Chicken rules still murky in Halifax, chicken lovers say

Nova Scotians looking to rent a chicken for the summer should check their local bylaws first, says the owner of a poultry-loaning business.

Lisa Dickson runs Rent The Chicken with her husband James out of their Pictou County farm. Her family bought her grandparents' farm a few years ago and started renting out chickens recently.

A $375 spring rental package gets you two egg-laying hens from May to October. That includes delivery, set-up and bringing the chickens backat the end of the rental. The hens should produce eight to 14 eggs per week. The deluxepackage gets you twice as many hens.

When people contact her about renting a chicken or two, she tells them the rules can be confusing.

"I've looked through the bylaws, and I think, 'Okay,yeah, I think this person is allowed to have chickens.' And then when I call and talk to someone, they're like, 'Nope, it's very obviously stated that they aren't,'" she says. "I'm not finding them very straightforward at all."

Erin Hennessy and her husband want to rent a pair of chickens for the summer, but struggled to find out if that was allowed in their part of Halifax. She spent hours on the phone and online trying to get a straight answer.

"The more I looked into it, the moreconfusing it got," she told the CBC's Information Morning.

She says Animal Control told her it's OK, but municipal officialssaid it's not.

No longer not allowed

In 2013, Halifax stopped interpretingits bylaws in a way that automatically banned urbanchickens.

Now, municipalspokeswoman Tiffany Chase says that's basically because Halifax has no chicken-specific rules.

"We don't have a specific bylaw or one zone within the municipality that deals with the issue of keeping chickens on private property," she says.

More than 22 land-use bylaws cover the region and rules. Chase says people who want to clarify the rules could attend public meetings discussing the city's Centre Plan.

"Those are certainly some of the discussions we would look to have with the community as we undertake these reviews," she says.

She recommends would-be chicken fanciers call the city to talk to a municipal zoning officer beforehand.