~***CITY/SUBURBAN FOLK THREAD***~ Not all of us are clueless!

[shadow rabbit10]

No, I do not have a big property. It's about 1/4 of an acre, but, my house and pool takes up most of it. Believe it or not, there are a handful of chicken keepers here in Point, they just keep quiet. There are more than you would think. it is always fun when you find local people on this site!

 

[richsbabycakes]

I'm in suburbia. I live in St Petersburg, FL and we have 10 chickens, all hens. We are not allowed to have roosters and I'm over the limit on my hens but keeping my neighbors don't care and the promise of fresh eggs helps. I live in a residential community and I don't know of anyone in my neighborhood that has chickens.

 

[Ally Rose]

Yes it is fun! I can't wait to get my ducks...I had eggs that were incubating but just found out they were internally damaged during shipping and never developed so i have to get more. Maybe next year I'll get into chickens and hatch a few, if my parents are ok with it, of course!

 

[Marty1876]

I'm in suburbia. I live in St Petersburg, FL and we have 10 chickens, all hens. We are not allowed to have roosters and I'm over the limit on my hens but keeping my neighbors don't care and the promise of fresh eggs helps. I live in a residential community and I don't know of anyone in my neighborhood that has chickens.

Good for you. Hens are real quiet for the most part, and from they sounds they make alone, its hard to tell if their is 3 or 15 really.

Yes it is fun! I can't wait to get my ducks...I had eggs that were incubating but just found out they were internally damaged during shipping and never developed so i have to get more. Maybe next year I'll get into chickens and hatch a few, if my parents are ok with it, of course!

I love ducks. They are way quieter than chickens, and you can have boys and girls, and nobody will be any the wiser. The quacks don't carry far. We kept only ducks here for ahile, but now I've got ducks, chickens, geese, quail, and turkeys. Yay!

 

[Ally Rose]

Wow!

 

[amorrill]

Glad to see this thread! I am keeping hens on a small lot in La Crosse, WI. They just legalized keeping up to 5 hens (no roos) within city limits last summer, so far, only 7 of us have applied

. It's not a terrible ordinance, it is a $10 yearly licensing fee and the coop has to be in your back yard (mine's along side my garage, and the council doesn't care.), at least 25 feet from the nearest house. You need the ok from at least 50% of your neighbors within so many feet (I forget, the city gives you a list of names and addresses.). The only part that bends my beak is that I have to get the signatures of my neighbors annually to renew the license. How stupid is that? I get that it gives me incentive to keep them all happy with my girls, but isn't that what animal control is for? I would think with no complaints, we could skip that. Oh well.

The ordinance states that they must be confined at all times, but is not very specific, and my yard is fenced, so they get to range when I am home. We also cannot butcher, which seems silly; if I can only keep 5 girls at a time, what kind of scale meat production could I really get into? Who would know if I culled one of mine anyway?

 

[shadow rabbit10]

Why cant you butcher? Our laws say nothing about that... My town also states that the chickens must be confined to a run. However, a certain family still brakes that rule.

 

[shadow rabbit10]

Oh, and welcome to BYC!

 

[amorrill]

Why cant you butcher? Our laws say nothing about that... My town also states that the chickens must be confined to a run. However, a certain family still brakes that rule.

I guess the thought just horrified someone when the ordinance was being written. Like I said, I could see the point if I was going to open up a broiler house and abattoir right here in the neighborhood, but with a 5 hen limit, who's going to raise meat birds anyway? It wouldn't even feed my household of two. The most likely scenario would be the odd rooster you didn't mean to order, or an old laying hen might end up on the dinner table.

 

[KnoxvilleChick]

We can't butcher either, but again with 6 hens max and no roosters, why bother? My Animal Control officer, when I asked her as I turned in my final round of paperwork, told me that the City council didn't want random passersby to happen upon a butcher scene and be scarred for life. Then she rolled her eyes and laughed, because she knows just like we all do how ridiculous this is!

She did say, however, I was free to take my chickens out of city limits and either butcher them or have them butchered. Just not in front of the tenderfoots