Urban Chickens

[REnerd]

Silly question, but how does the by-law differentiate a chicken from a different bird that you ARE allowed to keep?  

Is there not an argument for a chicken being a pet?

[tomh009]

Thanks to Carl Linnaeus, they are able to specify family Galliformes (including also turkeys, guineafowl, partridges etc).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galliformes

[panamaniac]

Thanks to Carl Linnaeus, they are able to specify family Galliformes (including also turkeys, guineafowl, partridges etc).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galliformes

A flock of guineafowl wandering around your backyard - how cool would that be!

[MidTowner]

My opposition doesn't stem from some sort of suburban idealism, I live in one of the densest areas of the city and I don't think there's really enough room in this neighbourhood to keep chickens in anyone's back yard. They stopped keeping other livestock in cities before the suburbs were a thing and I think that was progress. Urban noise and stink issues have improved in the last 100 years and I don't think we should allow hobby farming in the city. The slippery slope argument can also be made that if we start allowing a couple chickens then we'll have to consider goats and pigs too, I mean a small pig isn't much bigger or louder than a couple dogs...

I usually dislike this "slippery slope/thin edge of the wedge" argument. We are not discussing goats and pigs. We through the municipal government should be perfectly capable of discussing each issue in isolation, and deciding where a balance should be struck. Allowing a few chickens subject to sensible rules doesn't mean anything for keeping other animals.

By the by, I also had a neighbour who had a goat, in a dense inner-city neighbourhood, and the complaint that eventually led to its being taken away was not caused by its impact on any of the neighbours. I didn't think it was too bad. But I'm not sure goats are something we need to talk about right now. As for pigs, Vietnamese pot belly pigs and other small breeds are often kept as pets not unlike dogs, and their ownership is regulated in some municipalities in Ontario.

[plam]

I wonder what the impact to the economy would be if backyard birds became a continuous source of avian flu. I imagine that it would be almost impossible to control if there were thousands of chickens spread out across the region in people's backyards.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/29...-1.3029870

There are thousands or millions of chickens in peoples' backyards in other countries (Turkey, for example). I was reading up on this and people kept chickens in North America until the 1950s. I'd imagine that here we'd keep a registry of urban chickens and either vaccinate or cull the chickens if there was an avian flu threat. Also, backyard birds are much less crowded than those at chicken farms.

[zanate]

I've had one friend who kept chickens with the acceptance of all her immediate neighbours, until one day some years later when a more distant neighbour called in bylaw. Now, she keeps quail, which is legal. The eggs are also apparently edible, though obviously you need a few more of them.

The situation at the coop next to Mount Hope is pretty similar. No problems for years, good relationship with neighbours, and then bylaw descends claiming noise and smell. Which is... imaginative, considering I'd walked by that location many, many times before I ever realized there were chickens there and I've never smelled or heard them.

Don't get me wrong: bylaw enforcement is just doing their job. I see no problem with that. However, these incidents are strong evidence that a well run coop does not place any hardship on anyone except the neighbourhood fussbucket, and that a blanket ban is an unjustified limitation on our freedom. The current bylaw should be replaced with one which regulates coops instead of banning them.

[tomh009]

I've had one friend who kept chickens with the acceptance of all her immediate neighbours, until one day some years later when a more distant neighbour called in bylaw. Now, she keeps quail, which is legal. The eggs are also apparently edible, though obviously you need a few more of them.

Quail are actually also part of Galliformes, so if someone checks Wikipedia they will quickly discover that quail are also not legal ...

[zanate]

I've had one friend who kept chickens with the acceptance of all her immediate neighbours, until one day some years later when a more distant neighbour called in bylaw. Now, she keeps quail, which is legal. The eggs are also apparently edible, though obviously you need a few more of them.

Quail are actually also part of Galliformes, so if someone checks Wikipedia they will quickly discover that quail are also not legal ...

Well, you made me go look it up.

(source)

408.2.10 Prohibited animal

A prohibited animal means:
(...)
  (e) birds which are members of the following orders:
(...)
    - Order Galliformes, for example, but not limited to, grouse and pheasants, except for non-indigenous quail species which have been captive-bred for more than six generations

So... #NotAllGalliformes.

[tomh009]

Quail are actually also part of Galliformes, so if someone checks Wikipedia they will quickly discover that quail are also not legal ...

Well, you made me go look it up.

(source)

408.2.10 Prohibited animal

A prohibited animal means:
(...)
  (e) birds which are members of the following orders:
(...)
    - Order Galliformes, for example, but not limited to, grouse and pheasants, except for non-indigenous quail species which have been captive-bred for more than six generations

So... #NotAllGalliformes.

Wow!    So there is a specific exemption for old-world quail.  I wonder how one would prove the six generations of captive breeding though?  Do people keep stud books for quail?

[zanate]

Wow!    So there is a specific exemption for old-world quail.  I wonder how one would prove the six generations of captive breeding though?  Do people keep stud books for quail?

