I’m not your typical chicken farmer. Your typical chicken farmer lives north or of Ogden or South of Provo. They have dirty overalls and a stalk of wheat hanging from their mouth. Chicken farmers spend their days in ankle deep chicken poop and the only book they crack is the Farmer’s Almanac. When I first thought of getting chickens my wife said I was crazy, my neighbors said it was funny and my friends said it was, umm, long pause, “cool?”

I first came across the idea from a couple, not so typical, chicken farmers Lillian and Shane. One farmer a Cardiologist, the other an Anesthesiologist at the University Hospital, they were not exactly your poop shoveling, overall wearing country bumpkins. Living in the Avenues of Salt Lake City, these two doctors convinced me how fun raising chickens could be.

I thought I couldn’t be normal and my wife assured me I wasn’t. Everyone around me seemed to be enamored by dogs and cats as pets. It was as if that was the only choices out there. As someone who believes pets should make my life enjoyable not the other way around, I’ve never understood cats and unless a dog could jump game birds I didn’t see much point to owning a dog. I loved the functionality of a chicken. They eat your bugs, they provide great fertilizer, you don’t have to take them for walks, and they take care of themselves while you are on vacation. You don’t have to pick up half pound stink bombs or fight the never-ending dead spots on the lawn with chickens, and of course there were the eggs. It just made sense…so I did it.

When I moved to Bountiful, this not so country loving farmer, chuckled inside to see the jaws drop of the next-door neighbors when they saw my unconventional choice of pets move down the driveway on a trailer. Alright, maybe being out of the norm wasn’t something I was too worried about and maybe it even brought me a little enjoyment but over the next 2 years my neighbor’s jaws closed as they realized how benign the chickens were and my mouth began to drop as I realized how in the norm I actually was. It started when my neighbor to the south found out I raised chickens. The middle aged, middle class, urbanites barely blinked before they informed me the previous owners also had chickens. Over the next two years I proudly boasted my odd choice of pets and oddly enough I found I wasn’t alone. Every few weeks I learned of a new neighbor or friend or coworker who had chickens. From Company Owners, to computer geeks to Engineers to several more Doctors and Nurses, it seemed chicken farmers knew no economic, social or geographical boundaries.

In the early days along the Wasatch front it would have been a chore to find a home without a few chickens running around but somewhere along the annals of time in many people’s minds the chicken has been relegated to living in stinky warehouses in two foot square cages destined for the dinner plate. Although chickens don’t run as free as they used to, ask a citizen today if they have chickens and chances are if they don’t, they will at least know someone who does.

Enter stage left, the sucker punch. I knew skunks and raccoons lived in the area, I’d seen them just days after I moved into the home. They never bothered my chickens and I never bothered them until the day I noticed holes in the dirt around the coop where a predator had attempted to dig its way in. I built a trap and before long I had the culprit behind bars. Animal control was called and shortly after animal control left they called Bountiful City.

I had read the Bountiful City Code that explicitly stated fowl were allowed in residential areas. Apparently that was not so, a table in another part of the city code excluded nearly all but the narrowest portion of residential areas from having chickens. My home was not in that narrow zone. The City ordered my chickens to be removed.

At first I was angry. I had lived for 2 years with these chickens in Bountiful. My neighbors loved them or were indifferent about them since they blended right in with the other legal chickens living only one hundred feet away. Once I had time to gather my thoughts and get my emotions in check my anger turned to rage. They’re chickens! On average they weigh five pounds, they barely make a peep and most important, who the heck do these city bureaucrats think they are micromanaging property owners in America like this. It’s un-American! What kind of a land do we live in when a hundred fifty pound dog is legal in any corner of the city yet owning a chicken can land you with a criminal record?

As I found out quickly, hundreds and hundreds of citizens along the Wasatch front owned and raised chickens in their back yards. One by one, city after city ordinances have been revised over the past two years accommodating the desires of citizens to become more self-reliant and have more control over what they eat. Most Davis County cities that passed new ordinances saw no harm and very little complaint from their ordinance changes. Of half the cities surveyed in Davis County that allowed chickens in residential areas, only one reported a single legitimate complaint over the last year. As I have made several calls to Bountiful City the unofficial response is, “Most Bountiful citizens don’t want chickens living next to them.” A claim I dispute. I have to wonder at what point dictating what people do outside of your property boundaries became woven into the fabric of our rights as citizens. It stands to reason that some restrictions be put in place, like no roosters, but to paint the broad stroke barring all chickens from all but the largest of properties in Bountiful is all too excessive.

So that is where myself and possibly a hundred more Bountiful citizens sit today, on a piece of the American pie that has been raped by the arm of Bountiful’s government. From average ordinary urban chicken farmer to outlaw. From practical dad to possible convict. From freedom loving American to an American fighting for the freedom to live prudently on my own property. It’s a fight that started over two hundred twenty-five years ago and it’s a fight that citizens will have with powerful city administrators for another two hundred twenty-five years. I’m hopeful that Bountiful citizens and Americans will understand this fight isn’t just chicken scratch; it’s a fight that has far reaching implications on many different levels. I am hopeful that all the Engineers, Company Owners, Doctors and Computer Geeks band together in restoring the simple right to bare chickens in Bountiful.