Residents Give a Cluck about Chickens in Ferndale

Some mild to moderate clucking could soon add to typical city noises heard around Ferndale if a local group is successful in its request to change the city ordinance concerning chicken coops.

Laura Mikulski, 30, of Ferndale, said she is working with City Council to change the ordinance as the current rule that coops must be 150 feet away from other residents’ dwellings is preventing people from owning chickens because most Ferndale lots are smaller.  “I need to show up to the City Council meetings and educate City Council on what the risks are, what the benefits are,” she said.

Mikulski said she is modeling her proposal for a new ordinance after Michigan State University guidelines. “It basically says that it should be 40 feet away, which is a lot more feasible than the 150 feet that is currently stipulated by the ordinance,” she said.  Though she does not own chickens, Mikulski said she will get some if she is successful in changing the ordinance.

Benefits in allowing more chickens include fresh eggs, fertilizer and educational opportunities, Mikulski said, and eliminating animal cruelty from the process of egg gathering would benefit residents and chickens alike. “It’s about the most depressing life an animal can have,” she said of chickens that are kept in small cages in order to harvest their eggs. “The idea that eggs from the grocery store are coming from that is kind of horrifying.”

Mikulski said residents who are in support of the change can go to www.ferndalechickens.com where there will be an online petition and the opportunity to leave comments. “Obviously the more support we have the better,” she said. “To show people are interested and it’s not one crazy chicken lady in Ferndale.”

Interim City Manager Mark Wollenweber said he is not surprised by the recent lobbying for more urban chicken coops. “It’s always worth exploring what folks want to do on their own property,” he said. Wollenweber said his staff is gathering information on how the ordinance should be modified, including studying ordinances from other cities. “I would assume that other cities have done what’s reasonable to do on your property that wouldn’t impact the neighborhood in a negative fashion,” he said.

Last August, Ferndale resident Nathalie Wood, 38, started keeping chickens in her backyard. Her collection includes two hens, a protective rooster and three new chicks that are unrelated to the adults. She said she bought her flock from a nearby farm. “They were actually sitting in their shells still. It was so cute,” she said.

The chickens eat wheat and corn pellets, scraps of broccoli and lettuce and citrus fruit rinds. Poultry Pellets are sprinkled in to aid their digestion. Wood and her sons, Parker, 5, and Lucas, 7, enjoy eating the eggs and so do their neighbors.

“Literally every day you go in and there’s two eggs,” she said. “It’s nice for the kids to see where their food is coming from.”

Wood said the chickens create a rich fertilizer by leaving their droppings in the thick bed of leaves spread in and around their coop. “If you have it deep enough it doesn’t stink,” she said. Wood said she is in support of the ordinance change and said she doesn’t see how chickens are any more of a disturbance to the neighborhood than a dog would be.

“I feel like if you want some chickens and you aren’t bothering anybody and keep them cooped it shouldn’t be a problem," she said. "We just have to get the laws changed. They’re silly laws.” Because of his noisy crowing Wood said she is aware her rooster, named Sunny Marie before his sex was known, will have to be removed soon and when the chicks’ sexes are known only the females will permanently add to the brood.

Wood will take Sunny Marie and his cohorts to be “processed” and they will serve up nicely on her family’s dinner table, she said. With a shrug as sensible as any farmer she said, “I’ll say a blessing. And eat them.”