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Chicken is back on the city menu. On Tuesday evening, the Fort Collins City Council voted 5-1 to allow residents to keep as many as six hens within city limits—purely for egg-laying and composting purposes, no slaughtering or roosters allowed.
While the ordinance has chicken movement leader Dan Brown and cohorts jumping for joy—his latest celebratory chicken blog is titled “Cluck Yes!!!!!!”—councilman Wade Troxell still has a rotten taste in his mouth over the matter.
“I think barnyard animals don’t have a place in our neighborhoods,” he said, speaking with Fort Collins Now while on a trip in Copenhagen, Denmark that left Diggs Brown as the only vote in opposition to the second reading of the chicken measure.
“I’ve had constituents in District 4 that currently have chickens next to them and they’ve called and complained about the smell, about the noise and about the flies,” Troxell said. “I think you can paint a utopian view but at the end of the day it’ll create a lot of issues between citizens and their neighbors.”
Troxell referred to the group that thrust urban hens into the city limelight a minority and fears that the majority of “law abiding, family-rearing, concerned citizens may not know what’s happening” and won’t take kindly to the fowl smell wafting over the fenceline.
He jabbed at the city for not enforcing the previous ban on urban hens by cracking down on the few residents that keep coops in their yards.
“I think there’ll be neighborhoods that will be clearly upset because their quality of life will be degraded,” Troxell said. He also expressed confusion as to whether defining a hen as a household pet and not a barnyard animal would usurp neighborhood covenant codes, meaning that many neighborhoods’ guidelines may not be able to prohibit an influx of hens.
“If that is the case that means there’s a lot of people that may not be aware that soon there might be chickens next door,” he said.
But given the vote in favor of chickens and organized movements by chicken supporters, it seems for the moment that Troxell has plenty who disagree with him.
Ani Glaser, who runs an in-home Waldorf preschool program called the Lilac Moon Playschool, came from Eugene and Portland, Ore., before moving to Fort Collins, where she said urban hens are legal and a natural part of city life.
“Three or four of my friends had eggs within city limits as part of their daily life,” Glaser said. She said that down the block from where she grew up there lived “the egg lady” who sold eggs to the neighborhood. She said she never noticed—or smelled—any problems.
“I haven’t ever experienced a bad smell from chickens,” she said. “That would fall under the abuse and neglect category if that was found. No one should be allowed to keep pets that way and there should be consequences.”
She said that such laws apply as much to dogs and cats as they do to tending chickens, and that at least chickens give something tangible in return. She said she’s excited to build a coop and have chickens for her preschoolers to help care for.
“I have a parent volunteer who’s already going to help me build a coop. I’ll be a part of my daily program to feed and care for the chickens,” Glaser said. “I would like to say thank you to the community here for making it important and something that needed to happen. I don’t think I would want to live anywhere where it remained illegal. I think it’s an important right, privilege and a natural part of life.”
Nevertheless, Troxell’s adamant that people will change their minds.
“I think it won’t yield the utopian end that many would like to argue,” he said. “These are barnyard animals, they required regular care and that means commitment and responsibility.
“This isn’t like chicks on Easter morning in an Easter basket.”
While the ordinance has chicken movement leader Dan Brown and cohorts jumping for joy—his latest celebratory chicken blog is titled “Cluck Yes!!!!!!”—councilman Wade Troxell still has a rotten taste in his mouth over the matter.
“I think barnyard animals don’t have a place in our neighborhoods,” he said, speaking with Fort Collins Now while on a trip in Copenhagen, Denmark that left Diggs Brown as the only vote in opposition to the second reading of the chicken measure.
“I’ve had constituents in District 4 that currently have chickens next to them and they’ve called and complained about the smell, about the noise and about the flies,” Troxell said. “I think you can paint a utopian view but at the end of the day it’ll create a lot of issues between citizens and their neighbors.”
Troxell referred to the group that thrust urban hens into the city limelight a minority and fears that the majority of “law abiding, family-rearing, concerned citizens may not know what’s happening” and won’t take kindly to the fowl smell wafting over the fenceline.
He jabbed at the city for not enforcing the previous ban on urban hens by cracking down on the few residents that keep coops in their yards.
“I think there’ll be neighborhoods that will be clearly upset because their quality of life will be degraded,” Troxell said. He also expressed confusion as to whether defining a hen as a household pet and not a barnyard animal would usurp neighborhood covenant codes, meaning that many neighborhoods’ guidelines may not be able to prohibit an influx of hens.
“If that is the case that means there’s a lot of people that may not be aware that soon there might be chickens next door,” he said.
But given the vote in favor of chickens and organized movements by chicken supporters, it seems for the moment that Troxell has plenty who disagree with him.
Ani Glaser, who runs an in-home Waldorf preschool program called the Lilac Moon Playschool, came from Eugene and Portland, Ore., before moving to Fort Collins, where she said urban hens are legal and a natural part of city life.
“Three or four of my friends had eggs within city limits as part of their daily life,” Glaser said. She said that down the block from where she grew up there lived “the egg lady” who sold eggs to the neighborhood. She said she never noticed—or smelled—any problems.
“I haven’t ever experienced a bad smell from chickens,” she said. “That would fall under the abuse and neglect category if that was found. No one should be allowed to keep pets that way and there should be consequences.”
She said that such laws apply as much to dogs and cats as they do to tending chickens, and that at least chickens give something tangible in return. She said she’s excited to build a coop and have chickens for her preschoolers to help care for.
“I have a parent volunteer who’s already going to help me build a coop. I’ll be a part of my daily program to feed and care for the chickens,” Glaser said. “I would like to say thank you to the community here for making it important and something that needed to happen. I don’t think I would want to live anywhere where it remained illegal. I think it’s an important right, privilege and a natural part of life.”
Nevertheless, Troxell’s adamant that people will change their minds.
“I think it won’t yield the utopian end that many would like to argue,” he said. “These are barnyard animals, they required regular care and that means commitment and responsibility.
“This isn’t like chicks on Easter morning in an Easter basket.”
