doesn't seem any different from having a couple of dogs."

Not so, say Bloomington officials.

Someone complained about the chickens, said Lynn Moore, the city's environmental health manager. It's the second illegal chicken case the city has had to deal with recently.

"We always hear that neighbors love the eggs, but quite honestly, the complaints I get from talking to neighbors is that they are not real happy," she said.

Larry Lee, the city's director of community development, said noise and smell are concerns, as are escaped birds.

"You can pick up fecal matter from a dog. It's much harder to keep chickens clean," he said.

"People who grew up in a rural environment and took care of chickens and had to be around chickens think it's crazy to take care of chickens in a suburban environment," he said. "They went to college so they didn't have to take care of chickens. It's people who grew up in an urban environment and never had to take care of them who have this romance with chickens."

Moore is one of those former farm kids. "After three years, they no longer lay eggs. What would you do then?" she asked.

Mellem said "The Ladies" are pets, and she'd keep them whether they laid eggs or not. Before she bought the four hens as chicks, she took a University of Minnesota class on keeping chickens.

There is no rooster, so the only noise from the coop is soft clucking, Mellem said. Though the hens can fly, Mellem said her birds have never escaped to anyone else's yard.

The hens spend their nights in a heated coop Topel built and their days in a locked, covered chicken-wire run. The only time the birds are in an uncovered run is when Mellem is in the backyard with them, she said.

The coop is filled with sweet-smelling pine chips that Mellem cleans every week or two. She eats or gives away the eggs.

Neighbors have brought grandchildren over to visit the chickens, and the kids next door cared for the birds when Mellem and Topel were on vacation.

Some neighbors may not have realized that the birds were in the wooded backyard until trees dropped their leaves last fall and the coop became visible. Mellem said she talked to her immediate neighbors before she got the birds, and they were fine with the hens.

Margaret Paul lives across the street and loves having hens in the neighborhood -- and not just because she gets free eggs. She compares the growing interest among residents in keeping chickens in the city to a desire for local food and farmers markets.

"The rules have to be changed," she said. "Chickens are very interesting. It makes the neighborhood more vital."

Mellem said she and her husband briefly discussed moving, then realized "we were not quite that crazy." She has been in touch with chicken rescue groups and other chicken enthusiasts -- there is an Internet discussion group for Twin Cities chicken lovers -- and she said one woman has agreed to take the hens as a group.

Mellem said she's a realist and expects that she will have to give up the birds. She's thinking of having a neighborhood open house to say goodbye to the hens and sooth any hard feelings about the backyard coop. She recently learned that at least one neighbor (who grew up on a farm) feels it's inappropriate to have the birds in a suburban setting.

"We don't want any bad feelings," she said.

But if the city rules change, she said, she would want to bring the hens back.

"They are my little girls," she said.

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380