Last Updated on July 13, 2022, 5:01 PM | Published: July 13, 2022
MOORE, OKLA (Free Press) — Moore’s July 5th City Council unanimously shoot down a proposed backyard chicken ordinance after months of study.
Some in the community still wonder why Moore denied the proposal, especially since Oklahoma City passed a similar ordinance in February.
An interview with former chicken farmer and Moore’s 6-term Mayor Glenn Lewis explained the issues which swayed council members, pointing to those which come directly from OKC’s experience with backyard chickens as most influential.
The proposed backyard chicken ordinance failed in Moore because:
- It will strain the already busy Moore Public Works and Animal Control departments to deal with chicken-related issues. The City is working to plan and construct the new Animal Shelter voters approved last November, keeping relevant departments busy.
- Dogs agitate over neighboring chickens. OKC, Norman, and Edmond staff informed Moore that one of their biggest issues with their ordinances come from dogs barking at or attacking nearby chicken coops. Sound complaints draw from police resources.
- Moore residents showed little interest in passing the ordinance, with more interest in it failing. Mayor Lewis and other council members received mixed opinions before the May meeting, but recent citizen input is relatively small and generally against the proposal.
City Resources
At the July 5th meeting, Council member Mark Hamm mentioned that city officials are working to finish the new animal shelter and do not have the bandwidth to deal with the backyard chicken ordinance.
Mayor Lewis corroborated these worries, explaining that the City is already struggling to fill some positions. His example was City lifeguards, a position Moore has struggled to fill for this season.
As Moore has staffing issues and a full workload internally, they also struggle to find external services needed to make the chicken ordinance work properly.
Referring to the roosters who often can’t be identified as such until adulthood, Mayor Lewis said “Ranchers don’t want them.” Roosters are male chickens and cannot lay eggs.
The Avian Flu outbreak has made local farmers/ranchers more weary of adopting unwanted roosters or chickens, although cases have decreased in recent months.
A conversation with Mark Hamm also revealed that the City needs time to create a process for dealing with ordinance violations, one seperate from what is used to deal with dogs or cats.
“We need more time to deal with issues or violations of the ordinance.”
Ordinance concerns from nearby cities
Mayor Glenn Lewis described how Oklahoma City staff emphasized the role Dogs play in a backyard chicken ordinance.
Lewis said “It’s not so much the people that own the chickens, it’s the neighbors that own the dogs.”
OKC animal control and police often respond to noise complaints stemming from dogs barking at neighboring coops. “The council didn’t want more noise complaints,” Lewis said.
Dogs will jump over or find their way around residential fencing to attack chickens, again pulling from City resources.
Hamm also made the point that waiting will allow these backyard chicken ordinances to have a history, maybe bringing light to “the unknowns” he and other council members worry about in Moore.
Moore’s public opinion
Seperate from the City’s ability to deal with backyard chickens, the citizens of Moore showed little interest in the proposal’s success.
Mayor Lewis said that citizens emailed him and the other council members about half for and half against when it was first brought to the council around six months ago.
But after a May meeting where the council voted to table the item, the public made it clear that they opposed the ordinance.
“Most of the citizens were against it,” said Mayor Lewis. The emails he received were mostly against the ordinance.
Mark Hamm said that he got “4 emails in support of the ordinance,” but “ Wasn’t hearing a lot from people.” No one from the public spoke for the ordinance at the May or July meetings.
Going into that meeting, Mayor Lewis said that “[The Council members] had their mind made up already.”
Mark Hamm summed up the City’s view well; “Let’s get the new Animal Shelter built, and if public interest exists, then we can revisit [backyard chickens]…The overall consensus with City staff was let’s wait, build the Animal Shelter, and revisit the issue.”
Damian Powell is our government reporter for the smaller municipalities in the OKC metro such as Moore, Norman, Bethany, and Warr Acres. Damian is studying Political Science at the University of Oklahoma.
