Arizona Chickens

[pipemum]

Ya all don't forget to submit your input in writing.. Or email, call.. It is so important... If you are not able to go you can still be heard..

You can email your comments to : Adam Smith: [email protected]
or Rebecca Ruopp: [email protected], 520-837-6973

I'll find out where you can mail the comments.

 

[City farm]

Ya all don't forget to submit your input in writing.. Or email, call.. It is so important... If you are not able to go you can still be heard..

You can email your comments to :  Adam Smith:  [email protected]
or Rebecca Ruopp:  [email protected], 520-837-6973

I'll find out where you can mail the comments. 

Thank you for posting.. I will send a email to them both..

 

[City farm]

This her waiting for the boys to catch up. .

Here is a map of the area.

 

[City farm]

 

Attended the meeting....I'm not too happy. Three rabbits and 8 chickens? Really? No answers on my baby rabbits. If I have three girls,"visit" the buck on occasion, I will be in compliance until the kits come. My question was when do the kits "count" as rabbits? I harvest at 16 weeks...why can I have two 70 lb goats but only 3 rabbits? That makes no sense.

Would someone who attended give a summary of what was discussed for those of us who couldn't go? I am not in the city, but like to know what the blasted bureaucrats are up to.

I wasn't at the meeting, but what I read about the plan was there would be an allowed number of animal units per residence, and the animal units could be allocated in different ways. If you had both rabbits and chickens you could allocate the rabbit and chicken numbers any way you wanted, as long as the total animal units didn't go over the maximum for the zoning.  It made a lot of sense to me when I read it.  Now I can't find a link.  I think chickens were 0.1 unit each, so you could have quite a few chickens - possibly more than is currently allowed.  Don't remember how many animal units rabbits and goats would be.  It looked to me like the city was trying to make it much easier to have animals in town.  I am not sure why people are so upset, except for the anti-urban-agriculture folks.  Those folks should move to Oro Valley or some other beige community where everything is already super neat and regulated.  Urban agriculture rocks!

Did it mention anything if you had 2plus acres??

 

[pipemum]

I'm not sure acreage matters too much, it's the zoning that decides setbacks and restrictions and blah blah. 2-acres in a residential zoning would give leeway in setbacks from neighboring properties...but I'm not sure it would change how many small animals one could legally own. But I'm not positive on that...haven't read the revisions very carefully.

 

[pipemum]

I wasn't at the meeting, but what I read about the plan was there would be an allowed number of animal units per residence, and the animal units could be allocated in different ways. If you had both rabbits and chickens you could allocate the rabbit and chicken numbers any way you wanted, as long as the total animal units didn't go over the maximum for the zoning. It made a lot of sense to me when I read it. Now I can't find a link. I think chickens were 0.1 unit each, so you could have quite a few chickens - possibly more than is currently allowed. Don't remember how many animal units rabbits and goats would be. It looked to me like the city was trying to make it much easier to have animals in town. I am not sure why people are so upset, except for the anti-urban-agriculture folks. Those folks should move to Oro Valley or some other beige community where everything is already super neat and regulated. Urban agriculture rocks!

Oh, my take from the meeting was that pro-urban agriculture people might possibly be upset because things that they are currently doing that aren't regulated in the code, might now be in the code, and might not be permissible anymore. And, what is "allowed" is a bit limiting and structured. So, as always, the code update benefits of us but others are going to be highly upset. I really can't tell if the update is a win for urban agriculture folks or not, but I'm also not in the thick of things and don't actually know what is currently legal or not and how the revisions might help or not. I'm just going by a 1.5 hour meeting.

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
Well, I just slogged through the April 28 draft. That is a bummer. It is hard numbers - 8 chickens, 3 "small" farm animals. It wasn't clear if rabbits were considered "small farm animals." I'm thinking they could be "pets" and exempt, but I didn't read that carefully. Given the size of most urban residential lots, the 8 chicken and 3 small farm animal limits aren't too unreasonable. The question is what happens on larger lots. I didn't look at the other zonings.

The draft does make it clear you can have a garden in your front yard. You can grow stuff up your fence line or wall as long as the supports don't protrude and cause a hazard for the neighbor. You can't put an animal shelter or a greenhouse in your front yard, which seems reasonable to me. It loosens up the setbacks for locating animal shelters.

It will be interesting to see how it changes before it is actually adopted. Send in any comments right away. Make sure your comments are specific, and cite the relevant portions of the draft if you want to see it tweaked before adoption. General comments are less useful to the people who are drafting the regs. Specific comments - particularly specific proposed language changes - are much more helpful and therefore are more likely to get considered for incorporation.

Pipemum gave the email addresses for comments a few posts above this one. And the link to the draft regs is a page or two back.

 

[carnivore]

Ya all don't forget to submit your input in writing.. Or email, call.. It is so important... If you are not able to go you can still be heard..

I was not able to attend, 'cuz I work nights. I also don't live "in" the city. Can I still make my voice heard? Any idea where to send a letter?

 

[Macboat]

They are just being regular jerks. They are separated, except mornings/evenings when I let everyone out. One jackass ran over and pecked my hand and drew blood. He's first in the cone. I was so ready to butcher him right that second, but fortunately for him, we left 5 minutes later for California.

I'm trying to fatten them up because at 14-15 weeks they are still scrawny, but their bell is ding-a-linging on Sunday. I will not ever raise packing peanut roos again. Meat or no meat, they just aren't worth the feed or time that went into them.

ever thought of caponizing them? I have ordered some tools cant wait to get my hands dirty....

 

[Syl in Tucson]

Here you go :
Adam Smith: [email protected]
or Rebecca Ruopp: [email protected], 520-837-6973