Commission OKs chicken keeping

City commissioners paved the way for residents to legally keep chickens in their yards.

Late last night, they approved unanimously ubran chicken keeping, with some restrictions, which including:

• A maximum of four chickens can be kept in any one yard
• Chickens have to be kept in an enclosed or fenced area at all times.
• Enclosures and fenced areas cannot be kept in a front yard
• Enclosures and fenced areas can’t be closer than 10 feet to an adjacent property line.

Nearly 40 supporters and opponents of the measure signed up to publicly speak before the commission. Mayor Kelly Kirschner remarked it was the most people speaking about a single issue since the debate over the Unconditional Surrender sculpture.

For the opponents who feared chickens will cause many problems in neighborhoods, Kirschner cited some statistics from Ft. Collins, Colo., which has allowed chicken keeping for several years.

There were 12,000 animal-control calls in that city last year, he said. But only three of those calls concerned chickens.

Contact Robin Roy at [email protected].