City Issued a Citation and claims we aren’t allowed to have chickens due to neighbor’s complaint. What are my options?

[cassie]

I didn't read the whole thread. This is just a comment. However, if you are given a citation for anything insist on being given the relevant statute number and then go to the local law library and look it up yourself. What an authority says the law is and what the law actually is may not be the same thing, or even close. If you don't know where the library is, call any attorney's office and ask. They can tell you. By the way, I have found the reference librarians at the law library to be very helpful.

 

[All4Eggz]

Day 3 and I’m at 175 signatures. First day broke 100.
I’d say that’s pretty good. Goal right now is 500 but ultimate goal is 1000. Some say it’s a stretch but I think it’s doable. That’ll really show the council that people want this. They will have a hard time going against what the people want.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

How long do you have to reach your goal?

 

[McChooky]

The name on the post office is the official name of a town.Some cities move their city limits signs to allow police to patrol a wider area.The name of the post office should match the name of the town.Edit: I mention this because some towns will claim they've annexed another town and will ban chickens without an official ordinance (only word of mouth)

 

[All4Eggz]

How long do you have to reach your goal?

The councilor only wants to reintroduce it after the election, election is in November. So I guess we have until after November. I would like it to be brought up again before that, especially if we reach our goal, but if the councilor wants to wait there’s not really anything I can do. And I get it, he needs to focus on running so he can actually get re-elected to help out with this.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Well good luck.

 

[McChooky]

Some time last year the city came because of a noise complaint, demanding we get rid of almost all the flock and all the roosters. We had almost 10 roosters, had to get rid of all of them.
Had about 60 chickens, they said we can only have 15 so we brought it down to about 20 and the guy let us slide. He’s a nice guy, always is trying to help us and doing everything he can to let us keep the chickens.

That was sometime last year. We’ve had chickens for around a decade so we thought we’re off the hook. City clearly said we are allowed 15 hens because of the size of the coop and property, multiple inspections followed the complaint last year.

Some back story. Fresh eggs are huge in our family. Chickens are a big deal here. We don’t even eat store bought eggs, before they would even make some of our stomachs hurt.
So I am trying to do anything I can to keep these hens. We don’t sell eggs anymore, no profit from them. Just the fresh eggs, and occasionally, meat.

I am just needing help on how I can fight them this time…

It’s the same neighbor complaining this time.
This time there’s rats “coming from the coop and into her garage.” And i don’t deny we have rats, i’ve seen a few here and there. The chickens are close to her property line but we have double fencing to divide both sides.
The guy from the city claimed she provided “evidence” of the rats because she took photos/videos of them in her garage.
HOW is this evidence that they’re coming from our coop, and how is that enough to force us to get rid of all our chickens?

The man mentioned something about other neighbors being involved, so she must’ve got other people on board to fight against us.

I am willing to do what it takes the keep the 15 that we were allowed in the first place.

Thinking of moving the coop to the other side of the property, it would be almost an acre away from the complaining neighbor’s fencing.
I can get an exterminator for the rats if it I find it to be affordable…. I’ll do this if I need to. I’m not going to do it if I have to get rid of the chickens either way.

Please share your experiences if any, and any insight on what to do/how to do it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

It would have to moved 500 feet away from any neighbor to prevent the rats from traveling to the neighbors.I suspect your history of having too many roosters and rats may cause you to lose your rights

 

[McChooky]

Move your coop as far from the snitch neighbor as possible. Prepare to fight in court because rats on your neighbor's property aren't your problem and they have no evidence that you're the source of the rats

She can't claim the rats aren't hers when she admits she has rats

 

[McChooky]

This has been interesting to me. Our farm has always been a quail and guinea farm. But this year we are adding chickens. So, I've been watching alot of YouTube and Google reading about raising heritage chickens. Now as a kid I was born and raised in Ohio on a 100000 starter chicken farm. I listened to my parents deal with all the legalities of such. Now I see people raising chickens in town, near town or in populated areas. Then I noticed that most all these people raise their chickens at the furthest location on their property away from their house. But close to other peoples homes. Gee I wonder why they have problems. Our farm over 100 guineas per year, over 100 quail per year now adding 50 chickens. We might add 25 pheasants to the farm as well. I wouldn't even dream of raising all this near town.

You're right of course! The coop shouldn't have been built there to begin with! Being a good neighbor means not keeping roosters if they're close enough to disturb your neighbors.There's no excuse for keeping rats