Cream Legbars

[chicken pickin]

Sounds like you and I are in the same boat. Did you try to fight the ordinance? How did it go and what worked or did not work?

They have a Q&A meeting on the 20th that I will show up to. It looks like this has been looked at for over a year but the focus and advertising has been spun as an increase in Ag use without mentioning the restrictions on us other folks. I may need to see a lawyer and start a campaign with my City Councilman, although I don't think he will be very friendly to my plight since he lives in and HOA wil super-lots of restrictions. The City should not act as an HOA! How can they want to expand and encourage Agricultural Use on small lots within City limits yet reduce my fair use of my property I've lived at for over 20 years? Colorado is a Right to Farm State but it allows Cities to be more limiting of the use, so I can't go by that unless I argue that the City is clearly wanting to expand AG operations within the City limits so it is illogical they would restrict my use. I cant even sue them for losses (I have invested quite a lot in CL's so far plus additional fencing I will have to build for the other parts of the ordinance they want to enact).

Man did his ruin my weekend. Plus I can't call anyone until Monday. Maybe that's just as well so I can cool down and be more polite in my conversations.

Any thoughts from you all on the best approach to try to but the brakes on this would be welcomed!

They did have a meeting last month though Im not sure if it was a public meeting or not. Either way I couldnt make it to the meeting unfortunately. I am hoping they have another meeting and yes I will attend and try my best to find other rooster owners in my town willing to fight. I love my roosters dearly and Id really be lost with out them. Not only are they all completely well behaved sweet and gentle rooster but they also allow me to keep an adequate supply of fertile eggs to sell and to hatch. These fertile eggs we all hatch allows us to have chicks so we can sell the females and put the males in the freezer. All of you with roosters already know all the benefits of having roosters. I have 4 adult roosters at the moment and I am on just under 2acres. This summer I had about 13-15 roosters. My neighbors have never complained. And many come to buy eggs from me and say my small farm is charming.

As mentioned though it only takes a few people who do not try there best to keep quiet roosters and or try to keep happy neighbors that ruin it for everyone else.

 

[normanack]

Any thoughts from you all on the best approach to try to but the brakes on this would be welcomed!

A woman in my city (tiny community, smack in the middle of rural nowheresville) put a petition on change.org to allow her severely handicapped children to keep their pet chickens -- caring for them, simply reaching down with food, etc. -- provided physical therapy for the kids, as well as the mental and emotional benefit of caring for animals. I don't know if she succeeded, but having tens of thousands of signatures on a petition really got the attention of the town officials. She even got onto the local TV news because of the petition.

 

[ChicKat]

dretd and chicken pickin,

Hopefully you can get the legal snarls untangled. Where there's a will there's a way.

Meanwhile, you will definitely be able to keep hens at home, right?


-- You may have to befriend a farmer and arrange to have conjugal visits with your chosen roosters. There has to be some solution if the powers that be prove to be totally ignorant and unreasonable. Hope that doesn't happen, but you can find a way to still raise CLs/

 

[HaplessRunner]

I just went out to the mailbox and got a card from the City asking for me to comment on the new City proposals to encourage Urban Agriculture--spinning it as allowing goats and year-round hoop houses and residential farm stands to encourage sustainability.

I am in one of 4 zones that have been exempt from Ag regulations, until now. When I got online to take the survey, they stated that they now want to regulate my zone (I live on 5 acres at the edge of the city) including adding a setback over concerns that animal waste run-off will harm streams and ditches (I abut both) and a total ban of roosters.

I can tell their 'focus group' did not have anyone that knows anything about roosters since they cited 4-H and increased nutritional value of eggs as the reason for keeping roosters and noise as the reason for the ban. I can think of plenty of reasons to keep a rooster and increased egg nutrition is not one of them.

If this goes through it will eliminate my ability to breed Cream Legbars. It will damage me personally. I am really upset about this! Why do some folks feel the need to regulate something that has not been an issue?

Dretd,

I am so sorry to hear this! Are you actually in the city limits? If you are not within the city, my question would be what right of jurisdiction would the city have if you are outside the limits? You will certainly have to network with other folks to bring pressure and present another side of the story.

IMO, unfortunately, this is just another example of imports to a State of folks from more urban locations who want to change things to make then like where they came from. We are having a huge problem in Virginia with a lot of folks from the northeast who are moving here. The northeast is so covered up with government in everyone's business. My wife has many relatives in Massachusetts that we visit and I have seen it first hand. These folks want to change all kinds of rules and impose new regulations similar to where they moved away from. I have been to Colorado a number of times and it is a beautiful State but politically you are suffering the issues we are facing here in VA.

I live a mile down a dirt gravel road and we had someone move to the area and was going to do all kinds of organic this and that. I got an anxious telephone call from one night about a week or so after they moved in wanting to know why there were not any sidewalks or streetlights here! She was so intimidated that for the next three years while they lived there all the flood lights around the house stayed on for 24/7. She tried to get the neighbors to petition the county for street lights and sidewalks. Unbelievable!

 

[Laingcroft]

Well it looks like my "all cream" boy, Heathcliff, carries autosomal red after all. He has a wild comb and crest thing going on as well but I still love him and can't wait for spring breeding season!

