The Meeting

I would call tonight's meeting a success. The speakers were great, we had a good discussion both for those for and the opposition as well.  The turnout was not huge, but we were glad to see homeowners come and take part.
Kim Allyn, D.V.M., first spoke about her experiences raising her own flock for 4-H with her daughters.  Some key points made were that chickens do not smell, are quiet, easy to keep, do not attract predators that aren't already in the neighborhood.  She spoke about the importance of keeping them well fed and watered as well as keeping their coop clean.  They do not require vaccinations and are relatively easy to care for.  They are also fun animals with personality.  Roosters are not fun, are not quiet and are not required for hens to lay eggs.  To keep chickens safe they need to be protected from predators such as raccoon, foxes, coyotes, dogs, cats, etc. They hens will stay in their coop at night and can be keep in a protected run during the day or have free range, keeping in mind they are vulnerable to predators.  Chickens are friendly but can have their own personalities just like any other pet.  Some are more friendly than others.
Sundari Kraft spoke about her experience in succeeding in changing ordinances an how to handle opposition to Chicken law.  Sundari spoke of the many cities in the metro area that currently have laws allowing chickens, Denver, Littleton, Ft. Collins, Arvada, ...the list was long.  She addressed common concerns such as smell.  Mainly fears about smell come from folks who grew up in rural areas near commercial chicken farms.  This is completely different because there would be an odor from a farm that housed hundreds or thousands of chickens in a small area for profit.  8 chickens on a 5 acre lot would not cause any additional odors.  Noise should not be a concern as the hens would not make near the noise as a barking dog would.  Concerns of predators was a common fear she explained when speaking to people in the Denver area.  Adding chickens to a community does not increase the number of predators.  The ones that are already here will be interested in the new food, but it will not add more predators.  Someone said they had heard concerns that having chickens would scare the horses.  Sundari did not agree that this could be a problem.  In comparison to our popular domestic pets, dogs and cats, chickens are a much cleaner choice.  The likelihood of disease transmission from chicken to human is much less than it is from a dog to a human. Chicken waste is safe to put on a garden for fertilizer however dog and cat waste is toxic to humans.
The attendees had great suggestions as to the language for the covenant change and several volunteered and assigned themselves to a section of the community to get proxies assigned to them for the July vote.
We didn't have a great turn out in terms of numbers, but the turnout we had was great!