{"id":39879,"date":"2016-05-04T10:56:31","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T14:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=39879"},"modified":"2016-05-04T19:58:09","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T23:58:09","slug":"man-faces-uphill-battle-task-when-told-he-cant-keep-chickens-in-lehigh-acres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2016\/05\/man-faces-uphill-battle-task-when-told-he-cant-keep-chickens-in-lehigh-acres\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Faces Uphill Battle Task When Told He Can’t Keep Chickens in Lehigh Acres"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Update:<\/p>\n

The Lehigh Acres man ordered to get rid of his backyard chickens says an “outpouring” of offers of legal placement means he will not have to destroy the hens.<\/p>\n

Charles Edwards, the Lehigh man, whose backyard brood chickens brought an order from code enforcement officers to get rid of them or else,\u00a0says the egg-laying hens will be spared.<\/p>\n

After publicity about the man’s dilemma, Edwards said a series farmers and others who could keep the chickens legally volunteered to take them, some directly and some by contacting Lehigh Acres Gazette.<\/p>\n

A Lee County code enforcement officer sent Edwards a violation notice after spotting his backyard chickens. The county does not allow chickens to be kept in residential neighborhoods. \u00a0He told The News-Press that he was going to have to “cut their heads off” after he couldn’t find a farmer to take them.<\/p>\n

———————————-<\/p>\n

In his single-family home on an acre lot\u00a0in a remote northern part of Lehigh Acres, Charles Edwards has been leading his own personal\u00a0farm to table movement.<\/p>\n

But the one-man sustainability movement suffered a blow in mid-April\u00a0when\u00a0a certified letter arrived from a county code enforcement officer, informing him to either get rid of his flock of seven chickens, or face fines of $250 per day. Breakfast is orange juice from his grove\u00a0and spinach omelet from the output of his backyard garden and his chicken coop.<\/p>\n

“What I’m asking you for is change the zoning, not to allow roosters that make noise, just for some hens in the back yard,” Edwards told Lee County commissioners during public comment period Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“I’m not asking for free range for chickens, all I’m asking is some common sense,” he said. “These chickens make no noise, you can’t hear my chickens, they don’t smell, they don’t get in the neighbor’s yard.”<\/p>\n

Lee County prohibits the keeping of domestic chickens.\u00a0Bonita Springs\u00a0initiated an experimental backyard chicken\u00a0pilot program in 2012 and made it permanent last year.\u00a0Fort Myers\u00a0adopted its own two-year chicken experiment last year.<\/p>\n

Board Chair\u00a0Frank Mann, who represents Lehigh Acres on the commission, said the region’s community council\u00a0considered the issue of backyard chickens\u00a0but decided not to propose an ordinance change to the commissioners.<\/p>\n

“Get back with the community council there and see if you can neutralize them or better yet,\u00a0hear some kind\u00a0of a positive expression as to what they would support in terms of chicken ordinances under certain circumstances,” Mann said. “The problem in the past came because the chickens were close to their\u00a0houses, there may be some way to craft this.”<\/p>\n

But offered no immediate answers to making\u00a0his brood legal, and facing\u00a0$250 per day in fines,\u00a0Edwards left the commission chambers with a grim task ahead at his home on\u00a0McArthur Avenue.<\/p>\n

“These chickens have become more like pets to me,” Edwards said. “Now I have to go kill my chickens because I can’t find anyone that will take them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update: The Lehigh Acres man ordered to get rid of his backyard chickens says an “outpouring” of offers of legal placement means he will not have to destroy the hens.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":39880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}