My friend S emailed me about this, so I looked it up on the WX city website:
Notice is hereby given that on June 2, 2009 at 6:30 P.M., at the Woods Cross City Municipal Building, 1555 South 800 West, Woods Cross, Utah, the Woods Cross City Council will hold a public hearing to consider a proposed amendment to the City Zoning Ordinance. This amendment details the conditions for keeping urban chickens within the R-1-8 and R-1-10 zones.
You are invited to attend this meeting to provide your input. If you wish to comment or are unable to attend, or have any questions, contact the Community Development Director at 292-4421. All exhibits and materials are available for review at the Woods Cross Municipal Building at 1555 South 800 West, Woods Cross, Utah.
I've been collecting articles on keeping chickens in urban or suburban areas, and it's becoming more and more common- people realize the benefit of having fresh eggs as part of their food storage, and also what fun pets chickens can be.
If you live in, or know anyone who lives in Woods Cross, attend the meeting, or write the city council to encourage them to allow backyard chickens.
Things to keep in mind:
-Hens don't need roosters to lay eggs, so fear of noisy crowing doesn't have to be a concern.
-In their prime, hens can lay nearly an egg every day. Three or four hens can provide more eggs than a family can eat, so you can give eggs to friends or neighbors.
-If you keep chickens in your backyard, you know if they're healthy, and you'll be assured the eggs are high quality.
-Fresh eggs are much better in cooking.
-A few hens don't need a lot of space, and using the deep litter method, don't stink, and don't require very much care.
-Hens are fun pets, especially if you raise them from chicks.
-Hens will provide fertilizer for your garden, and eat bugs.
11 comments:
I hope the status of your chickens is not threatened! I admit, I am not a fan of roosters. They always seemed a little aggressive.
Currently Woods Cross doesn't allow chickens, so this is a good thing- that they are even considering it.
We're hoping the same thing will happen in our city too.
(but I just have exotic parakeets)
*de-lurking to say HI*
I came to your blog through FMH and I *think* we might be Goodreads buddies, too. Your blog is great! My DH and I were totally inspired by the way your built your compost bin, so we copied it! ;) Here's what it ended up looking like-
http://treefortinouryard.blogspot.com/2009/05/compostin-with-best-of-them.html
Anyway, the next project (with some of that wood) is a chicken pen. I was wondering, when you say "deep litter method", what exactly does that mean?
You have such awesome ideas about how to be self sufficient! I come to your blog when I want to learn something new, and I always do. I love the almost-free shed. We may need to copy that idea!
Deep litter just means you use wood shavings (we use saw dust although it's not recommended) piled deep (we do several inches) in the coop to absorb the chicken manure, and clean it out and replace it with fresh wood shavings every 3 or 4 months (depending on how many chickens you have).
The wood shavings/chicken poop can go in the compost to further break down and make great fertilizer for the garden.
Ok--here's what you need to do. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act prohibits land use decisions from being made that would unduly burden or restrict the free exercise of religion. So just ponder and pray awhile about the deeper meaning of your chickens, raising them as an expression of your belief and faith, and how your practice of your religion would be impaired by anti-chicken zoning, and then call up the Mountain States Legal Foundation or the Alliance Defense Fund and get them to do something really useful and helpful for a change, like defending your religious freedom to keep chickens...Too bad you're not Hmong, it would be much easier to make this argument.
How about the religious argument that Mormons are supposed to collect and maintain an 2 year supply of food? Chickens lay for more than 2 years, so for a family of 5, a few chickens would be a food storage supply of fresh eggs for a seriously religious Mormon.
I think that's a pretty good argument, especially considering that other easily digested vegetable protein sources are kind of religiously suspect...if they ban chickens, tofu consumption might increase...people start having Buddhist and communist thoughts when they eat too much tofu.
Eating tofu and exhibiting liberal behavior seem to coexist together. Do R's eat tofu?
Since we had your girls here for a few months I grew quite fond of them and could see having a a couple arund here again.
Thanks!
Thank you to all who paved the way for keeping chickens in Woods Cross. I was pleased to find the foot work for allowing chickens had already been done when I moved to Woods Cross 14 months ago. We now have 2 red sex links, and 2 Black Sex Links, three fruit trees and a small garden.
Last April (2011) it was proposed for increasing chicken count from 4 to closer to 10 like Centerville. I am not sure the outcome of that meeting. To the best of my knowledge the subject was set aside and not concluded.
Thanks again for all of you that helped lay the ground work for Chickens throughout the cities in Utah.
I"m always glad to hear that cities have started welcoming chickens. There are still many cities that do not allow them, so there's still work to do in educating. The best thing we can to is keep chickens and show people that they don't stink or cause nuisance issues.
Chickens and gardens go so well together!
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