Chicken Bylaw Becoming a Reality in Addington Highlands

Craig Bakay | Jan 22, 2025

After much discussion, research and revision, the path towards legally keeping chickens in residential areas of Addington Highlands Townships is entering the home stretch.

At the regular Council meeting Feb. 14 in Flinton, CAO/Clerk-Treasurer Christine Reed presented a draft bylaw along with a request to advertise on the Township’s website, social media page and Frontenac News to solicit public and Council feedback in order to bring said feedback to the Feb. 18 meeting in Denbigh, after which a final bylaw will be drafted. Council endorsed her proposal.

“I feel like I’ve been to Council a lot about the keeping of backyard chickens,” Reed said. “But we’ve been going through a process.

“I brought it to Council, decided to put out a survey to determine interest and from that survey determined that yes, there are people interested in keeping chickens in zones other than rural zones.”

She said that she, Coun. Yanch and Thompson, along with bylaw enforcement officer David Twiddy, reviewed a draft she had put together from existing bylaws from other municipalities, essentially paring them down.

“We went from having an application to merely guidelines and adopting an incremental approach based on lot size essentially,” she said. “For hamlet residential zones, it allows up to six chickens, for rural residential under 2 acres. 12 chickens and rural residential over 2 acres, 24 chickens.”

Coun. Ken Hook said the draft was “very thorough” but noted that while a chicken is defined as four months old and many people buy their chickens ready to lay, some people like to buy day-old chicks and often get a dozen to because some will end up being male and there will be some loses.

“I’ve had some people tell me that they’ll have to kill the males,” he said.

“You can’t do that on-site,” said Reeve Henry Hogg.

“Yes, but it doesn’t address it in the bylaw and it may come up,” Hook said.

Hook was also concerned about the disposal of dead adult hens because “I don’t know of any vet or abattoir that would take them.”

Reed said that they weren’t intending to be proactive going around to residences to look for chickens as the bylaw is complaint driven but residents needn’t make additional complaints if they’ve already filed one as they would “follow-up” on complaints that have already been filed.

“It doesn’t say anything about somebody coming to your door selling eggs,” said Hogg. “I had some body come to my door two days after this dropped trying to sell me eggs.

“But I believe they were from Skootamatta.”

Expensive wash-up

Responding to correspondence from North Frontenac on the possibility of a boat-washing station for Mazinaw Lake, Coun. Ken Hook said: “I would certainly welcome getting together with North Frontenac and as many other governmental organizations as possible to figure out what’s going to be done.

“(But) the boat washing stations that were recommended or sought after by the Mazinaw Property Owners Association are extremely expensive (starting at $40,000 US plus shipping) and that’s a lot of money for something somebody might vandalise or steal.

“And I don’t know if people would use it. You almost need somebody volunteering to be there to instruct people or they’re just going to pull their boat out and away they go.”

“This species (Eurasian milfoil) is going to be in other places besides Mazinaw Lake,” said Reeve Henry Hogg. “You’re going to have to have 20 locations and the same in North Frontenac.

“And how are you going to monitor it?”

“Even if you had it on a trailer and you moved it lake to lake, are you going to make a difference?” said Hook. “I think the next step is to reach out to North Frontenac to see if we can arrange a meeting.

“I think the intent is there to do something but we just don’t know what to do.”

Planning Secretary Patricia Gray suggested the possibility for visitors to use the existing car wash facilities to wash their boats and signage to communicate it.

“Perhaps the Township could even give out tokens for that,” said Hook.

Council voted to reach out to North Frontenac for further discussions.