Local group educating public about urban hens

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on August 30, 2024.

Herald photos by Al Beeber Lori Goater of Urban Hens YQL was talking to Open Farm Days visitors at Farming Smarter, as her organization educates people on urban hens.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Several communities in Alberta allow residents to raise chickens in the urban environment and organizers of a local Facebook group have begun engaging residents about the idea for Lethbridge.

Among Alberta cities allowing hens are Calgary, Airdrie, Red Deer, Edmonton and Grande Prairie.

Lori Goater of Urban Hens YQL lives on a city acreage and has a licence for chickens and during the recent Open Farm Days event at Farming Smarter was talking to visitors about misconceptions and the reward of allowing city residents to keep chickens in their yards.

Goater said to get chickens approved here there needs to be the establishment of a community group recognized by the City that can work with the City.

“The problem right now is there is a lot of scattered people interested in doing this but if they are illegal, they’re not willing to come forward. What’s holding us up is just getting a society basically, a non-profit that would then help the City in administering a pilot project,” said Goater while holding a hen in arms as two others nibbled on grass in a wired enclosure.

“The City actually has been in conversation with us. It’s just that we’re only a scattered few individuals…we’re basically on the lookout for people to reach out to us and get organized and step up and do their part,” said Goater.

Goater said her organization is trying to get people talking about urban hens and what the misconceptions are.

The first is always noise, she said.

“We’re talking about urban hens, not urban roosters and it’s the rooster who makes the noise. Hens are what we would want…they’re a lot quieter than the average dog. They will cackle when they lay an egg so it’s not no noise, it’s just a whole lot less noise than other pets that are permitted,” added Goater.

And hens don’t need a rooster to produce an egg.

She said smell is also a concern because when people think of chickens they think of large commercial barns.

“We’re talking about not thousands of chickens, we’re talking about three chickens and so they make less poo than a big dog. This is completely a different scale of operation.”

Goater said depending on the breeds, a chicken such as a Heritage will live almost as long as a dog or cat, even as old as 10 years. They lay fewer eggs as they age so people tend to retire the chickens after three or four years and keep the chickens as pets.

“By then they have personalities, they have names, they have friends. . .they’re very low maintenance.”

And they are not a magnet for nuisance wildlife or pests such as mice, the latter which chickens will actually eat, Goater said, because of the scale of urban chicken operations and if people are following rules, the chickens have predator and pest-proof coops.

“There’s just a lot of educating that needs to happen so the people that have approached the City have tried to get that across,” she added.

She said specific rules need to be in place for urban chickens to be allowed here.

“You need rules so people can follow them.”

YQL Urban Hens is a public Facebook Group with 481 members who are keen on the subject, Goater said.

“We’re the education end.. . I try to keep it really simple, that it’s all about just being able to have a different kind of a pet.”

Hens are only capable of laying one egg a day and depending on the breed, they will lay for a certain number of days before stopping to moult their feathers. Then they start laying again once they recover, she said.

Egg laying is season based on daylight with chickens activated by daylight cues, she said.