“Don’t Run A-Fowl of the Law”: local residents learn how to raise chickens

By Kevin Doby
Western Herald

Lori Evesque has been raising chickens for the past eight years.

Thursday night she provided information for about 120 Kalamazoo area residents on how they could do the same in their own backyards.

The event, “Don’t Run A-Fowl of the Law” was held in the Van Duessen Room of the Rose Street public library in downtown Kalamazoo.

The goal of the night was to provide citizens with information about how to raise chickens in their backyard and the legalities of doing so.

“People wanting to raise their own chickens comes from people becoming curious about where their food comes from,” Evesque told the crowd.

She also discussed the ins and outs of raising chickens in an urban environment.

Although not completely alone, Kalamazoo is one of a rising number of cities in which chickens can be raised within the city limits.  Other cities include Lansing and Ann Arbor and cities in other states like Chicago, New York City and Portland, Ore.

Chicks can be purchased from feed stores such as the Southwest Michigan Feed Store or from hatcheries online that ship them as part of what Evesque called a mail-order chick business.

From there, the chicks need to be kept under 90-degree heat until they gain their feathers.  After that they are to be kept on the lawn under a coop or a mobile coop called a “chicken tractor.”

The chickens do not require a lot of attention Evesque said.  She said that she takes around a half-hour out of her day to feed two chickens and clean their coop.

However, just because a person wants to raise chickens so they don’t have to run to the grocery store to buy eggs, does not mean that it is legal to do so.  There were people at the event from many townships within Kalamazoo County, all of which have different laws regarding the raising of chickens.  The city of Kalamazoo has virtually no limitations on raising chickens.

Bruce Pahl is a part-time geography instructor at Western Michigan University who attended the meeting to find out if he was allowed to raise chickens and hopefully get some tips on how to do it properly.

“I’ve raised chickens in other countries, so I didn’t learn too much in terms of how to actually grow the chicks, but I did learn that I can’t raise them anyway in Kalamazoo Township.”

To discuss the legal aspects of raising chickens, lawyer Suzanne Klein came out and spoke to the room.

She went over the ways that people can try to change the laws if raising chickens is not allowed in their community.

Klein stressed open communication with neighbors, or if one wants, just raise the chickens until someone files a complaint.

Pahl said that he would not be trying the latter.

“I think I’ll take some initiative,” said Pahl.  “I’ll talk to my neighbors first, and if they don’t like the idea then I won’t push forward.”

Pahl was not the only person who left the event with the goal of changing his municipality’s laws about chicken raising.

A group of about 10 to 20 people who live in Portage got together after the meeting to discuss how they would go about trying to get people in non-agriculturally zoned areas the ability to raise chickens in Portage.

Afterward, Dan Chapman, a resident in Allegan Township said he was glad he went.

“I’ve been raising chickens since the spring, and I didn’t learn too many new tips or anything, but I am glad they are spreading information like this, and I am glad that I came.”

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=19009

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Aug 15 2010. Filed under Local, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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