As I said, last week, I appeared in a newspaper article in the Toledo Blade on Easter Sunday 2011, in an article praising the Backyard Hen movement. I was asked by the gentleman who gifted me my girls and I was proud to be interviewed because I believe in the place of animal companions in our lives and rural and urban areas. I believe fully in the backyard hen movement. But shortly afterwards, the then-Code Enforcement Officer of Bowling Green, told me that the Director of City Planning had seen the article and decided to cite me. I received a warning letter on a Saturday in mid-May and on that Monday morning, I was in her office, trying to keep my hens.
She told me that I'd mis-read our town ordinances and that hens were agricultural animals. It turns out that my town talks about hens in three separate ordinances. I looked in two. The first ordinance describes prohibited animals and includes gamecocks, but not hens. And the second ordinance openly discusses how homeowners can keep poultry, but must confine them like their cats and dogs -- a leash law, if you will, for backyard hens. These laws were old and part of our city for a long time. In 1975, I guess, my city decided to draft an agricultural ordinance defining poultry as only permitted in agricultural not residential zones.
The Director of City Planning told me that the City Prosecutor wanted to see me, so I went immediately to his office and he told me that he wanted me to draft an ordinance proposal for the city to consider for backyard hens. He and I discussed how that would be easy to do since SO MANY cities around the United States were accepting hens as part of urban animal companions. I told him I would be happy to do so, it would be an honor.
So, I researched the issue and spoke to the alderman who drafted Madison, Wisconsin's ordinance and in July 2011, I delivered a friendly respectful letter to my city council, Mayor, and Director of City Planning with my draft proposal which laid out a nice backyard hen ordinance and suggested that they drop the word poultry from their agricultural ordinance. And thus began the nightmare!