A.M. Briefing: A clucking controversy

Three is barely an omelet.

Some Coeur d’Alene residents are upset at the city’s recently adopted

animal ordinance that caps the number of chickens city-dwellers are

allowed to own.

The new cap allows three cluckers per city abode, and was adopted

several weeks ago as part of several updates and changes the city made

to a number of its animal ordinances.

The old ordinance allowed an unlimited amount of chickens at city

homes before the City Council pared it down. They wanted to allow

chickens, as more and more people are raising them as a healthier,

more economically friendly way to provide food, but wanted to put a

max on the number one could own.

Now some chicken-friendly humans want the issue revisited, seeking more cluck for the buck.

“Three chickens is kind of a why-bother?’” said Sherry Bullard, who

lives on Indiana Avenue in Coeur d’Alene who grew up with chickens and

is thinking of raising her own again. “Personally, I think 12 is a

good number to have as a maximum.”

Bullard and several of her pro-chicken neighbors plan to make their

pitch to the city’s General Services Committee at noon Monday in the

Community Room of the Coeur d’Alene Public Library to see if the city

will open the topic back up.