Family farm hatches fresh egg scheme
But there’s a catch: Customers could run a-fowl of city bylaws that prohibit backyard livestock
City dwellers with a hankering for farm-fresh eggs will soon be in luck, if they’re willing to skirt city bylaws.
The Stoddart Family Farm in Kawartha Lakes is rolling out its Rent the Chicken program, offering hens or incubating eggs to Torontonians keen on doing some backyard farming.
After months with the hens or hatched eggs, the farm allows customers to either adopt the fowl or sell them back for $1.
The catch? The City of Toronto long ago banned backyard poultry. But according to the farm’s co-owner, Harry Stoddart, those regulations are mostly enforced “on a complaint basis.”
“There are no bylaw officers I’ve seen out there looking for chickens,” he told the Star, adding that he wasn’t worried about the city clamping down on backyard farmers. The city has yet to crack down on the rental program, but Elizabeth Glibbery, manager of animal services, said staff are “actively investigating the business.”
In an email to the Star, she said bylaw officers are always “observing for any prohibited animals . . . whether there is a complaint or not.”
Still, Stoddart is confident he won’t have to round up livestock from renters due to take delivery of their eggs or hens in early May.
He said American iterations of the business operating in areas with similar bylaws “haven’t had to pick up a hen yet” from a renter with an upset neighbour.
To keep that possibility from becoming a reality, he has even recommended that renters have a discussion with their neighbours about the forthcoming additions to their property.
In January 2012, he noted, city council voted to uphold the anti-chicken laws and shelved a motion asking staff to study the feasibility of allowing urban livestock to be kept in backyard coops.
The concerns were mainly about clucking livestock becoming a nuisance and creating unsanitary conditions.
But Stoddart insists that’s not going to be the case with his hens.
“They don’t make much noise and their coops are movable. They don’t even make much smell,” he said.
“I think once people experience neighbours having chickens, they will realize it is no big deal.
“There are dogs that are far worse neighbours.”
Trish Tervit, an Upper Beach resident, agreed.
A few years ago, she bought three hens — Pippi, Mabel and Elli — for her daughters, hoping to give them a fun pet and a chance to learn more about animals.
She didn’t notice any bylaw officers patrolling the area for illegal animals, but said when a neighbour made an unspecified complaint about the livestock, the city ordered the hens gone within the next 10 days.
There was no smell and the hens were “not any noisier than a dog barking in the backyard,” she said. However, “If someone with a tiny backyard has chickens, I can see why that would be a problem.”