NOTE: This information was submitted by a member of our chicken forum. Please make sure to double check that this information is accurate before you proceed with raising chickens. Learn more about local chicken laws and ordinances.
So there are no limitations by Animal Control in any municipalities in Michigan?? We're working on a new code in Montgomery County, MD, and looking at best practices in urban/suburban areas around the country.
Hello Fellow Chicken Lovers from Michigan,
If you are like me, you have some chickens because you love to raise them properly with care and love to feed them and their eggs to your family. Well, your rights to have even just one chicken are under attack! For years you have been protected from local ordinance violation by the Michigan Right to Farm Act. Proposed changes to this act next week are going to strip you of that right. It will only pertain to the 'mega' confinement factory farms. You must write to express your opinion by February 12. If you can manage, take a trip to Lansing this coming Wednesday and express your opinion in person. I am going, and everyone who physically can - should!
These are your rights we are talking about! 'Big Agri Business' is afraid of the small farm and of people being able to sustain themselves - It hurts their bottom line. Next they will try and make laws against you growing your own vegetables - and that is not fantasy, it is already happening in other areas! Please do your research, and write letters, emails now, and/or show up to express your opinion, We need to stick together as citizens so we don't lose our fundamental right to feed ourselves, our family, friends and neighbors food we produce ourselves on our own land! It is immoral and should remain unlawful for them to deny you this.
Here is a link to The Michigan Small Farm Council that has more details:
http://www.michigansmallfarmcouncil.org/
http://www.michigansmallfarmcouncil.org/news--events.html
Here are the proposed changes in the 'wording' that would exclude anyone with less than 5000 chickens!
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdard/2014_DRAFT_SITE_SELECTION_GAAMP_443917_7.pdf
Please write to the people listed on the last page of the pdf. Tell them to leave your rights alone and that urban, suburban, and small farms are what the people want, need and are entitled to under this act!
Linda Kaluza
Warren, Michigan
PS:
Here is an excerpt from the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund site. It has dates of Jan 22, 2014 but apparently we get another chance to write, email and show up in Lansing on Feb 12. (See Michigan Small Farm Council News and Events - link above for more info)
FtCLDF says it much better than I can. They read through all the legaleeze and put it into laymen's terms.
Here is a link to their page:
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/aa/aa-20january2014-MI.htm
Michigan has the best Right to Farm Act (RTFA) in the country; under the RTFA, all Michigan citizens have the right to farm as long as they are a commercial operation (with no minimum sales requirement to be considered commercial under the law) and the farm is following applicable generally accepted agricultural and management practices (GAAMPs) issued by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD).
The protection that Michigan's RTFA provides to suburban and urban farms on non-ag zoned land is now in jeopardy, however, due to proposed revisions to the.
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Here is a link to their page:
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/aa/aa-20january2014-MI.htm
Michigan has the best Right to Farm Act (RTFA) in the country; under the RTFA, all Michigan citizens have the right to farm as long as they are a commercial operation (with no minimum sales requirement to be considered commercial under the law) and the farm is following applicable generally accepted agricultural and management practices (GAAMPs) issued by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD).
The protection that Michigan's RTFA provides to suburban and urban farms on non-ag zoned land is now in jeopardy, however, due to proposed revisions to the GAAMPs from MDARD.
MDARD has issued GAAMPs for "Site Selection" to help determine the suitability of sites for livestock production facilities. Until now this site selection criteria applied only to larger agricultural operations, not to farms in urban and suburban areas; under the proposed revision, the Site Selection GAAMP would apply to any farm with livestock.
The proposal states that "sites that are exclusively zoned for residential use . . . are not acceptable locations for livestock facilities regardless of [the] number [of livestock]. Confining livestock in these locations does not conform to the siting GAAMP." In other words, those with livestock on land exclusively zoned for residential use will no longer be protected by RTFA.
This move by MDARD is unjustifiable. In the words of attorney Michelle Halley, who successfully represented FTCLDF members Randy and Libby Buchler in a right-to-farm case one year ago,
"The agency can't rewrite the law. They have only the authority to carry it out as the legislature intended. If they're going beyond that, they're violating the separation of powers. Period."
Basically, for example, if you have only 2 chickens in your backyard and they are clean, quiet, happy and disease free. You are not protected because it will not be a suitable site for them.
It may not seem like a big change (and it is a big change) to most, but if it goes through its just one more step in controlling our food. Already around the country, even more drastic steps have been taken making it illegal to grow your own vegetables and God forbid you give some to your neighbors and friends. That cuts into the Big Ag bottom line, and they don't like that very much. It has been called "Interfering with Commerce" and you can be ticketed! Anyway, sorry to ramble on.
And yes, if this goes through, it will let local laws trump state laws (totally backwards way of doing things).
Henry Kissinger said it best:
“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”
See you in Lansing on Wednesday!
My township says in the ordinance. "When Michigan right to farm act doesn't apply, then. ". No roosters. When would Michigan right to farm act not apply? If anything I guess I would say my roosters are grazing animals. which are allowed as per the ordinance. They eat grass all the time.