[story updated Thursday, August 27, 2015.
Abilene’s animal ordinance will stay the same after proposed revisions were rejected by the city council today. The council voted unanimously to keep the current ordinance after about 30 people spoke out against the changes during a public hearing. Revisions to the ordinance included limitations on the number of animals a person can keep, new guidelines for tethering dogs and restrictions on keeping roosters.
[original story Wednesday, August 26, 2015]
Some backyard farmers in Abilene are concerned by potential updates to the city’s animal ordinance. Abilene’s current animal ordinance is pretty old, some of it hasn’t been modified since 1965, other parts were updated in 2006. City officials have been drafting up a new ordinance that will go before the city council on Thursday. Some major modifications include limitations on the number of animals a person can keep, requirements on cleaning up after pets, new guidelines for tethering dogs
“And then the one that probably everybody is talking about is the proposing a restriction on roosters,” Aaron Vannoy said. “Restricting them to a lot of one acre or larger and restricting them by being fifty feet away from a property line.”
Vannoy is the city’s animal services manager. He studied the restrictions put in place in some of Abilene’s sister cities-some had no regulations at all for roosters, others say they don’t have roosters inside the city.
“We’re trying to find a happy medium and it’s basically because of noise,” Vannoy said.
Two roosters crow daily in Melissa Mason’s backyard located five blocks south of Abilene Christian University. She keeps a handful of hens, ducks and turkeys along with the roosters on about a quarter of an acre.
Mason checked with all of her neighbors to be sure the early morning crowing was not a disturbance. She says nobody complained and one neighbor even enjoys the sound.
Mason describes the proposed ordinance as “over-bearing and far-reaching.”
If the current draft of the proposed ordinance passes then Mason’s roosters will have to go. But Vannoy said a lot will change Thursday when the ordinance goes up for discussion at the city council.
“If you have roosters that are very quiet and that your neighbors don’t have any problems with then you probably will never see us,” Vannoy said. “The challenge that we have is how to we exclude some roosters and keep some roosters. I think that is a good discussion that we may have at city council is to decide what does our community really want.”