Honestly, I don't know how you'd prove that. But, quail have a fairly short lifespan (3-5 years for button quail, 5-7 for others) and are probably fertile in their first year, so I think it can probably be assumed especially if you can tell someone where you got them.

[mpd618]

The situation at the coop next to Mount Hope is pretty similar. No problems for years, good relationship with neighbours, and then bylaw descends claiming noise and smell. Which is... imaginative, considering I'd walked by that location many, many times before I ever realized there were chickens there and I've never smelled or heard them.

Don't get me wrong: bylaw enforcement is just doing their job. I see no problem with that. However, these incidents are strong evidence that a well run coop does not place any hardship on anyone except the neighbourhood fussbucket, and that a blanket ban is an unjustified limitation on our freedom. The current bylaw should be replaced with one which regulates coops instead of banning them.

This.

[clasher]

The people who are into keeping hens now without approval are going to be doing an above-average job at it because if they didn't they'd surely raise the ire of neighbours and by-law. Imagine if dog-owning wasn't allowed, the people that still kept dogs would be very good at keeping them quiet and out of sight. But since anyone can own a dog we all have to deal with the consequences of all kinds of dog owners. I doubt that urban chickens will ever be as popular as dogs are but non-dog owners are paying for the humane society and all the other costs so some people can have the fun of owning dogs while other people get puppies and dispose of them or worse abuse them.

There's a relatively small number of people that want to keep chickens but the costs to set up a proper licensing scheme as well as the infrastructure to deal with unwanted chickens from people who don't realise that chickens can live 5-10 years but only lay for 3 or 4 on average. Are these people all going to be able to slaughter their own birds at home or should they have the chickens inspected like any other farming operation that sells meat for human consumption does? People say that "factory farm" eggs can be dirty and diseased yet someone that reads a few blogs and buys some chicks at the feed store is now qualified to produce food safely?

Here's a chicken vet's perspective that has some well-reasoned arguments against changing the bylaws. He cites 2lbs of manure per week per bird, among other issues. In the comments he mentions cases of salmonella outbreak in Vancouver that was traced back to restaurants using ungraded, farm-gate or backyard eggs. The CDC in the US has documented rising salmonella outbreaks that correspond to increases in owning backyard chickens. It's possible to set up safety programs to prevent this kind of thing but again who is going to pay for it all? Just saying that because the few people who keep chickens now do it well enough that no one is getting sick isn't really a convincing argument since people in other places are getting sick from backyard hens and/or their eggs.

[MacBerry]

How is that at all relevant to whether people should be allowed to do so? That is the question - whether this should be something prohibited by by-law, or not.

People engage in all kinds of arguably "unproductive" activities - fixing up old cars, canning jams, growing vegetables. Sure, you can make claims that economically those things don't make sense. But it does not matter whether they make sense to an economist, it matters whether they make sense to the people doing them - and those people take into account things other than money.

Oh, and our endless suburban expanses are hardly so dense as to make the concept of backyard chickens ridiculous.

This.  All this.  +1

The fundamental question, of course, is whether residential zoning should permit agricultural activity.  And if it should, what kind of limits should there be?

All home offices now banned!  Commercial in a Residential zone!
No more homework!  Institutional in a residential zone!

absurd?  yes, but so is claiming 4 hens is an agricultural activity.  not more than gardening

 4 hens maybe no problem 

400 hens in 100 properties ... hmmm ... you get the growth potential

All the back to nature idealism ignores at least one urban thing that comes with many chicken coops that if not looked after daily create other problems (I don't have a number of how many are needed but just like the nearest restaurant back lot  ... they attract mice but mostly rats). Lock the chickens up at night and nothing happens to the chickens but the rats have lots to eat from the ground foods not eaten. Don't lock the doors and the rats have fresh eggs. Anyone who lived or worked on a farm knows they are always around just not seen. Rats attract foxes/coyotes and the neighbours complain and so the cycle begins   

[plam]

It's not like we're the first city to ever consider allowing urban chickens. It seems to me that other cities allowed it and the sky didn't fall.

Rats: yes, we already have pigeons and squirrels. Not sure rats would outcompete squirrels. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. But I just don't think it's going to ever get that mainstream to own chickens.

[MidTowner]

From the Record: Bylaw staff recommend backyard chicken coops but no roosters

-Maximum of four hens
-$50 one-time licensing fee and initial coop inspection
-Chickens must be banded with owner information and in an enclosed run when not in their coops
-Coops must be three metres from the side lot line and 1.2 metres from the rear lot line

I have some neighbours with chickens, and most don't meet those requirements, but probably could. Some may have to relocate their coops slightly. I know of a few who currently let their chickens roam their backyard, but realistically that seems low-risk if you have good communication with your neighbours.

The proposal seems a lot like the Guelph bylaw, but that bylaw requires the coop to be at least fifty feet from any other house. Since Kitchener's would be a lot line setback, it's conceivable in some neighbourhoods that a neighbour could have a chicken coop in a side yard ten feet from your home. I'm not sure how impactful that could be. I guess the daily cleaning requirements would mitigate impact, but if you don't happen to like the sounds of chickens, you might be out of luck.