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February 18, 2014
Bullish on the real news in the Monashee
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It is a scary proposition when town councils begin to grapple with delivery of agriculture within municipal boundaries.
The MVS publisher weighs in on the complicated issue of avian eggonomics.
It was a sight to see, as nearly all the candidates shared a common blank stare accompanied by an agreement of being in favour of “food”.
There weren’t a lot of ideas to be found during that forum, if only we would have known what the future might bring.
We could have asked them, “Are you in favor of three chickens or four?”
“Will you allow roosters to roam the lawns of the village – or only hens?”
“Will you allow the village to make available tax incentives for new egg producers in the village?”
And then the most critical question, “How much will you charge me for a chicken license?”
At this past village council meeting it was astonishing to observe the process of backyard chicken bylaw protocol take form. I wondered if any of the council members had experience with keeping chickens – I think most of them had, but there’s a good chance that the person in charge of drafting the bylaw was the only council member who hadn’t.
That might cause a bit of a glitch.
The mayor admitted that he had worked on a chicken farm, and let it slip out during the meeting that he had an experience worth noting, he said to council, in public while chuckling, “Someday I’ll tell you my chicken story, but it will have to be in private.”
That was a little too much information for the folks in the gallery – at least the folks with some imagination.
I think Councilor Hodge may be astonished to know, that years ago I may have inherited his chickens – the one’s that I was asked to chicken-sit with my flock, and that were never picked up – but I might be wrong about that, nevertheless they were good chickens and I didn’t mind keeping them – its complicated and perhaps along a similar vein as the mayor’s story – but probably not.
Backyard chickens could either be the best thing for Lumby or the messengers of doom – after all within the food chain they are scavengers. Methinks that in the short term it may be this council’s first great test – and they may consider this story as either a godsend, or a shot across the hull.
Here’s where Lumby avian history begins.
On Monday, the first report emerged from Councilor Randal Ostafichuk who has been tasked with “laying” the groundwork for a backyard chicken bylaw. He wisely recommended that reinventing the wheel might be costly and that recreating the Vernon backyard chicken bylaw would be the best idea. In fact, the Vernon bylaw has been tested and amended and now stands without a lot of complaint.
Council was most excited about the whole idea.
In a nutshell, if adopted, villagers would be allowed to keep three hens, no roosters, the bylaw isn’t meant for meat birds, but egg layers.
The village is sketching out a “Hen Licensing Fee” which according to Ostafichuk is a means by which the village can make some revenue from the whole idea. There will be a guide supplied to licensees that would outline how hens are to be kept and would include the schedule of fees and fines. Fines stiff enough to deter anyone from going rogue with an unlicensed urban henhouse - or God forbid have four hens instead of three.
Ostafichuk provided a written report to council which included his recemendations and an interview with Lee Elliott a Vernon Bylaw Officer who provided some details as to the hen experience in Vernon.
Village administrator Tom Kadla informed council that there would be costs in setting up the bylaw because the Lumby Bylaw Officer would have to assemble the details for the delivery and enforcement of the bylaw. It was this statement that would become a warning of the dire realities of local government getting into the hen business.
What was astonishing is that council was told that at present, according to the provincial average, it requires 12 hours of a bylaw officer’s time to respond to a single bylaw complaint or issue. This considers the bylaw officers site visits, reporting time, paper shuffling and other aspects of the enforcement process.
So let’s pretend the bylaw officer is paid $20 per hour, that would mean a hen complaint, or any complaint for that matter is going to cost $240 plus the administration costs associated with the bylaw officers’ work. In farm jargon this translates into a value of 80 dozen eggs per complaint.
The mayor is concerned that anything over three hens might turn into a business. This supposes that the village is supporting coops as a hobby or for recreational purposes. It was made clear that a rooster was not required for hens to lay eggs so therefore axe the rooster because they simply make too much noise. All that crowing drowning out the calming rumble of a logging truck in its early morning idle, should not be had in this fair village. Councilors praised the benefits of chicken manure being a compliment to compost and harkened that the only major problems Vernon has had with its henhouses are when cats penetrate defense perimeters and cause havoc with a feathered threesome.
Axe the roosters and the cats.
One wonders how we ever get to the stage where we are assigning local regulations for keeping chickens. After-all how many people would actually take the village up on their offer?
