Vancouver 4 hen limit?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Stephanie Imhoff on October 1, 2012 at 1:40pm

Hi Stephanie,
I am a member of CLUCK in North Vancouver, and I thought I could shed some light on our reasons for asking for 6-8 hens. Below is the explanation that I provided the council, of the City of North Vancouver, when they had ask why we were asking for more than Vancouver; and which resulted in the approval of 8 hens.

Our concern was proposing a bylaw/ guidelines that would strike a fair balance: being restrictive enough to satisfy concerns while not being so restrictive that it be unrealistic for citizens to abide by.

As a group we settled on asking for 6-8 hens, reasoning that that flock size would best....

• to accommodate an average family of 4 with an adequate number of eggs so that little to no supplementation would be required.
• to take into consideration the larger average lot sizes in North Vancouver in comparison to those in Vancouver, which can accommodate larger coop sized and optimal placement in regards to property lines and neighbors, positively addressing site lines, sound and smell concerns.
• to accommodate a staggered flock; hens at various stages of their laying capacity, which occurs from 6 months up to 8 years. This will encourage a balance between a healthy happy flock of pets and egg production. In addition, it may minimize the potential for euthanasia or abandonment of spent hens.
• to better facilitate a potential fostering and adoption program.

The coup dimensions specified in the Vancouver bylaw are adequate for up to 4 chickens only, and therefore would need to be adjusted to suite 6-8 hens. In 2009, Heather Havens published housing and space requirements in detail, for the development of the Vancouver bylaw. She specifies the following are minimum housing requirements:

• 1.5 sq ft inside house per hen (1 sq ft per bantam)
• 6 to 10 inches of perch per hen
• 1 nest box or area per 4-5 hens.
• The run or yard should have approximately 8 sq ft per hen, less for bantams (4 – 10 sq ft are recommended).

I also published a little primer on lobbying local government for chickens, on our website... http://chickensinnorthvancouver.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/looking-to...

Hope this helps!
Stephanie

Permalink Reply by stephanie st loe on October 14, 2012 at 11:47am

For the city of Vancouver I find there is some conflicting information between the resource links provided by the city and what's in the bylaws. I assume the bylaws trump the resource information, which ask for less area inside the coop. I teach building codes and design for a living, so I reviewed the bylaws. In order to comply with both the Vancouver building bylaw (part 10.18) and the animal control bylaw (part 7.16) for 8 hens a coop needs to provide the following:
7.36 sq m/79.2 sq ft of ROOFED outdoor enclosure (animal control bylaw requires .92 sq m/10 sq ft per hen)
2.96 sq m/32 sq ft of coop area (animal control by law requires .37 sq m/4 sq ft per hen)
Yes, part of the outdoor area can be under the coop area, keeping the required area of the whole thing to 7.36 sq m/79.2 sq ft.
The zoning bylaw sets the maximum area for an accessory building at 9.2 sq m/99 sq ft, so yes a coop that holds 8 hens (7.36 sq m/79.2 sq ft) would fit within the current restrictions for accessory buildings.
As the animal control bylaw was written for 4 hens, it requires only one nest box, but according to the other information resources the city provides a minimum of 2 would be required.
The coop has to be located 1m away from the side property lines and 9.1m/30 ft from ANY house. This limits in which direction you can add on to your existing 4 hen sized coop.
However, the zoning bylaw allows the whole accessory building to be 2m/80 inches high, so one could build a mezzanine level? According to the animal control bylaw the outdoor floor area must be vegetated/natural dirt-so it would need to be a mezzanine sandbox? You would need to be careful not to design something you can’t clean without crawling on your hands and knees though.

It seems to me that if you have provided the compliant roofed outdoor area your hens would use it during all their waking hours in our mild climate and could be comfortable with less indoor coop space-like the 2 sq ft recommended on many of the resource sites.

