In my last blog post, I wrote about how to confront with the restriction when planning to raise chicken at your home. Some places do not allow you to keep chicks due to certain local by laws.

If you are really determined to have your own chicken at home, you can present your case at your local planning commission meeting.

It is always best to go to any necessary meeting well prepared and organized. Try to anticipate any questions or concerns that may be asked by the committee and have good responses for them.

At some point during the meeting, be prepared to compromise on certain issues such as the size of the chicken coop, the number of birds allowed, conditions on cleanliness etc.

If you need help, check with other people in your community who have experience in local government administration. They may have a better understanding on how things are done in your community.

Get their tips and suggestions on how to approach the officials who have the power to amend a law or grant a variance.

How far do you want to go to present your case so you can raise chicken at home?

Some people may want to go all the way. If you can afford it, you may hire an attorney to represent you. Most of the time, home owners will want to handle it on their own if they can.

If possible, get the support from other people who think it is a good idea to have chicken in their own backyard. A concerted group request at the local town meeting carries more weight and zoning codes may be amended to fulfill their request.

You may also get support from farmers, poultry leader, veterinarian, home science school teacher to speak on your behalf. They can talk about the benefit of raising chickens at home.

Another approach you can take is to draft a proposed law or ordinance in regards to raising chicken at home and get people to sign a petition in support of it. A few hundred signatures on the draft can go a long way during the committee meeting.

What are the rules for raising chickens at home? Before you prepare your backyard to keep chickens, you need to know what the zoning of your property is.

You need to find out whether are there any special regulations in your district that may keeping your from raising the birds. I know it is a lot of hassle, but just do it once and you can move on with it.

You can choose to ignore the regulation and keep the chickens anyway, but beware, one day the birds might be confiscated and you’ll be slapped with a heavy fine. Ignorance is not bliss!

So what are the zoning I’m talking about?

The common zoning areas are agricultural, residential and business. The individual zoning can be broken down further.

Let’s take residential zone as an example. The zone can be broken down into sub-categories such as single-family residential or suburban farms. Pretty interesting isn’t it :)

So what does the zoning mean to us if we are planning to raise our own chickens at home?

If the zoning is listed as agricultural, we can probably raise the bantams without any problems. With this type of zoning, you’ll probably find a notice about the Right to Farm bill on your property paperwork.

With the Right to Farm bill, it basically recognizes all methods of farming can exist in that said zone. So chickens in your backyard should be no problem.

But don’t take my advice on blind fate because I am not a lawyer.

Do your own due diligent. Go to your local county office to double check the zoning ordinances of your housing area. It is better to be safe than to be sorry later.

For more information about the rules and regulation on raising chickens at home, check out Mary Nelson’s Chicken DIY Guides.

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Related blog post:

1) Mary Nelson Chicken DIY Guide – Plans to build your own chicken coop

2) Easy chicken coop building plans review