In Vernon with a population of over 30,000, there are now five properties with urban hens, but according to City of Vernon staffer Clint Kanester, “There are probably more, who just don’t want to pay the registration fee, and are awaiting us to find them…”
I guess time will tell if Lumby residents will enter into the realm of legal egg-related grow-ops – or will there be henhouses that fly below the radar and become part of the ever growing underground economy. But would the business be profitable enough to take the risk?
Let’s try doing the math on a fully licensed legal Lumby henhouse.
Three healthy hens, let’s say the Rhode Island Red variety; each might lay on average .75 eggs a day which translates in total about 67.5 eggs per month or about five and a half dozen eggs, valued at $3.00 a dozen (let’s give them a high value because after-all this is your backyard farm) for a total of $16.50 per month or a $198 per year.
That’s a pretty rosy revenue scenario based on three very happy hens. But there’s at least one flaw in all of this. The hens might not be happy, so they might not lay as many eggs as you have forecasted – why?
No rooster.
Village councilors need to understand that residential egg production will be undermined by the threat of what hens would argue - is a form of unfair avian sexual cleansing. Roosters play a key role in a flock, particularly if there is one rooster and a small flock of hens – it’s a natural perfection that leads to ideal productivity – and much happiness within the act of flocking.
It’s the very reason why Vernon flocks are challenged by wayward cats – there is no protection for those flocking birds and the planning gap demonstrates a more linear and urban approach to small farm planning.
Nevertheless let’s stick with the financial forecast.
So a licensed backyard poultry operation has $198 a year to work with and they need to purchase some grain or chicken scratch which might total $30 because the hens have to be fed in winter and of course you are feeding them table scraps to help reduce feed costs. However, rodents got into your feed, and you didn’t realize this until 6 months into your operation when you noticed that some of the grain being cast towards the hens by your 6 year old actually consisted of mouse turds.
Then there’s a bag of oyster shells for $5 and hopefully the feed store will sell small bags of the stuff which will allow your hens to lay eggs with tough shells, there’s nothing worse than gathering eggs in the morning and reaching into a nest and feeling an egg with no shell.
Of course there’s the cost of the coop, the wire, finding nesting material, and feeder; and that coop will require bedding material that will soak up all the dirty stuff and still be good for the hens to scratch in. Lets say all of that will cost $200 because you are going to scrounge the material and build everything yourself. Oh yes, you got a deal on the hens at $15 a piece for a total of $45. Let’s round it out and say you have $250 into this backyard operation and let’s spread this capital cost out over three years.
So your hens are costing you $83 per year plus $35 in feed for a total of $118. The big question is how much will the village license be?
Will the village license the henhouse owner, the property, the hen or the eggs?
It’s really beginning to look like a microcosm of the Canadian agriculture industry – complete with production quotas.
As far as enforcement goes, licensing each hen might be problematic, tagging the hens or putting leg bands on them - each having a village logo (Simply the Best?) and license number would most certainly be costly. However, when those hens get out of the yard and the bylaw officer finally chases them down, he most certainly will be able to put a human face with that hen and you will be fined (or will the hen be fined?). So it might actually be cheaper on the long run.
Licensing egg production would have to be based on trust otherwise the bylaw officer would have to travel to record daily egg counts.
Licensing a henhouse owner might be the most cost effective for the village. However what if the owner begins to collect the “three hen quotas” from other residents so that he or she can create a full fledged commercial poultry operation at the Villas?
SPECIAL NOTE: Surely the village won’t want a building permit for a henhouse?
At the end, if the village charges $15 per year for a three-hen-no-rooster-license they will contribute to a $2.00 per dozen cost on home grown eggs which should reassure the mayor that this most certainly will not turn into a business for anyone - not even the local government.
Let’s say the village licenses ten backyard henhouse operations at $15 per year. For $150 the local government may place at risk five or even ten bylaw visits which may cost taxpayers upwards of a $3000 per year (a value of 1000 dozen eggs).
It’s only a matter of time before a delegation appears in front of council threatening impeachment because there is local taxpayer subsidy of village-based agriculture.
I have a better idea. Go free range. Leave the local backyard egg producers to determine their own destiny. Leave them to their own devices when dealing with disgruntled neighbors – let them bribe those angry neighbors with fresh eggs.
