Hoping This Doesn't Pass...

[Zenmonkey]

@Iluveggers Im sorry, I didn't mean to come across as so negative. Definitely stay viligant, and don't give up the good fight. As long as you can keep the community together and keep pressing back, there hope.

@Lacy Duckwing Pray, stay in contact with the other looked minded folks, and don't be afraid to expose the ridiculous arguments when they come up.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Kind of like gun control. They only need to succeed once, and there's not really any penalty for failing. So they just keep hammering on it until they succeed.

The "fun" part starts after they're successful. They will have "compromised". Probably by "allowing" folks to have chickens, but not a "ridiculous" number of chickens. "Ridiculous" will have been defined so as to not impact 80% of the chicken owners, and so get enough votes to pass. And we're done, right?

At literally the next meeting there will be another vote to correct the minor errors in the first law. The total number needs to be "just a little lower". Or if they didn't set a limit on roosters, that's what this one will do. Or exotic pheasants / geese / horses / SOMETHING new will be banned.

This continues until you're limited to 5 hens, all housed in the community park, and HOA fees on those 5 birds would be several flocks elsewhere.

About that time, they introduce a proposed law to ban assault pit bulls.....

Good luck, and stay viligant. Don't give up an inch. Instead counter with a grab back of what you've had taken from you. If that's just peace of mind, then you're doing as well as can be expected.

@Iluveggers Im sorry, I didn't mean to come across as so negative. Definitely stay viligant, and don't give up the good fight. As long as you can keep the community together and keep pressing back, there hope.

@Lacy Duckwing Pray, stay in contact with the other looked minded folks, and don't be afraid to expose the ridiculous arguments when they come up.

@Zenmonkey, thank you for your encouragement. On your first post above, that is what I'm afraid of. Thankfully, I do have some good news, just I don't want to get too comfortable with it:

This morning I went running around to the town office to get the "new" articles and the people there said that this is nothing but a rumor. There is nothing to do with any ordinance going onto the ballot (this vote) and it is impossible for this to be voted on this soon after being just shot down. They did acknowledge this as a "rumor" and that I'm not the first one who has come in asking about it.
After I left there, I sent a quick text to the Chair of the Select Board and this is what he replied, along with attaching pictures of what this next vote will be on:

Everything on the next vote really only has to do with things like taxes (and sewer), so there is nothing to do with this on the ballot. Because this rumor is out there, I do want to stay alert because I am concern that they will try again. Based of that Selectman's text, I'm hoping it won't be any time soon, but I still want to stay alert on this in case anything does change.

 

[NetherLeeFarm]

Unfortunately... a new issue has come up. Appeartly, some of those who put this ordinance in motion are the same people in charge of my neighborhood, and a part of them putting this ordinance out there was them hoping it'd "take care of us" with chickens in the neighborhood and now all are upset that it didn't pass because now they have to come up with a new plan. They're now talking about changing the rules in my neighborhood and bringing a similar ordinance there, despite again, the majority of us have chickens and are farmers.
Not to mention, the original owner of the neighborhood was for farming and said we could have anything though he "didn't want to see horses or cows" due to lot size. His daughter and others have taken over the neighborhood and are against chickens and don't want any farm animals there.

Kind of like gun control.

So this sounds like a similar situation in a town close to us. Not really related to chickens but speaking of changing ordinances to suit a few hecklers...

Our county has a very highly regarded, private gun club that hosts a lot of classes and competitons etc. It's been there for decades, it's only open about 3-5 days a week between the hours of 9am-6pm (closes earlier in winter), and there's no firing after hours.

It's not in the city limits, but in recent years, the vacation homes have sprung up all around it. Now these home owners are complaining and "want something done."

Why? Get this: They don't like the noise from the guns AT the gun club. They bought and built houses next to a gun club, and now they want to shut down the gun club.

So far, last I heard, the complainers haven't made much headway. But the way our local town is shifting, I'm concerned it may not be long before they do.

This seems simple to me: If you don't like guns, don't move next door to a gun club. If you don't like chickens, don't move to an area that allows or has chickens. And vise versa - if you're deadset on owning chickens, don't buy a house in an area or neighborhood that doesn't allow them and then try to slide by or change the rules. I've seen this also.

Anyone is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's just common sense. So sorry that some of your neighbors seem to feel differently.

 

[Zenmonkey]

This is one of the most common failure modes for gun clubs. It's unfortunate, and also it happens frequently.

Not to go all political, but this thread is kind of there anyway. The Big Beautiful Bill (US, might not be particularly interesting elsewhere) is going back and forth regarding language for suppressors (popularly called silencers).

I have no idea how that's going to play out, but there are a handful of clubs that have gone suppressor only, because of this situation. It doesn't really fix the issue of course. The people that don't want to live next to chicken homesteads tend to object more to the chicken, but complain about the noise. Likewise the people the live next to the gun range tend to object mostly to the gun, but complain about the noise.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

So this sounds like a similar situation in a town close to us. Not really related to chickens but speaking of changing ordinances to suit a few hecklers...

Our county has a very highly regarded, private gun club that hosts a lot of classes and competitons etc. It's been there for decades, it's only open about 3-5 days a week between the hours of 9am-6pm (closes earlier in winter), and there's no firing after hours.

