Wow! Another citizen of St. Michael, MN, posted on this thread....what a small world. I had 3 criminal hens (white leghorn, gold star, silver-laced wyandotte) from April 2009 to December 2010, when they were killed by a weasel. They were loud once in a while but neighbors have never complained. We're probably going to get another 2 layers in the spring, and maybe try 5 or so broilers. I also want to get a small rabbitry going in the spring. Of course this is all illegal.
Our town was an agricultural town until a decade or two ago. I can only assume the 2" thick city ordinances and zoning laws came about around the same time. Now are property is 0.84 acres and is heavily wooded on 3 sides. In the summer it's impossible for anyone to see our coop and run, and in the winter you have to look pretty hard. The minimum property size for any "farm animals" is 4 acres. A chicken is 0.01 "animal units" and an acre can hold 0.50 "animal units." So if the guy down the road with neighbors just as close and visible as I do can have 50 chickens per acre, why in the world can't I have 5 or 6 chickens (let alone 1) on my 0.84 acre?
That's the problem with these laws. As Joel Salatin likes to point out, there is no scalability in any laws relating to food production. There's no common sense clause. No provision for exceptions. I really do feel like everything I want to do is illegal; and it's no less than what fine upstanding citizens were doing in my grandparents' generation: making a living, paying taxes, staying out of trouble, being a good neighbor, raising responsible kids, and in general providing for my family. But none of that matters because all the little details and minutia are in some sort of violation of a given city council's uncreative, anti-innovation, system-dependent, utopian fantasy.
...ok, time to cool down...
