EDMONTON - Crystal Sherris will hide her five hens at one or two undisclosed Edmonton homes before city bylaw officers arrive Wednesday to seize them.
Sherris said she received a letter from the city warning her the officers would come by her Bonnie Doon-area home Jan. 23 to seize her backyard chickens, since a bylaw bans the birds from residential areas. Sherris won’t be home, and neither will her chickens, but Sherris said a friend might greet the officers in a surprise costume.
“I’m very limited what I can do,” said Sherris, who lost her first legal fight with the city over keeping backyard chickens for eggs. “I can’t afford to take the risk of being fined or being charged on my tax roll. I’m not in any position to be subject to that cruelty.”
So on Tuesday, Sherris will move her five chickens to different homes, one with a large pie-shaped lot that has a sound barrier instead of a neighbour on one side, and potentially a second residential property that already has some chickens.
“Hopefully the city won’t hunt them down. The city doesn’t know about them yet. Their neighbours are on board,” Sherris said. “They’re defying the law and they’re also prepared to fight, to take the same action I have.”
In 2010, the city considered launching a chicken pilot project, but held off until the draft food and urban agriculture policy was finished.
In August, Sherris was told to get rid of her chickens. She had hoped the city wouldn’t force the issue until at least February, when she is scheduled to fight against the city bylaw in provincial court. Now, Sherris wants that case to be postponed while she and her lawyers get more details to build a solid case, including which neighbours complained about her flock, since she knows of none.
“I’m devastated because I consider them my pets, not only a food source. They’re like having a dog,” Sherris said. “They hatched on the property and have lived their whole life and are part of our family.”
The five hens are about one year old and, unlike previous ones, have gone largely unnamed as Sherris tries to maintain some emotional distance. The white birds she calls Princess, and the black ones, Peanut.
Sherris has no rooster.
“I couldn’t bear to name them and had to try not to fall in love with their cute little fluffiness,” said Sherris, who chose quiet chickens for this flock to avoid naysayers who may complain of noisiness. “It’s just too difficult knowing this day may come, and it has come.”
Dividing and moving flocks isn’t good for chickens, Sherris said. She expects hers may temporarily stop laying eggs, may fight more, lose feathers and stop eating.
“It’s like they’re ripping a flock of kittens from me,” said Sherris, who hopes to still get a few eggs each week, but not the 24 she regularly eats each week. She said she can’t afford the $7.50 it costs to purchase free-range organic eggs for her vegetarian diet.
She plans to continue to speak up for backyard chicken coops.
“The whole thing is ridiculous,” said Sherris, who works as a promoter and royalty accountant for Stony Plain Records. “I won’t eat eggs if I have to buy them off the counter at the supermarket. I know what’s in them. I know how they’re raised.”
She said she’s confident the city will one day allow backyard chickens.
The Edmonton Journal