ORLEANS — The flap over the noisy roosters in this “right to farm” town may not be over, but the agricultural advisory council’s plan to institute some requirements on local backyard farmers has been emphatically laid to rest.
The farmers filled the council’s meeting room on Oct. 21 to express their vehement opposition to some possible guidelines that were put together by council members Heather Bailey and Rand Burkert and presented at the panel’s August meeting.
The council had decided to research guidelines used in other places after fielding complaints from neighbors in two parts of town about the nighttime crowing of roosters. A farmer on South Orleans Road, neighbors said, also allowed his livestock to roam free in the neighborhood.
Burkert opened the discussion on Oct. 21 by suggesting that the council members focus on the two issues that had been brought to their attention: noise and containing livestock. “Personally, I would recommend adherence to MDAR [Mass. Dept. of Agricultural Resources] standards,” he said. “They recommend keeping them confined and doing what’s possible to quiet roosters.”
Burkert said his panel would withdraw the suggested guidelines, listen to the farmers, and “start from scratch.”
It quickly became clear, however, that local farmers weren’t interested in seeing any attempt made to curtail their activities.
They had a powerful ally in Matthew Milan, a commercial farmer who is also a council member. Milan cited the right-to-farm bylaw adopted by the town in 2013. “The bylaw says disputes should be resolved in a neighborly way” with the council acting as mediator, if necessary, Milan said.
The agricultural commission’s role is to provide opportunities for local farmers and livestock owners, he said. “I don’t think it’s our place to make it more difficult to domestically farm,” Milan said.
A neighbor of Amanda Kane’s backyard farm on Hopkins Lane, looking for relief from a pair of crowing roosters, asked the council what it planned to do. “If you withdraw this [set of policies], will you replace it with something else?” asked Paula Morrison.
“Not necessarily,” responded council chair Peter Jensen, who called the suggested policies presented in August “a good case study” but too specific and restrictive.
Roosters and Hens
Milan and the farmers even opposed a requirement to have animals fenced in.
“I don’t think chickens and ducks should be held to a higher ordinance than dogs,” Milan said. “We do not have a fence law for canines and cats. I don’t see how in good conscience we can have a fence law for domesticated food-producing animals.”
Andrew Winston, who lives next door to Kane on Hopkins Lane and has asked for some remedy for the predawn crowing of her roosters, argued that dogs are much more restricted than farm animals in town.
“This is not anti-food production,” Winston said. “Roosters are not part of food production — hens lay eggs without roosters.”
Jensen jumped in to defend the presence of roosters if part of the farm’s business is producing chicks. “You have a right to have a rooster, which is accepted farm noise, but you’re also expected to use quieting methods in residential areas,” he said.
Not so, said Milan. “It says specifically in the right-to-farm bylaw ‘sounds by day and by night,’ ” he said. “That’s the reason police don’t respond. You are granted an exception for noise at night, and it’s the same with smell.”
Winston’s partner, Steven Guditus, said they have been subjected to critical comments on social media because they had come to the council for help with the crowing roosters. He and Winston should be able to raise a question “without being told we hate farmers and we hate animals,” he said. Guditus added that they have lived next to Kane’s farm for four years and never complained until the predawn crowing began.
Milan said the bylaw states that homebuyers must be notified that Orleans is a right-to-farm town. “I’d love to know who your real estate agent was,” Milan said. “That was definitely a lapse, but we can’t change the bylaw because the process failed.”
Kane said she felt “personally attacked” by her neighbors’ complaints.
“I can’t go out and tell the rooster to be quiet,” she said. The coop Kane uses has a lot of ventilation, so it is not fully enclosed. “I can only do so much,” she said. “They need the ventilation for their health.”
Noting that the roosters on Hopkins Lane and the one in South Orleans were protected by the right-to-farm bylaw, Milan said it was time to lay the matter to rest.
Milan moved that those involved in the two disputes over roosters resolve their differences “in a neighborly fashion” and that the council check in on their status in six months.
It passed by a unanimous vote.
The council made no plans to continue looking into possible new policies governing backyard farms.
