Rules regulating residential chickens may be close to hatching in Clearwater County.
The municipality has been looking at regulating urban chickens and staff are working on a bylaw to take to council next month.
A request to raise chickens from resident in the Hamlet of Winthrow prompted county staff to consider rules and regulations for raising chickens on residential properties.
Rocky Mountain House and Red Deer are among communities which have already taken the step to regulate urban chickens. Lacombe is in the middle of one-year pilot project to see if urban chickens will fly there.
Clearwater County planner Dustin Bisson said a bylaw that would cover Winthrow and the hamlets of Alhambra, Condor and Leslieville went to council last month.
“Basically, council looked at it and they proposed some changes to it, by opening it up to multi-lot subdivisions that are zoned CR (country residential).”
Most of the county’s multi-lot subdivisions have CR zoning.
The expanded bylaw is expected to go to council at its April 25 meeting. If first reading is approved, a public hearing will be held a month later to give residents an opportunity to provide feedback.
Under the original proposed bylaw, hamlet landowners would be limited to six hens per property and required to get a bi-annual licence. Regulations on the size and location of coops and runs and other issues would be included.