DALLAS — Backyard chickens get a bad rap for being smelly and loud, both things chicken owners say they’re not. After the pandemic raised prices on eggs and caused shortages, many people picked up the chicken lifestyle, leading to more cities considering changes to their chicken ordinances.
In a recent ruling from city council, Plano residents can now own backyard chickens. That comes after a city ordinance was passed in late September. The ordinance still falls under the discretion of homeowner associations or contracts, however.
“In Plano, you could have horses and goats and stuff like that, but you couldn't have chickens. Weird,” said Urban Chicken owner John Ramos. "I am always ecstatic for when new municipalities or new cities in the Dallas area allow chickens."
While Ramos says he sees people calling backyard chicken owning a “fad,” he firmly believes that isn’t so. He says he wouldn’t have sustained his business for ten years now if it was just something that was trendy now.
"I think it's always been something that people are interested in. If I would have known that, I could get chickens when I was a kid, I probably would have gone with chickens instead of asking my mom for a dog. I mean they’re so much easier than a dog, way easier than a dog and you get something from them. I mean, you do get love from your dog. That's a given. But getting love and eggs. I mean, that you can eat every day. That's pretty nice,” Ramos said.
Ramos is a coop constructor, building $3,000 to $15,000+ coops for veteran chicken owners. While that may seem like a steep cost, Ramos said you’re investing in a structure that will outlast the chickens who reside in them.
"My coops are not for the people that are just beginning, I would say. But it is a benefit to spend as much money as you can on your coop because that's going to be your longest thing that you're going to have forever,” Ramos said. "I think the uptick that I've had in the last year since COVID has been cleaning up the coops, because people don't want to clean their chicken coops, they have to go back to work. They don't have the time to clean their chicken coops anymore like they were. And so that's been an uptick there. I mean my custom coop business has always been really raving just because my coops do sell themselves."
McKinney resident Kiki Boyett is a newbie when it comes to owning chickens. She says owning backyard chickens and having farm fresh eggs was her dream, so she made sure to do all her research.
“I love eggs, we're all big foodies, and I'm like farm fresh eggs are way better than grocery store eggs. And I'm like, if I had chickens, I could just come out and get my own eggs and they'd be as fresh as I would ever eat them. I had to watch every YouTube video, read every book, every blog, everything that could possibly go wrong with a chicken. 'What breed of chickens do I want because this is Texas? What color eggs are they gonna make?' You know, all the things,” Boyett said. “So, I knew way more about chickens than probably the normal newbie chicken owner."
Not everyone is as diligent as her when it comes to ensuring they live in a chicken-friendly area.
“There are all these people on like NextDoor or Facebook chicken groups that are like, ‘Oh I got all these chickens,’ and either I have to go back to work because I wasn't working during the pandemic and now I am, or I’m not allowed to have chickens. So, they got these chickens without permission or without looking into it or anything like that and then they're like, ‘My neighbor ratted me out and I've got to get rid of my six girls,' and I'm like, ‘Why would you do that?' I knew.”
Ramos echos Boyett's sentiment saying during the pandemic, many people did prematurely join the poultry party. On top of fielding calls for chicken coop construction and cleaning, Ramos gets at least two calls a week for unwanted hen removal.
“You know, like those people who got them during COVID, they're like, 'Oh, it's just something for us to do during the COVID time because we're home,' which is very unfortunate,” Ramos said. “They're [chickens] not like a play toy, you know where you just throw it away at the end of the time that you're tired of it. Which was happening a lot, and is still happening now.”
If Boyett had any advice for new chicken owners, it's know what you’re getting into and know the law of the land. While she’s surrounded by neighbors who all have chickens of their own, make sure your HOA is on board with you joining the bird bandwagon.
“I had to get a permit for my HOA before I replaced the fence that was falling down and they made me replace. Of course I'm not going to try to get chickens without checking to make sure,” Boyett said.
Boyett wants people to know something that surprised her when she was doing research on backyard chicken owning.
“Something I did not know when I first kind of started looking into seriously owning chickens as opposed to a novelty, they're like pets. They're not going to just lay eggs forever. They're going to lay eggs for a period and then they stop and then you're kind of in for a while. I've named them after my grandmothers — I can't possibly dispatch my chickens and have them for dinner. That's not an option. Right, what do you do with a chicken that doesn't lay eggs? Well, you get rid of it, which nobody wants a chicken that doesn't lay eggs. You eat it, but I can't eat my grandmother, or you can take care of it for the next 10 years."
There is no state law regulating fowl such as chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks. The best thing for an interested chicken-owner to do is look up their own city’s code to find out whether you can have a backyard full of fowl.