Backyard Chickens

I am in support of backyard chickens but I would also like to propose that Quail be allowed as well. Quails are quieter, smell better and require fewer resources to raise for meat and eggs than chickens. Their shorter lifespan (2-3 years) would make them an excellent test of backyard fowl and a great learning opportunity for children.

I've seen a few comments about attracting vermin like rats and coyotes and etc. I understand there is a fear regarding these matters but those animals are already in the city. There are huge numbers of rabbits, squirrels, and other prey animals. We had a fox catch a rabbit in our backyard recently. It's not as though prey animals aren't running freely all over the place. I've also kept poultry in the past and did not see a single rat whereas my friend in Waterloo had all sorts of issues with rats and they had no poultry or animals at all. Living in Waterloo now I've been totally at a loss why this is an issue. There are people who like up takeout garbage at their doors and yards, do not secure their compost and so on. These all draw pest animals many are concerned about. If you have a vegetable garden or fruit tree, it's going to draw pest and prey animals which will draw predatory animals. Should those be outlawed too?

City folks need to know where their food comes from. When they learn about the work, feed and supply costs and ultimately the process of butchering the old hens, they'll soon loose interest. Let's ensure we provide the opportunity for this life lesson.

First off..look next door to our sister city..Their bylaw that lets people keep chickens is wildly successful. Chickens do not smell if cleaned regularly and people that keep chickens within our sister city follow the rules. Rodents can be controlled by keeping the coops clean and removing the food at night. 4 chickens take very little space and are not noisy at all because roosters aren't allowed.....again, Look at our neighbour city's bylaw. There are many large cities that allow chickens.
"Raising chickens is legal in all districts of New York city"..When we establish bylaws we remove hearsay. Hearsay evidence is not admissible in court. There is lots of evidence on the benefits of keeping backyard chickens..I've tried to present an argument to people who present reasons for not having chickens. Please allow people to keep chickens in their backyard. A well crafted bylaw will eliminate a lot of the argument against having chickens.
Our Twin cities have a lot in common....why not a similar chicken bylaw?

If cities like Kitchener and Guelph can have chicken and backyard fireplace, why not Waterloo?

I agree with other commenters on this issue - support your local farmers and do not allow chicken farming in city backyards. We've had first-hand experience with a neighbour a few doors down setting up a chicken coop a few years ago (against bylaw). Within less than a week there was an issue with noise, smell and the worse was that the chickens attracted vermin like rats, hawks and coyote. Backyards are so close together in the city that having an outdoor animal like chickens will affect all neighbours. Our bylaw enforcement has so much work that they're already doing - why keep adding to their plates.

If the city decides to allow chicken coops - they should consider only allowing them to be set up in a larger community area like a park - have a communal garden with a chicken coop that the neighbours take care of. This will enable them to be set up far from backyards in an open area.

The outrage is quite interesting - a lot of "they belong on a farm!" and "they smell" and "but salmonella!", "rats!". You know what's a lot noisier, smellier, etc? A dog. It's all about what people are used to. There is no real reason to say no to chickens in reasonable numbers with proper limits and good regulation. Well cared for birds are far less obtrusive than the uneducated observer seems to think.

I've had chickens in the past, and was annoyed that my choice to live in Waterloo meant I couldn't have them in the near future. I'm all for it.


Good for the kids, pet that tangibly gives back to the family and it even teaches all kinds of good lessons in responsibility and connection to the food chain/nature.

We let people keep dogs which have particularly foul excrement, bark and no offset is required for a kennel. I had a chicken in the city and she was quiet, her excrement went in the compost and didn't have a huge off set from my neighbours, who never complained. Number of chickens should be determined by area available, so two in a constrained space, six in a large yard. As for duplexes and town houses, if carefully done it should be fine, an apartment in the same list seems like you are fishing for a negative response, however I I want to keep a cockatoo or parrot I wouldn't have problem so long as the apartment allows pets. And those are some noisy birds! Can we make this like most pets, if the animal is well cared for and there are no complaints, why inspect? If there are complaints, then inspect because it will be less onerous on everyone. If not please start inspecting each home which houses a dog, cat or bird too just to be fair. Some of them are ill equipped to keep those animals also.

