Plucky Mattawa chicken farmer beats backyard bylaw

It's back to to the farm for Chanelle Davidson.

The Mattawa chicken farmer fought — and won — a battle against a municipal bylaw prohibiting people from keeping chickens in their backyards.

Davidson told CBC's Up North her quest to change the bylaw started with a snake.

"There's a gentleman in town who has some exotic snakes and he would walk around town with this snake," Davidson said.

"Understandably some people had a fear with it. Day after day town hall was getting calls about it. So they decided they were going to rewrite the animal bylaw."

But councillors cut and pasted a bylaw from Niagara, Davidson said, not knowing that the law would prohibit backyard chickens, including the ones she had owned for over a year.

She decided to attend the next council meeting, and start a petition right away.

"The majority of people were all for it. A few were strongly opposed," Davidson said. "Of those, once they were presented with the facts, a lot of them came around and decided it wasn't such a bad thing, after all."

Chickens don't usually attract predators

Some residents thought chickens would attract other pests, or even predators.

"People are afraid they attract other animals, but it's not usually the case. Even before the hens we had problems with bears, foxes and coyotes. But it's not because of the chickens."

After getting support from neighbours, Davidson presented her argument to council.

"I made a brief presentation on the benefits of having chickens. I gave examples of other communities like Victoria, where council is paying people to keep chickens."

The benefits of keeping chickens

Some of the benefits of keeping backyard chickens are knowing where your food comes from, having access to fresh eggs, and keeping annoying bug populations down, Davidson said.

She also pushed for rules regulating coop size, to ensure proper treatment of the chickens, and a restriction on owning roosters, which could cause a disturbance.

Davidson said that now that the bylaw has been written, she hopes it will provide an easy template for other communities to follow. 

North Bay and Thunder Bay both have bylaws prohibiting backyard chickens, though some residents are working to change that.