Woman forced to give up backyard chickens in Prince Albert, Sask.

A woman living in Prince Albert, Sask. wants her chickens back after she was forced to give them up due to city bylaws.

Lusi Wells purchased three tiny chicks last May with the intention of being more sustainable by building a coop in the backyard of her suburban home.

It's nice to know where your food is coming from.- Lusi Wells

She did her research and planned to take care of the young birds — named Charlie, Cheerio and Light Bulb — and raise them to produce eggs for her family.   

"It's nice to know where your food is coming from," said Wells. "It has to be that we use all that we have and we make something good out of it."

She said her chickens were laying up to three eggs each per day.

"It was fantastic. The first day [when we] found an egg, we all celebrated and were jumping around," she laughed.  "We didn't eat our first egg for a couple of days — we were all just looking at it."

Chicken complaint

But not everyone in the neighbourhood was excited about the fowls being kept within city limits.

"I came [home one day] and found a yellow note on my door that somebody is complaining about my chickens."

Wells was told she had to contact city bylaw officers about her backyard guests. And when she did, they told her she had to get rid of her chickens.

She said she knew it was prohibited to keep the birds within city limits, but since she didn't didn't receive any verbal complaints from her neighbours, she thought she was in the clear.

"[I] kind of feel sad because they are pets and pets are part of our family," she said.

Wells has since found a new home for her chickens on a farm near the city.