Let roosters crow free and let it be known to everyone that government has no place in the henhouses of the nation – or at least the village.
Let liberty prevail, save money, eat better food – and see what happens.
By Don Elzer
March 22, 2012
It wasn’t long ago during the civic election when Lumby candidates were asked to expound on their ideas and policies regarding local food production.
Some good and ugly solutions for disposing of unwanted urban hens
We asked different people in Lumby, the odd question of how they might dispose of their hens when they have outlived the novelty of backyard avionics. Some of the answers surprised us – here’s the top 10.
1. Drop them off at the SPCA.
2. Sell them or give them away on Kijijji.
3. Kill them and eat them.
4. Free them – let them wander the streets as homeless hens returning to their pre-domesticated state.
5. Put them in a cardboard box and place it just outside of the door to the liquor store.
6. Put them in a cardboard box and place it inside the Village Green Mall next to the Food Court.
7. Put them in a cardboard box and place it inside the door at J.W. Inglis School
8. Put them in a cardboard box and place it inside the door of a daycare centre marked – “Danger – Do Not Open - Keep Out of Children’s Reach”
9. Book the hall and put on a dance concert, sell lots of tickets and play, “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens” (Indie or Rockabillie sound) while throwing the hens out to the audience.
10. Set them free at the gun range.
Farmer takes aim at government regulations
By Roger Knox - Vernon Morning Star
March 25, 2012
Bev Torrens remembers a time when, as a small farmer, he’d have people coming up to his Eagle Rock Road property gate in Spallumcheen looking for steers and chickens.
If you wanted to buy a steer for meat, people would go see Torrens, who used to raise 12 to 26 head.
If you wanted white meat, no problem. Torrens could sell you a chicken right out of his farm gate.
But regulations to the red meat and chicken industry have hit Torrens, and other small farmers in the township, hard.
He no longer raises cattle and he said he had to fight with chicken regulators to get a permit to raise 2,000 free range birds and sell them from his property.
“Who would think in 2012, on a family farm, you can raise 99 birds without a permit but if you raised 104, they could come and euthanize the difference,” said Torrens in a presentation to Spallumcheen council Monday, outlining how regulations are hurting his livelihood.
“It’s just disgusting.”
On the topic of chickens, Torrens said there used to be five mobile processing units – MPUs – in the Armstrong area, and now there is only one, a woman who operates a stationary unit in Kelowna.
Instead of slaughtering the birds on his own property or with one of the local MPUs, Torrens must now head to Kelowna.
“I raise birds in 500 increments, others do them in 800 increments, and the woman in Kelowna can only process between 250 and 270 birds a day,” said Torrens.
“That means two trips for me, or I have my wife follow me in a cube van. These are the regulations that are frustrating me to death.”
Torrens also told council that he’s heard of another regulation coming that will farmers to build a waste shed with a cement floor and a roof to cover all of their farm waste and store it for one year.
A former councillor himself, Torrens asked for help from the current Spallumcheen council.
“Assist us in setting up a meeting with the agriculture minister and various people,” urged Torrens. “Just give us a hand here.”
Sympathetic to his plight, Coun. Todd York suggested to Torrens that he gather “more than a single voice,” and suggested taking the problem to the township’s agricultural advisory committee, which is made up of people in the industry.
“If you have more than one voice, that would a huge asset to the committee and they can sit down and look at some of these regulatory problems,” said York.
“We as a group need the people in the industry that recognize what the problems are to speak to a common voice, and that voice, we hope, will be the agricultural advisory committee who will assist us in identifying what the problems are, then be the voice it needs to be in your defence.”
Council unanimously agreed to send Torrens’ concerns to the agricultural advisory committee for its comments.
Then, once the comments are received from the committee, township council will proceed with sharing the concerns and feedback with the ministry of agriculture.
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When governments attempt to legislate whether or not people can grow their own food, a certain slippery slope can occur. Everywhere similarities are emerging between how a local government might try to address food security and how a provincial government might address a different kind of food security. In both cases the ability to independently grow food becomes placed into question, as this recent article written by Roger Knox of the Vernon Morning Star demonstrates.
The Food Security
Cockadoodle Index
