Elgin won't punish couple for baby chickens in home
The city of Elgin is not planning to take any punitive action when residents who are participating in its backyard chickens pilot program keep baby chicks in their homes.
The issue came up after Pete and Katie Mangan, among the first residents of single-family homes to be granted permits to keep hens in backyard coops, brought home four chicks 10 days ago.
They have been keeping the chicks in a box under a heated lamp in the basement, but Elgin's city code requires chickens to be kept in a coop or other enclosure at all times.
Members of the Elgin City Council decided to take no action on Wednesday after being told by senior management analyst Aaron Cosentino about the unforeseen issue in the one-year pilot program. Only 15 residents are allowed in the program that took effect Jan. 1.
Chicks must be under heating lamps or incubators for the first six to eight weeks, Cosentino said. Other cities that allow backyard chickens don't find indoor chicks to be a problem, and Urbana expressly allows that, city officials said.
Councilman John Prigge asked city staff to look into the issue last week after a resident complained following newspaper articles about the Mangans' chicks. He asked the city council to amend the city's ordinance to expressly allow indoor chicks in order not to create a precedent, he said.
“I don't want to see our animal control guys going out there, holding up a chicken, weighing it, looking at the age, seeing if it has the right eyes,” he said. “It's a mess. I really think it's going to be a mess.”
Other council members, however, agreed to wait until they could take a comprehensive look at the end of the pilot program.
Councilman Toby Shaw said Prigge was “overcomplicating” the issue. “I think common sense just says that what we're doing is the right thing to do,” he said. “I don't think we need to change it now.”
Mangan said he'll move the chicks into a coop in his backyard as soon as they are ready to be outdoors.
“I don't want to raise chickens in my house,” he said. “I just want them to be safe until they're safe to be outside — and they will never be inside again.”
Councilwoman Carol Rauschenberger said there are plenty of teachers who use baby chicks for class instruction, and her family once even hatched baby quails in the basement.
Resident Christina Aagesen, whose efforts prompted the city to create the pilot program, called it “a nonissue.”
“The only person who was concerned about a slippery slope is the person who was creating it and going down it,” she said.
Implementing pilot programs requires open-mindedness, she said. “I definitely appreciated the levelheaded pragmatism that was exercised this evening.”