The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Hashing out chickens in the city
Advocates, opponents hash out issues over urban poultry
ONEIDA, N.Y. >> Oneida Common Councilors once again heard the pros and cons to harboring chickens in the city’s Inside District during a lively public hearing Tuesday.
“I feel we should allow chickens within the district, obviously with restrictions and proper rules,” Oneida resident Melissa Mannix said.
Mannix lives on Stone Street and raises her own chickens in the city limits. At an Aug. 8, 2018 public hearing, Mannix said she is the reason there was a public hearing after she was she was issued an appearance ticket by the Oneida City Police Department. Since then, she has gathered around 150 signatures from people in support of a resolution to allow chickens in the Inside District.
Mannix made the case for chickens at Tuesday’s public hearing, listing several benefits of owning chickens.
“Chickens are very helpful in gardening,” Mannix said. “They’ll eat snails, bugs and pests that raid our plants and vegetables. They’ll turn the dirt over at the end of the season. They eat fleas, ticks, flies and love mosquitoes. They’re even known to eat mice and snakes on occasion.”
On top of the benefit to gardens, Mannix said fresh eggs are a benefit in and of itself.
“If you go to the grocery store and look at the number at the end of your egg carton, that number is the day of the year those eggs were laid,” Mannix said. “If it says 108, it was laid on the 108th day of the year. And if we’re in the 200th day, that chicken egg is really old. But having a chicken in your backyard, you can get eggs that day.”
Local attorney and former mayor Peter Hedglon said he doesn’t support changing the city code to allow chickens in the Inside District, citing concerns from his research on the subject.
“It’s trendy right now to have urban chickens,” Hedglon said. “One of the things I found is that chickens create a meaningful amount of manure. According to the University of Missouri Extension, six laying hens generate 11 pounds of manure a week.”
Hedglon also cited the issue of chicken feed attracting rodents, and chickens attracting predators.
“Chickens can attract hawks, weasels, raccoons, opossums, coyotes, skunks and your neighborhood cats and dogs,” Hedglon said.
On top of that and the noise issue, Hedglon said there have been several salmonella cases linked to urban chickens.
“And when the trendy, cool factor to having chickens wear off, oftentimes they’re dumped at an animal shelter,” Hedglon said.
Hedglon said if a municipality is looking to change its laws to allow chickens, it needs to have a full set of regulations because the city is going to be responsible when people become unhappy with chickens in their backyard.
“What I came away from this is that there are issues with having chickens,” Hedglon said. “If you’re going to allow people to have chickens, there should be regulations to address the issues. There should be regulations that say your chicken feed has to be in a rodent-proof container. There should be a regulation that says if you’re going to have chickens, they have to be kept in a secure place protected from predators. And there should be rules whether chickens should be free-range.
“Nobody is going to go to small claims court over a chicken pecking at my tomatoes,” he added. “But it isn’t going to be a good thing in the neighborhood.”
Hedglon submitted the articles he cited to councilors for consideration.
Oneida resident Antony Galbraith said he was in favor of chickens in the Inside District and supported clear rules and regulations from the city — and offered some counterpoints to Hedglon’s position.
“People have cats. They get into my stuff all the time,” Galbraith said. “They dig up stuff in my garden all the time and there are no regulations for that. Sherrill has chickens and I have never heard of any cases of salmonella.
“My parents’ dog food gets mice in it all the time. Cat food is the same thing,” he added. “So the argument about rodents being drawn to it is a moot point.”
Galbraith said he thinks it’s a reasonable request to want a restricted number of chickens and no roosters in the Inside District.
“If we’re going to address the issues surrounding not having chickens because of those issues, we should probably address them in all the other cases that are similar,” Galbraith said.
Oneida resident Edward Reid said his concern was the interest in free-range chickens.
“I grew up on a farm and was in charge of the chicken coop,” Reid said. “And I’ll tell you, chickens are messy creatures. The odor, I won’t go into too much detail, but it’ll clear your sinuses.”
Reid said he also has a concern as to who would manage the chicken population in the city, asking councilors whether it would be the city or the police department.
“I don’t think this is the direction our city should be taking,” Reid said. “If we lived in the hamlet of Oneida or the village of Oneida, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
Mayor Leo Matzke said the city still has a lot of work to do on the resolution draft.
“There were some very good points raised,” Matzke said. “We do want to go into any new policy — if we do it — well-prepared for the consequences.”
Ward 2 Councilor Mike Bowe said while other areas like Chittenango, Sherrill and Fayetteville have moved legislation to allow chickens, there is still a population difference to take into account.
“Chittenango is roughly 4,800 people; Fayetteville is roughly 4,100 and Sherrill is 3,000,” Bowe said. “So you have two villages and the smallest city in the USA. But we’re closer to 12,000. That’s something we have to take into consideration.”
Mannix asked the city council where this issue goes after the hearing.
Matzke said earlier in the year, he modeled the draft resolution after recent legislation passed in Chittenango.
“We have to rework this,” Matzke said. “It’ll take at least a month, 60 days to work on this and address the issues raised.”
Matzke said the council is making a decision on the old Moose Lodge Route 5 next meeting and did not want to present the chicken issue alongside that decision.
“It’s going to be a real barn-burner,” he said.
Quick Hits
• Oneida Wards 1-3 Supervisor Mary Cavanagh said Green Empire Farms is currently looking to employ around 80 people for everything from entry-level positions to supervisors by the end of August, with 80 more by the end of the year. Positions are currently listed on Indeed.com.