Hi I am hoping someone here can help me. We have been told last year just as my Mom was getting real sick that we can not have chickens after having them 4 years on this property and my Mom had them most of her life at her Moms home . I am 19 years old and have some disababilities. I can not work yet and have overcome many major issues thanks to the love of my dogs and my joy I get from our birds. Of course also from how hard my Mom and Dad worked to help me when they were told there was no help and they should give up. They did not give up and I am doing better than anyone ever thought Now, but I am so heartbroken and so depressed over this whole thing with our birds. They have been a huge joy for me and I love them very much. My Mom is not strong enough to fight this right now alone. She has been sick and we almost lost her in July from an undiagnosed serious illness. She has been in the hospital almost constantly either staying or for 5 hour treatments since July and had surgery the end of October. She had very serious complications and took 5 more weeks to get better from the surgery complications. Then she had another smaller surgery around Thanksgiving and that also went bad and we spent until Christmas going to the medical center every other day for wound packing and draining it. Its been hard but her love for us and our dogs and birds have kept her fighting. She is home now and we are getting through each day but she is so looking forward to warmer weather so she can spend her days outside with the animals. She is still weak and getting real upset causes her to collapse yet but she is working hard to get stronger. She desperately wants to fight for our feathered and 4 legged family members. I am not posting here though about the dogs she has shown and raised for 33 years. I am here in hopes I can find some help to get our township to change its laws and allow chickens. I am going to try to fight for me and my Mom until she is strong enough to continue the fight with me. I don't want to give up without trying really hard for a change. I have been reading alot of this stuff. I think I have some ideas of what to do but I really need some good help and advice. The zoning oficer in charge is a man who seems to strongly hate chickens and believes them to be dirty and disgusting creatures and dangerous to be around people. That is the impression he gave me and he is pretty mean to talk to . I would have expected him to be at least polite and respectful. My Mom and Her Mom grew up with chickens and always took care of them. They did not get sick from raising chickens. Can I ask people to write him letters and maybe tell him how great chickens can be and how you can get so many benefits from them? Can anyone with good chicken laws in their towns maybe let him know how their towns feel different? WHat else can I do? Can I ask them to let us speak or apply for a permit to have them? We are willing to work on a compromise that would make everyone happy. We can even move them down the back more . closer to the woods and further from anyones houses. We can not afford legal help because my Mom had huge medical bills and we had to buy medicine that cost close to 1200.00 a month to keep her alive while waiting for surgery and couldnt get any help to pay. We also had to pay for trips a couple times a week to the medical center for treatments and for hotel costs when she needed to be close in case of bleeds as our local hospital thought she was best near the medical ceneter that did the treatments and surgeries. We felt better too knowing we could get her there quickly and my Dad didnt have to try to drive with all the trucks on the highway at night since its harder for him now. It was an hour away and we spent all our savings and monthly income to save her so we are now back several months on all our bills and struggling hard to get back on our feet which is hard on a fixed income. So that is why we can't fight an expensive legal battle right now and I want to learn anything I can to try to get them to change and let us keep our 12 birds left now. They had free ranged our property mostly but I can try to buy supplies to fence them in the back and a new coop for them there since I dont think we can move the one we are using now. We gave away most of our birds and stuff when my Mom got really sick but these are our favorites and are named and special. We do not ever want to have to lose them and hope in the future we can live someplace they are welcome and raise some nice quality birds again as we used to. They give us eggs and they make us laugh and smile when we have so little left now. I feel better eating these eggs because I know they came from happy birds and we know they are better for us because the birds live a natural life. If they are all gone alot of joy will be gone from our lives. It is especially important to us because of our disabilities there are many things we cant do and we get so much joy out of spending time with them right here at home. Please if anyone will help by helping me learn what I can do to change things and help maybe by sending things that might help educate the man who hates chickens about how much they give us and the benefits maybe the board will read those things and stop having such an unenlightened opinion of these beautiful birds.
What should I do to gte started? They are charging us 500 .00 a day for violations but did not let us have a chance to ask for a change or permit. We only get Social Security income because my Dad is retired and getting older and my Mom and I have alot of health issues. We have always been good neighbors and tried to help anyone who needed it. It will be hard enough to try to get back on our feet and keep our home but we are working hard to try to catch up after my Moms illness wiped us out and got us behind. We need our birds for both their healthy eggs and because they are one of our few remaining joys. My Aunt is sickly too but she buys me a couple bags of chickens food every month because they really helped me alot. She is no longer working after she has had a couple surgeries herself but helps me with my bird costs now since Mom has been sick. When we do get caught up and back on our feet we are hoping to just leave this place and find a small home that is zoned for chickens and will allow my dogs that I compete in the club with. We want to either try to buy one that is not too expensive and fix it up or rent someplace that is a small farm that we can have a chicken coop and a couple dogs kennels and our house dogs. If anyone knows of a place like that that maybe we can rent or try to buy when we are back on our feet please let me know. I can tell my Mom and Dad. Our animals are a huge part of our lives and we love them so much. We take good care of them and are very responsible. My Mom had some really nice show champions she had shown when she was healthy. They are still part of our family. Anyway, like I said I dont have much money to spend right now, but I will try to do all I can to get them to allow some chickens here at least until someday when we can hopefully move to a rural place where people think they are normal to own. Please respond with any helpful advice you can give me. When I come here it logs me in as my Moms screen name but Its me here in her place right now. Thanks.
What should I do to gte started? They are charging us 500 .00 a day for violations but did not let us have a chance to ask for a change or permit. We only get Social Security income because my Dad is retired and getting older and my Mom and I have alot of health issues. We have always been good neighbors and tried to help anyone who needed it. It will be hard enough to try to get back on our feet and keep our home but we are working hard to try to catch up after my Moms illness wiped us out and got us behind. We need our birds for both their healthy eggs and because they are one of our few remaining joys. My Aunt is sickly too but she buys me a couple bags of chickens food every month because they really helped me alot. She is no longer working after she has had a couple surgeries herself but helps me with my bird costs now since Mom has been sick. When we do get caught up and back on our feet we are hoping to just leave this place and find a small home that is zoned for chickens and will allow my dogs that I compete in the club with. We want to either try to buy one that is not too expensive and fix it up or rent someplace that is a small farm that we can have a chicken coop and a couple dogs kennels and our house dogs. If anyone knows of a place like that that maybe we can rent or try to buy when we are back on our feet please let me know. I can tell my Mom and Dad. Our animals are a huge part of our lives and we love them so much. We take good care of them and are very responsible. My Mom had some really nice show champions she had shown when she was healthy. They are still part of our family. Anyway, like I said I dont have much money to spend right now, but I will try to do all I can to get them to allow some chickens here at least until someday when we can hopefully move to a rural place where people think they are normal to own. Please respond with any helpful advice you can give me. When I come here it logs me in as my Moms screen name but Its me here in her place right now. Thanks.