4 months old -- Heathcliff


Here you can see some of the AR in his wing.

 

[ChicKat]

Well it looks like my "all cream" boy, Heathcliff, carries autosomal red after all. He has a wild comb and crest thing going on as well but I still love him and can't wait for spring breeding season!

4 months old -- Heathcliff


Here you can see some of the AR in his wing.

So awesome...is that him in your avatar too.... You should get a progression series and note the dates. He's going to be a fine rooster. His crest looks like a bluejay or a cardinal. (interesting that when we were kids we always did like that crest for the added something.) Nice boy....

 

[dretd]

Quote: Unfortunately, we are 100 yards north of the Southern edge of the City limits- there is just one home between us and the line. When we moved out here over 20 years ago that road was a dirt road and we were in the boonies. The City has sprawled down to us.

The puzzling thing is that Ft Collins wants to be sustainable and has broadened the rights of folks living on 5K sf lots so they can have hens and now goats. For some reason though, they are now trying to take away my rights to have animals I have always been allowed to have including roosters. There would be regulations about minimal sf of the hen house and I would no longer be able to free range my hens in my back yard. They say they want to be more humane to the hens but in fact my hens will be very mad at the no fresh grazing allowed.

It is a serious problem because not only will my life be impacted, but my lot will be harder to sell and not as valuable if this goes through.

Thank you for your support. I will not go down without a fight. I already had to go through quite a bit to get the setback changed form 20 to 15 feet when I built my barn--unanimously rejected and quite an ordeal but finally got it through with appeals. This is a much bigger endeavor and will suck up a huge amount of my already limited time--but I can't let my right get taken away. It really does come down to people making rules that don;t know anything about what they are regulating. I will seek to inform them.

 

[dretd]

Well it looks like my "all cream" boy, Heathcliff, carries autosomal red after all. He has a wild comb and crest thing going on as well but I still love him and can't wait for spring breeding season!

4 months old -- Heathcliff


Here you can see some of the AR in his wing.

He is quite handsome and it looks like his comb will have that cranial fold but otherwise will be straight. As for his color, he looks cream with chestnut in the allowable places--maybe a hint in the crest too--but that is perfectly fine by the SOP and I think that little bit of color on the shoulders is pretty. His ears also look very uniformly white and that is really a good thing at his age. Definitely a keeper. I can't wait to see how he turns out!

 

[sweetdreaming]

I just went out to the mailbox and got a card from the City asking for me to comment on the new City proposals to encourage Urban Agriculture--spinning it as allowing goats and year-round hoop houses and residential farm stands to encourage sustainability.

I am in one of 4 zones that have been exempt from Ag regulations, until now. When I got online to take the survey, they stated that they now want to regulate my zone (I live on 5 acres at the edge of the city) including adding a setback over concerns that animal waste run-off will harm streams and ditches (I abut both) and a total ban of roosters.

I can tell their 'focus group' did not have anyone that knows anything about roosters since they cited 4-H and increased nutritional value of eggs as the reason for keeping roosters and noise as the reason for the ban. I can think of plenty of reasons to keep a rooster and increased egg nutrition is not one of them.

If this goes through it will eliminate my ability to breed Cream Legbars. It will damage me personally. I am really upset about this! Why do some folks feel the need to regulate something that has not been an issue?

Hey Dr. ETD,
By their own admission, their ordinance was developed to "support and promote sustainability". Why don't you ask them how that can possibly happen without Roosters? Immaculate chicken conception? You may need to give them a Biology 101 lesson! That may well be your legal loophole.

We live in the county as well, and although nobody's broached a "no rooster" ordinance (yet!), the county officials are so hard up for $, they have completely cracked down on Ag Exemptions for land. So even though we hv beef cattle (and horses, goats and chickens), since both my hubby and I have full-time careers, we aren't considered farmers and we'll now have to pay full taxes on our 23 acres. Major -and expensive- bummer. We'd move if we thought it was any better anywhere else in the US..... but this kind of stuff is happening everywhere. All we can do is show up at those city council meetings and be vocal!

 

[dretd]

Quote:
Thanks for your support and sorry for your troubles!

Immaculate conception indeed! I have a friend shopping her invention (sperm extender that increases viability) around to Venture Capitalists and she got really frustrated becasue most did not know anything about cow reproduction--why do you breed dairy cows every year, they're already giving milk? Can't you just use the 'steers' to breed the cows? etc.

Its about folks that know nothing about husbandry trying to regulate those that do. Here's the link to the survey:
http://www.fcgov.com/developmentreview/urbanagriculture.php
And here is the wording for the rooster ban:
• Roosters – The focus group discussed the benefits (improved nutritional value of the eggs and opportunity to raise roosters for 4-H) and drawbacks of raising roosters (noise) within the City and determined the drawbacks outweighed the benefits. Staff is planning to prohibit roosters within City limits.
9. In your opinion, should Roosters be allowed in City Limits?
This makes me hopping mad! I have left a message with a lawyer that deals in real estate law to get his perspective and had to leave messages with the city becasue its Veteran's Day. Not going down without a fight. Any other thoughts welcomed!