It's not in the city limits, but in recent years, the vacation homes have sprung up all around it. Now these home owners are complaining and "want something done."

Why? Get this: They don't like the noise from the guns AT the gun club. They bought and built houses next to a gun club, and now they want to shut down the gun club.

So far, last I heard, the complainers haven't made much headway. But the way our local town is shifting, I'm concerned it may not be long before they do.

This seems simple to me: If you don't like guns, don't move next door to a gun club. If you don't like chickens, don't move to an area that allows or has chickens. And vise versa - if you're deadset on owning chickens, don't buy a house in an area or neighborhood that doesn't allow them and then try to slide by or change the rules. I've seen this also.

Anyone is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's just common sense. So sorry that some of your neighbors seem to feel differently.

On this sense, it goes further than that. My family has invested in this dirt track (car racing) for years as it's the best dirt track around. Then recently, all the neighbors all ganged up and started complaining about the "noise" and had the track shut down. A lot of people tend to complain about everything and often get away with it if the thing they're complaining about makes noise. Ever notice the quiet things never get complained about? And if they do, nothing becomes of it? They focus on the noise because it's the only thing that'll give them a case. If they complain directly about something because they just don't like it, then usually nobody listens.

 

[NetherLeeFarm]

On this sense, it goes further than that. My family has invested in this dirt track (car racing) for years as it's the best dirt track around. Then recently, all the neighbors all ganged up and started complaining about the "noise" and had the track shut down. A lot of people tend to complain about everything and often get away with it if the thing they're complaining about makes noise. Ever notice the quiet things never get complained about? And if they do, nothing becomes of it? They focus on the noise because it's the only thing that'll give them a case. If they complain directly about something because they just don't like it, then usually nobody listens.

Personally, I think chickens are really quite. Much quieter than a neighbor's donkey! (Who we love, but still, that thing can produce a hee-haw that carries a long way across these mountains.)

My chickens are certainly quieter than the airbnb guests on the knoll behind us whose renters seem to have never outgrown their college fraternity days. They're a good distance from us, but again, that noise carries across these mountains and they stay up a lot later than our chickens. But we don't complain. We figure that if the owners want to clean up after and deal with partying renters, then they have it much worse than us!

Unless the noise can be proven to be physically damaging or is consistently going past "acceptable" hours (say before 6-7 am and after 9-10 in most cases, but this would exclude music venues, bars, etc), I don't think 'noise' is a valid reason to pitch a fit.

Are there any chicken decibel studies so you can show that they're about the same or quieter than most human voices? That might help! I wish there was some way that the people who complain the most got the least amount of attention, but unfortunately it's the opposite. I really do massively applaud you for sticking to your GUNS (hehehe) with this issue!

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Personally, I think chickens are really quite. Much quieter than a neighbor's donkey! (Who we love, but still, that thing can produce a hee-haw that carries a long way across these mountains.)

My chickens are certainly quieter than the airbnb guests on the knoll behind us whose renters seem to have never outgrown their college fraternity days. They're a good distance from us, but again, that noise carries across these mountains and they stay up a lot later than our chickens. But we don't complain. We figure that if the owners want to clean up after and deal with partying renters, then they have it much worse than us!

Unless the noise can be proven to be physically damaging or is consistently going past "acceptable" hours (say before 6-7 am and after 9-10 in most cases, but this would exclude music venues, bars, etc), I don't think 'noise' is a valid reason to pitch a fit.

Are there any chicken decibel studies so you can show that they're about the same or quieter than most human voices? That might help! I wish there was some way that the people who complain the most got the least amount of attention, but unfortunately it's the opposite. I really do massively applaud you for sticking to your GUNS (hehehe) with this issue!

I don't know if there's any chicken decibel studies out there, but that's a good idea! Unfortunately, I'm not very knowledgeable on those, so if you ever come across anything and could explain what everything means, please feel free to share.

I could also compare them to neighbors dogs barking, but... the dogs have also been put on the same ordinance (though when the rumor came up that it was going back up, they were keeping the dogs separate). Why on them? Because of one person, who's pretty much on the outside of town and away from people besides this one store that's across the street from them, raises hunting dogs and keeps them hooked outside all the time like normal hunting dogs. I had often thought if there was ever to be a complaint concerning my chickens' noise that I was going to bring up people's barking dogs (not the hunting dogs, people's pets) because their dogs did seem louder, but because they're attacking that person with the hunting dogs, I can't use that (nor do I want to bring extra focus to those hunting dogs).

 

[NetherLeeFarm]

I don't know if there's any chicken decibel studies out there, but that's a good idea!

Of course there's something right here on BYC. So a chicken clucking is no louder than a normal human voice. Maybe this can help:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/so-just-how-loud-is-a-roosters-crow.76931/

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Of course there's something right here on BYC. So a chicken clucking is no louder than a normal human voice. Maybe this can help:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/so-just-how-loud-is-a-roosters-crow.76931/

Thanks!

 

[Player8371Ready]

I'm lucky to have found this forum. I didn't know this was an issue. When I started my backyard coup a couple years ago everything I could find as far as the Township was concerned was, No Rosters! As of now all my neighbors say they like seeing and hearing the girls. And I'm sure sharing the eggs helps. LOL