Chicken out law

[Anny]

I'm just curious how many people on here keep their chickens Illegally?

Have you ever been caught?

Do you do anything to hide them or is your city not uptight about the law?

I am in Detroit and I plan on keeping chickens, I know of at least 4 other homes in my area that have chicken,nah...ROOSTERS! And Goats! So I honestly think the Detroit cops have better things to worry about then Chickens.

 

[stacym]

Hi ! I live in a small town in Nebraska and I keep my chickens illegally. I have them behind my garden shed where they are can get some shade. Currently I am hiding them because the renters next door have been looking over here. They have been talking to the neighbors next to them who think they are the Village police. I imagine that I will have problems. I figure that I will have to fight fire with fire. They have a pit bull which is illegal. They let it run loose in their front yard so it can chase other dogs. Mind you these other dogs are being walked by their owners!
The pit bull also loves to run up to my chain link fence and bark and growl at me while I'm picking vegetables from my garden. Thankfully, my garden is 4 feet away from the fence.
It is frustrating that my chickens are kept in a pen,make no noise, don't smell and have no sharp teeth that can bite me. Worse, this is farm country,yet, no chickens in town!!
I know the people on the village board and my chances of getting a ordinance for my chickens is "0". If I was good friends with all of them then I could count on doing whatever I want. They all have their own agenda's that they want passed. It's the only reason that they are on the board.
Sorry for the rant and good luck with your birds! I hope that you don't have noisy neighbors that like to cause trouble!

 

[fullhouse]

Have you checked into the MI "Right to farm act" Anny? It would cover you if you do get "caught" as long as you sell or plan to sell eggs. Even one egg.

 

[michickenwrangler]

Anny,

Are we going to see you on "Animal Cops Detroit" in the near future?

I'm relocating to the Ann Arbor/Saline area and Saline's laws are very vague about chickens. They specifically ban swine, cattle, sheep and goats (so I guess this means I can keep the horses in the backyard as well instead of boarding them

) But they don't specifically ban fowl of any sort.

They simply state that I have to pay a fine and get rid of them if they cackle too loud or stink too bad. My mother has a high privacy fence and she feeds the local birds anyway so there is a lot of chirping going on.

We plan on keeping them in rabbit hutches in her garage at night and I'm making a portable chicken run for daytime.

In Ann Arbor you can keep 5 hens and 1 goat (doe). Go to Municode.com and check it out. The link is at the bottom of the home page of this forum.

Actually, the historical society has made mention that they would like to use my half-Arab to pull their doctor's buggy and since my clucks are heritage breeds, I may be able to "board" them at the historical society barn.

We'll see.

 

[altmanharley]

I Live in lake worth Florida and I keep my hens illegally (ome citys state that you can have hens)Icleanthe coop every weekend with freash horse
shavings and give my neighbors freash eggs. Some people have been caught and fined.

 

[Anny]

Quote:
I haveheard of that actually...I only plan on having 4 hens...but I could still sell the eggs to my mom and boyfriends mom haha
since neither of us eat eggs.

 

[balticbabe]

I'm curious about this myself so I created a survey. It can be found here https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=72231

70 people have taken it so far and most of them are allowed chickens. The people who can't do so anyway.

 

[clarktx]

I was going to make a new posting saying "how long have you had illegal chickens without being caught". I feel like I probably can keep it up for 6 months, maybe more. We'll see.

I have 3, and they are illegal.

 

[emandmikey]

I know of someone in my town who has had them illegally for one and a half years, and so far the neighbors haven't noticed anything. Well, if they have noticed they haven't said anything to this family about it. I have heard there are several other families too, but have only met this one so far.

With my efforts to get the ordinance changed in my town, I am guessing that most illegal chicken owners are trying to stay away from the spotlight right now. Hopefully once we get it changed, I can meet more folks in my area with chickens! It would be really great to have some more local 'chicken friends'.

 

[jessupfamily]

We live in the downtown area of Evansville, IN and we keep ILLEGAL chickens! I'm not too worried though! The law is 5 hens, no roos. We have 15 laying hens, 53 babies of various ages, 2 roos, 1 bantam couple, and 1 mama sitting on 5 eggs. Our neighbors love the chickens and the FREE eggs!!! We also figure when they deal with the "crack" houses in the immediate area then we'll worry about our chickens being "illegal". We've even had the police in the neighborhood for many various reasons and heard our roos crowing and the hens having an egg laying party. They don't care until someone complains.