Council asks staff for further study on chicken-raising issue

Cape Girardeau City Council members want more information from city staff before deciding whether to allow residents to keep chickens on their property.

Council members told deputy city manager Molly Hood they were "comfortable" with using a city of Columbia, Missouri, ordinance as a starting point for possibly allowing chickens in Cape Girardeau.

Ward 1 Councilman Joseph Uzoaru said he wanted to hear from city staff before deciding on the issue.

He and Ward 6 Councilman Wayne Bowen said they want to know whether there are health concerns with allowing chickens to be raised in Cape Girardeau, including risk of avian flu.

Hood said the police department and planning services have not had an opportunity to study the issue.

Council members said they want to hear the advice from those departments before making a decision.

Bowen asked the city staff to look at any "public nuisance" concerns with allowing residents to raise chickens.

Mayor Harry Rediger asked the city staff to report back to the council at the Jan. 9 study session.

Resident Andrew Bard recently submitted a petition asking the city allow him and other residents to keep up to six hens on their properties.

He has urged the council to enact an ordinance patterned after the Columbia law. As in Columbia, the measure would ban the keeping of roosters.

Bard also has suggested adding a provision that would require hens to have one wing clipped to prevent them from flying out of their enclosures.

Bard suggested at a previous council meeting the city wait until April to enact such a measure to allow time to educate residents about the regulations.

In a memorandum to the council, city attorney Eric Cunningham wrote a previous city council voted 4-3 in 2010 to retain the city's ban on keeping chickens. That proposal would have allowed residents to keep up to 10 chickens.

The 2010 measure would have required chicken owners to annually register with the city their name, address and number of chickens. The current proposal does not include such a provision, Cunningham wrote.

Cunningham said the current proposal would make it unlawful to raise chickens for slaughter.

mbliss@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3641

Pertinent address:

401 Independence St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.