Permalink Reply by Duncan Martin on October 5, 2012 at 12:28am

Hi Stephanie(s),
I think raising the limit to 8 hens is a great goal to shoot for, and now we have North van leading the way. Ross Moster and I had talked about this a little while back. The bylaw has been in effect, without any major incidents, for 2 years. 4 hens was a good way to get it passed without too much opposition, but raising the limit is needed in order to feed a family of 4 people. I'll be out of town all next week, but after that I'd be up for getting this item on the city's agenda and seeing if we can get an amendment to the bylaw.

Permalink Reply by stephanie st loe on October 14, 2012 at 12:02pm

Hi Duncan,

From what I understand we would need a petition in favor of the proposed amendment, an outline of the amendments and a rationale? I haven't the smallest idea how to get something on the city's agenda. Would it be wise to get input from Chicken Coop co-op members about anything else that needs amending in the blylaws first? I would be interested in reducing the 4 sq ft of indoor coop space requirement as well as increasing the hen limit to 8. Does anyone else have amendments they feel should be changed?

Permalink Reply by Duncan Martin on November 21, 2012 at 12:34am

So hard to find time these days, but I'm still game for getting these changes made. 2 square feet of coop is plenty since they never really even stand on the floor of the coop anyway.
Some of the information in the city's literature is misleading as well. One section says you should expect to spend an hour minimum daily tending to you chickens (grooming, feeding, cleaning, etc). That's either a typo or someone was reading about raising some kind of rare show bird with needs. Another part mentions that a raised coop and a lower run should not share the same footprint. I see no reason why this would be the case unless the floor were made of wide mesh and poop were falling onto other hens. It sounds like some of this advice was cut and pasted out of context, and is now being offered as fact. It looks like an unfortunate deterrent to me.
Finally, I think it is time that the city face the fact that a sustainable and green backyard chicken strategy must acknowledge the role of slaughter. I think it is completely reasonable that we should be able to slaughter spent laying hens now and again. These are not meat birds, but they live ~6 years after the stop laying, and they do cook just fine in a crock pot. I know this will bother certain groups, but the fact remains that this is the most humane and ethical way to consume animal products. Most egg-laying hens never even get used for meat in the end. Perhaps if this is a more contentious issue than sq. footage etc., it could be raised separately.
If nobody sees anything else that is in need of revision, let's compile these as a list of suggestions for consideration in the new year. It would be great to have them in place for the spring when more folks get chickens.

Permalink Reply by stephanie st loe on November 22, 2012 at 2:37pm

Hi Duncan,

I think the no DIY slaughtering rule might be in place in order to stop it from being done Wrong. I can just imagine someone witnessing their neighbor botching the job-chickens running around with their heads not quite cut off? Or inhumane destruction of animals? Also it's important NOT to bury the carcasses of diseased birds as groundwater can spread the infection to wild birds. Probably don't want people to eat their culled sick birds either. An abbatoir follows inspection guidelines to ensure meat is safe for human consumption. While most people would avoid all these negative outcomes the rules are in place to protect and guide the under-informed. If we can replace the rules with some sort of guidelines for newbies to ensure that DIY chicken slaughter is humane and safe for people and the environment, then we're ready to get rid of the rules?

Permalink Reply by Duncan Martin on November 27, 2012 at 11:50pm

I think you're right that it'd be important to make sure it's all done correctly, and I'm in no big rush to change that rule. It might be a hot potato if a councilor were to introduce it.
Keeping it separate from the other changes will certainly help their chances of passing, so I support doing that. It just strikes me as something that ought to be revisited within a year or so, especially since the vast majority of Vancouver chicken owners are responsible people who seek out knowledge on these things --and the city website has recommendations for good books and other resources, which are often published with more time and care than the city can allocate for their own guides. As well, these same concerns could be said about rural slaughter, which is allowed under the assumption that people have some mixture of learned skill and common sense.

Permalink Reply by Stephanie Imhoff on January 11, 2013 at 4:02pm

I'm not sure if its relevant, but there are professional options that aren't astronomical in price... perhaps quarterly group slaughters can be arranged through VV members or Homesteaders' Emporium?

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