North Bay City Council took a couple of cracks at the possibility of regulating the use of backyard chickens in residential properties within the city but nothing happened.

The original motion by Councillor Marcus Tignanelli called on a report from staff on what the implementation of a backyard chickens By-law would look like and that was defeated but not before an amendment was offered up but that wasn’t adopted either.

The amendment called on the report to include the pros and cons.

Councillor Tanya Vrebosch says there’s a lot of factors to consider.

Do we have capacity for enforcement? What kind of enforcement are we looking at? How do you determine what constitutes a violation of smell? What constitutes how clean a coop is,” she asks.

Councillor Mark King says chickens need to be outside the city.

“These types of animals need to be in the outskirts particularly in farming areas. Allowing this is in the downtown area or near a built up area isn’t a good option,” King says.

(photo by station staff)