This is a nice thought, but very hard to regulate upkeep of coops, avoid proliferation of further rat populations from stray feed, and infiltration of foxes and coyotes attracted to them as prey.

I do not want chickens allowed. This survey already has decided for them because it does not allow an answer that refuses them . A complainant will always be viewed as the bad guy, but when I bought my house there was no zoning for farm animals in my area, If there was I would not have bought. Totally unfair to change this and pit neighbours against each other. Make an arrangement with a farmer if you want pet chickens. And the spread of salmonella is not negligible.

Letting people have chickens in their backyards is as crazy as allowing geese to wander around all over. Oh, wait a second, geese (see fowl) already wander around all over and there is no concern with that! Get real and let people have some unique pets/food/entertainment if they want. As for smell, my neighbor smokes. I think I would rather smell a chicken.

Perhaps setting up a platform for chicken owners to share information, educate each other and answer each others questions regarding caring for chickens is one way to tackle the concern of people not properly caring for their chickens. Backyard chickens are a great opportunity for people to develop healthy hobbies, do some good for the environment and educate our younger generations.

I love the idea of backyard chickens, whether my own or others. Fresh chicken eggs are a fantastic source of healthy food. We are surrounded by cities who permit backyard chickens and some residents are grandfathered to have backyard chickens. I have not seen any issues reported in the paper. I know of a teenage girl who has a variety of chickens. It is a wonderful hobby and small business for her as she makes an income selling her eggs.
A note about question 4 in the survey regarding What concerns do you have...? There was no option to select none and you were required to check something. Other could mean anything. So you have 100% of residents checking a 'concern' for question 4 and that will definitely skew your results. Please consider this when tabulating your results. Thanks.

No thanks, no chicken coops,, smell not wanted, noise not wanted, I want to enjoy my garden too. too many predators in this area already and I am already disturbed by lound low flying aircraft so do not want to hear fox attacking hens in the middle of the night.

Salmonella.

The survey was written with language expressing a bias toward allowing chickens in urban/suburban areas: 'If allowed .....'etc. This 'sets up' Council to approve the idea despite the many negative reasons not to allow these animal farms. Some people have stated that these coops are successful in other communities. We don't know how many coops have been approved or the problems that have been encountered and how those municipalities are dealing with them. Many residents will not complain about their neighbour because they fear the complaint will not be confidential or the neighbour will learn somehow and take retribution or that Bylaw will not react quickly and enforce the rules immediately. As others have stated, this just creates one more issue that the City will have to enforce at more cost to taxpayers; and most taxpayers shrill when there is any increase in property taxes.
People can grow vegetables and fruit (which are more expensive to buy) without the issues that raising chickens produces. Let’s encourage that idea first.

If you are against this you hate poor people and love big business, hate the environment and food security and want all of your money to go to giant grocery chains. People who are concerned about smell and noise but don't care about the smell and noise of our heavily travelled streets appear to me (someone who was raised in the country with over 300 chickens) to be incredibly stupid and out of touch. If well kept, there is no smell, if well kept they make as much noise as a dog that occasionally barks. We already have rules for having a messy yard and being noisy that work just fine. Keep your nose out of your neighbour's business and your neighbour's yard. I cannot fathom why a person would be against this.

I would love to raise a few chickens in my backyard. I think the success of similar programs in Kitchener, Guelph, and even grandfathered chickens here in Waterloo have shown that small numbers of urban chickens do not cause major problems in terms of smell or pests. We should follow the lead of other communities that have had success in terms of guidelines for size and distance from property lines and coop specifications.


I understand the fear and distaste felt by some individuals, but I hope that the evidence of success and low complaint numbers from other municipalities can help to assuage some of those fears and to guide Waterloo in formulating its own program.

Why do we need chickens in backyards? Our food supply chain has not broken during the pandemic. Eggs are readily available in our city. Backyards in this city are small enough and some residents don’t feel the need to respect their neighbours properties and enjoyment of their outdoor space now.
Who would control these new intrusions into neighbourhoods? By law is already ineffective in this city and I am not interested in having to pay higher taxes to “police” this activity.
What other wildlife will we be inviting into an urban community and what will be the cost of trying to control that problem?

Most residential lots are way too small to accommodate chickens. The highest factor should be based on the size of your property.
We have a hard enough time in the summer with the smell from our neighbours smokers and chimineas.