By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

Last summer 10-year-old Olivia Collins stood before South Portland City Councilors and asked if they could change local ordinances so she and her family could raise chickens in their backyard – a practice that’s spreading across the city line to Scarborough and beyond. 

“Our ordinances didn’t permit farm-type animals at all,” South Portland Code Enforcement Officer Patricia Doucette said.

Four months and several public hearings after Collins’ request, South Portland City Councilors unanimously approved allowing single-family homes to raise up to six birds, excluding roosters, as long as their henhouse could be located more than 20 feet from any property line. 

“The council really got their act together and it has been very well received,” Doucette said. “Since then we’ve issued 14 [out of 20] permits and have not received any complaints or had any problems.”

Next month, Olivia Collins’ mother, Stacey Collins, plans to visit Scarborough to teach residents how to raise their own feathered friends. 

“Isn’t it just great?” Scarborough Community Services Administrative Assistant Terry Eddie asked. “We’ve had a lot of interest and these things are usually packed.”

Stacey Collins said the course is a “ground up” approach to raising fowl in a backyard for people who may not realize how much work it is to keep a healthy henhouse.

“The first question we ask is ‘Do you really want chickens?’ because it’s not as easy as you might think,” she said.

Stacey Collins said the course will cover not only how to raise chickens in general, but how to deal with any local issues that may come up including checking to see if local ordinances allow you to raise the birds and what to do if it is prohibited. Olivia Collins said she hoped people everywhere would be able to have chickens in their backyard, even if it meant going through the same process she and her mother did last year.

“We went to a lot of meetings,” she said. “I left chorus class so I could go to a [city council] workshop.”

Olivia Collins’ advice for would-be chicken owners: “stick with it and remember to be reasonable.”  

It may be the first class Stacey Collins has taught on how to raise fowl, but University of Maine Cooperative Extension Educator Richard Brzozowski is no stranger to helping people who want to reap the benefits of having a coop in their backyard. 

“We get a lot of farmers, gardeners, bakers and families who are likely to go through a lot of eggs,” he said. 

Brzozowski – who has traveled as far from the university’s Orono campus as Gorham for the course – said chickens cannot begin to lay eggs until they are 18 to 20 weeks old and do not need a rooster to do so. Once they do start laying, he said maintaining a full coop is “just like farming; a lot of hard work.” 

“If you have 12 chickens you’re looking at about a dozen eggs a day, and they need to be watered and fed as well,” he said. 

When it comes to urban henhouses, Brzozowski said eliminating roosters – which can create noisy problems in the early morning hours and become aggressive toward other animals – and “keeping clean” are key. 

“Grain is usually available 24 hours a day, which can attract rodents, and the smell can be an issue too,” he said. “But you can put your grain in a metal can and keep the henhouse clean, which usually solves whatever problem you might have,” he said. 

Scarborough Code Enforcement Officer Tom Reinsborough said chickens are allowed in the town, but only in the Residential Farming (RF) zone, which is the largest of all 19 zones in the town, he said. 

“It’s for general purpose farming,” Reinsborough said. “There are portions of [RF] along Gorham Road, around Oak Hill and Eight Corners.”

Reinsborough said residents in the Residential 2 [R2] zone can also raise chickens if they apply for “special exemption” status. 

“We deal with this a couple times a year,” he said. “If they aren’t allowed to raise chickens where they’re at we usually just ask people to relocate them.”

Biddeford Code Enforcement Officer Don Pepin said chickens are also allowed in RF zones within the city, while other municipalities such as Gorham and Kennebunk have less strict guidelines.

“It’s pretty much up to the code enforcement officer,” Gorham Code Enforcement Officer Freeman Abbott said. “We look at the lot size and the neighborhood to determine if the area is appropriate.”

Kennebunk Code Enforcement Officer Paul Demers said chickens are allowed anywhere in the town as long as the owners are not making a profit  from the eggs produced. He said the code enforcement office deals with chickens “a couple times a year,” on a fairly informal basis. 

“I would love for [the town’s chicken-raising policy] to be contested some day, because when it comes to that we often have to make a lot of decisions that stretch the envelope of that,” he said.

For more information on the course being taught by Stacey Collins next month, contact Scarborough Community Services at 730-5040 and about specifics for raising chickens in South Portland visit www.SoPoChickens.org.