This movement offends me. I've had neighbors who kept roosters in a city, and it shouldn't be allowed because it interferes with the right to be able to sleep in your own home. Having something that noisy in a city is exactly the kind of property-rights violation local governments SHOULD ban, and enforce.

Check with the town hall or county courthouse and see what ordinance applies and how it actually reads. I work for our county and it's amazing what our citizens think the local ordinances say verses the reality of what they actually say.
I'm hoping putting up a good fence with these small goats will keep the odds more in my favor. That's a few years down the road though.
Coons are cute critters when they're not being destructive and killing... a big pissed off coon can be an intimidating creature though, that's for sure!

Raccoons are pretty vicious, aren't they!? We had a tree in front of our old house, and there was a hole which housed a nest of squirrels, and babies at that. One night I hear this ferocious growling and shrieking and terrified sounding squeaks. Turns out it was a raccoon raiding the squirrel nest. It was devouring the babies. Horrific!

About the fencing, it is prohibitively expensive, and as you said, not impervious to any number of means of breaching or breaking. And goats especially are notorious for escaping from anything!
Regarding your question about roosters, it is actually stated as being unspecified. However, people on the street where I live who have grown up here have said that you can't keep roosters, at least not in a "neighborhood" type setting. But right in town, a guy has about 5 goats and a bunch of chickens right between his house and his neighbors. Like I said, it's rural up here, with spots of some development. Down on the main road at least. Which got widened from two to four lanes!

Sounds like our critter list - and if you have those then I assume like us, raccoons, (o)possums, etc... too!
We're thinking about fencing a large area for them - and some goats to come later, but fencing is so expensive. It will be largely covered by trees that tend to dropping stuff on our fences and cause damage.
Anyway, we have lost probably close to 2 dozen chickens in the last 8 years - nearly half of them from a family of raccoons that moved in and was killing them at a fast rate until I turned the tables on them. It was at least 7 of them (coons) and they killed like 10 chickens in the course of a week. They would wait until we left for work and come during the day - unusual for coons - but they did.
We haven't lost a single chicken to critters in the last few years now - at least due to critter attack.
Their chicken house is well sealed - nothing gets in - except for maybe a determined bear and some mice. It's only their outside time where they are exposed. Our roosters and guinea keep a good watch out for predators, but they can't do much other than warn the chickens to go on alert.
In my personal case, I'd rater them be free to roam as they please. They have a good life that way.
It's expensive and very difficult to keep everything away from them once they're out of their secured chicken house. Fences have so many weaknesses - digging under, climbing over, stuff falling on them and knocking them over, etc... The area we're considering fencing is about the area that they tend to run in normally, so if we do, it will be a relatively normal area for them. But this will require nearly a thousand feet of fencing and it's main purpose will be to TRY to keep dwarf Nigerian goats contained.

They're watery "yellow" in color. The eggs I get right from one of the farms nearby are the most gorgeous orange, yolk of course, and the variety of colors of the eggshells themselves is beautiful. Planning an area for a coop and ranging. We have foxes, coyotes, hawks, eagles, bobcats and bears here. I need to secure an area that would help them be relatively safe from these predators.

You might view it as an opportunity to explain the truth of the definition when they are confused by your correct usage.

We let ours run around during the day. We have no fences and neither does our 500Ac neighbor, so they have free run to go wherever they want - but we definitely keep them in the chicken house at night. They go up on their own very well, lay in there pretty well (but we do find rogue nests every here and there), and really have to be locked down due to all the potential predators around - raccoons, foxes, bears, bobcats, etc... There are predators to watch for in urban areas too - feral cats, dogs, other people... I really hate caging critters up so we make every effort to avoid that. We keep them locked up in winter when there's much snow on the ground. They'll just hop into it and stay their like their stuck in mud - even when it's low enough that they could move around. So we give them a bit of heat and keep them in until it clears up or packs down.

Yes.

Jan, the selfish

Ahh, like selfishness, interesting...

What code is preventing that? County/City/Other?

Hehe - funny - reminds me of the people who have asked for the Deer Crossing signs to be moved so the deer would cross somewhere else!
:)

My wife was thoroughly convinced that there were Jackalopes! Funny! (A long time ago that is...)

Thanks for the research slfisher! I'll add it to my list of chicken related goodies. I have not had to deal with this myself, but will be useful to pass on to others who do!
:)

Regarding the chickens damaging the plants, either fence the chickens or fence the plants.

http://grist.org/article/food-2011-01-05...

http://www.raising-happy-chickens.com/ba...

http://urbanchickens.org/chicken-ordinan...

http://66.147.242.185/~urbanch5/wp-conte...

http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/chicke...

http://thecitychicken.com/chickenlaws.ht...

I notice that too. If I have excess eggs, I have no trouble trading them for veggies or fruit.

Jan

It has been hijacked by people we do not like. That is no reason we cannot reclaim it for proper use.

Jan

Roosters are a no no here. Which is kind of weird, being rural and all.

I agree - potential pets, but with the cost of feed, it will cost more than buying eggs for sure. But the better you feed them and the more they can find on their own, the more noticeable the quality in the eggs as well. We refer to store bought eggs as 'alien eggs' - they are soooo much less rich than ours.

I hadn't heard on any organizations doing this. Interesting. I find that getting ordinances and policies changed is like getting teeth pulled. But maybe the extra help from these orgs could help swing it the other way.

the eggs will be cheap when you find they are not available in any stores. sustainable is a word that is not in my dictionary.

After reading the article, now I want to get a few chickens for the eggs. I wonder what the neighborhood/city/county/state would say about it. I've got a huge back yard, but it would have to be sealed under some of the fence. And what about all my wife's plants/flowers/herbs/spices, will chickens damage any of them?

Years ago someone, believed to have worked for Microsoft, let some rabbits loose in the area. They are referred to as Microsoft Rabbits, I call them (MFRR's) Microsoft Free Range Rabbits. Today there are free range rabbits everywhere to a radius of over 10 miles around Microsoft's main campus. I wonder who would be entitled to the eggs if we had free range chickens in the city.

And finally, these stories always remind me of the first time my wife and I went to New Zealand. After seeing all these signs saying "Free Range Eggs", my wife said, "I wonder why they're giving them away?.... (Don't ever tell her I told you)...

I had a sister-in-law whose husband was like that rooster you described. Fortunately she got rid of him before he cased her too much harm.

It's also possible to work with your town to get them to allow chickens. There's organizations that help you present it to them.

You are right insofar as chickens being a 'sustainable' source of backyard protein production, but keeping your own chickens for eggs is more expensive than buying them at the store. If you had a large area, free from predators, and you grew a lot of wild grains you could just free feed your chickens, but even with an acre of land and a horse (horse poop is a great place for chickens to snack on fly eggs and larvae) I had to buy food to supplement them. (Since the coyotes discovered my drive-through coyote fast food chicken restaurant I have had to keep the chickens in a smaller area and feed them store-bought food all of the time.)

In an urban neighborhood, possums and raccoons are more of a problem, so if you have a big yard you might break even. Point is: good for the delight of having your own really delicious eggs, but not so much for decreasing cost thereof.

Jan