Maple Ridge teens cry foul over ban on backyard fowl
Vancouver and Surrey already allow it, why can’t their city, 4-H girls wonder
Janelle Pomeroy had been raising chickens in her backyard for about two years by the time she got the knock on the door.
It was a bylaw enforcement officer who gave the Maple Ridge teen one week to get rid of her hens or face consequences. Backyard chickens are not welcome in the city, the teen was told.
That was last year, and it was one of the catalysts for a campaign by Pomeroy, her sister, and her friend Blythe Parry for a rule change on Maple Ridge chickens.
“It’s kind of hard when you’re told to get rid of your pets,” Pomeroy told Postmedia News on Sunday at the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Country Fest.
She and Parry were at the festival to teach attendees about backyard chicken-raising as part of their ongoing campaign.
Parry had quietly raised chickens for more than a decade by the time she too was shut down by the authorities.
The friends now keep their birds on nearby farms. But participating in the local 4-H poultry club is more difficult without chickens on your own property, Pomeroy said.
The pair have been 4-H members for the past three years. They described membership in the non-profit organization as a way to learn about animals and hone skills like public speaking.
With those skills, Parry and Pomeroy and her sister took their case to city hall in May.
As they told councillors, chickens needn’t be a hassle to nearby residents when they’re raised right.
“There’s a lot of places in B.C. that have made it work, like Vancouver,” Parry said. “And Maple Ridge is a lot more rural than (that city). It should work in Maple Ridge if it works in Vancouver.”
The pair had about a dozen chickens and a similar number of
There’s a lot of misconceptions about keeping chickens and we’re trying to make it so that if people get chickens they’ll do it right…
chicks on hand at the festival, as well as several information booths.
“There’s a lot of misconceptions about keeping chickens and we’re trying to make it so that if people get chickens they’ll do it right and if the bylaw gets changed we can be successful,” Parry explained.
The friends ran through some of the basic requirements for raising chickens in backyards.
It all begins with dust. The birds bathe in the stuff and it helps keep them healthy.
Then you need a roost — a stick suspended in the air will do fine — and a nest box for laying eggs.
Plenty of fresh water, the right mix of food, and chicken scratch covers their dietary needs. Whatever you do, don’t feed them garlic, onions, chocolate, dry beans, apple seeds, rhubarb or avocado — those foods are not suitable for chickens.
If you’re doing things right, you’ll soon get eggs.
Be they white or brown, the eggs are the same on the inside and don’t differ in nutritional values. The colour of eggs depend on the breed of chicken, and even if they come out pale blue, it’s not that you’re not doing anything wrong. It’s just that you’ve evidently chosen to raise Ameraucana birds, whose eggs come out that colour.
Ameraucanas are one of the eight best breeds for backyard raising, they explained.
Other good choices of chicken breed are Silkie, Buff Orpington, Speckled Sussex, Black Copper Marans, Swedish Flower, Rhode Island Red, and Silver Laced Wyandotte.
That said, unless the teens’ campaign to overturn the city bylaw is successful, Maple Ridge residents won’t be allowed to raise any of those birds.
The 4-Hers have sparked a petition and want residents to ask their mayor and councillors to change the local bylaw.
For now, councillors have asked members of the city’s agricultural advisory committee to consider the issue in 2018 then report back with recommendations, according to city staff.
Backyard chicken farming has flourished in Vancouver in recent years with more than 220 urban farmers registered with the city as of last year. West Vancouver and Surrey are among other jurisdictions that allow the practice.