Poultry petition
Bremen examines backyard chicken ordinance
a Bremen resident petitioned the town council to change the town code to allow backyard chickens in town on Sept. 28.
Mike Clinger stated “I think there’s a lot of good things about having chickens of your own, and they make great pets!” he explained. “they’re natural garbage disposals; they help control bugs and weeds in the yard and garden… and they’re good education for kids to learn some responsibility, to take care of something every day. On top of that, when you go to Woodies to get eggs, you don’t know what they’ve been fed. When you have your own, you know what they’ve
been eating.” He also mentioned that he had talked to others in town who are interested in
having chickens.
Clinger listed several Hoosier cities that allow chickens, includ
ing Indianapolis, South Bend, terra Houte, Bloomington, and others. “there are not very many [towns] that do not allow chickens.”
the council is willing to consider the matter, especially since the chicken ban is very old and within the last few years, they have softened the code regarding having bees in town. “Our attitude with a lot of our ordinances have been, ‘if it’s not disrupting anyone else and it’s not illegal, in general, it’s something we would probably consider allowing,” says town attorney tony Wagner.
However, the council wants to make sure that this is something that Bremen is on board
with the change.
“I would recommend a petition and see how many signatures you can get… That way you don’t have to bring 400 people in here, you can bring in 500 signatures. That’s all we’re really looking at: is this something the community wants or is it something it doesn’t want?” says Councilman Mike Leman. “Get a petition going and bring it back to us to say, ‘ This is what the community is saying, and this is what we found out.’”
although the council is favorably disposed to the plan, they would set certain boundaries. at this point, there are three that the council would put in place. With further consideration, the council may decide to establish others as well. “[as for] the specifics, we’ll have to do our research to decide what’s best,” says Leman. The first limit in consideration is that no roosters will be allowed in town. The second is that there will be a cap on how many hens can be on one property. The third is that they will need to be penned in, whether that’s in a coop or with a privacy fence. “We can say that they have to be enclosed in some way, which means if you keep them in a little coop or let them have the run of the whole backyard, that’s fine,” says Wagner.
Going forward, Director of Operations, Trend Weldy will be looking into the chicken ordinances held by other Marshall County municipalities, such as Culver, argos, Bourbon, and Plymouth. Wagner will also be looking to them for inspiration as he considers how best to rewrite the town code. “I wouldn’t want to reinvent the wheel here. I would want to find another community of reasonably similar size—if you’re interested in this—then have some discussion about space, numbers, those sorts of things,” says Wagner.
anyone interested in signing the petition can go to change.org and search “allow Chickens in Town (Bremen, IN).