Des Moines could ban roosters, limit hens in yards. A chicken parade protested the change.

A few dozen community members ― plus some chickens and roosters ― flocked to Des Moines City Hall on Monday to protest a proposal that would ban roosters in Iowa's capital city and drastically lower the number of chickens people are allowed to keep in their yards.

Des Moines City Council members preliminarily approved the change in city policy due to complaints from residents over noise and cleanliness, according to one council member. The proposal, which also would slash the number of fowl ― larger domestic birds including chickens, turkeys and ducks ― to 12 per yard, came before council members at a special meeting July 22 , where leaders approved the first reading in a 6-1 vote.

Council member Josh Mandelbaum voted against the changes. The council must vote again before the changes take effect if passed.

Community members gathered at the steps of City Hall around 7:30 a.m. Monday and marched once around the building holding signs that read things like, "Don't dock our flocks" and "take our FLOCK take our FOOD."

Des Moines resident and former state Rep. Ed Fallon and his wife, Kathy Byrnes, who led Monday morning's "chicken parade" around Des Moines City Hall, said it was a call for the council to vote the proposal down. Fallon said chickens in the community are vital ― their eggs and meat are an important source of protein.

Fallon and his wife have 11 chicks, which will replace their old flock, as well as seven layer chickens. They occasionally bring in a rooster when the chickens have outlived their useful life and they want to fertilize eggs to make the chicks that will replace them. He and Byrnes also run Birds & Bees Urban Farm in Sherman Hill, which has a mission to teach people how to turn their yard into food.

Fallon said complaints about roosters and chickens should be handled the way a noise ordinance would be handled about a barking dog or noisy vehicle.

"We don't ban motorcycles because they're loud and obnoxious," Fallon said.

He said he believes this issue has arisen because "one councilwoman doesn't like roosters, and by extension, chickens," referring to City Council member Linda Westergaard.

"She had nothing but bad things to say about them. And our chicken flock is very calm. I mean, they do cluck once in a while ... but it's clean. They're a lot quieter than the (garbage truck) that came by at 5:15 this morning at our neighbors' place," Fallon said.

At the special council meeting, Westergaard said the proposed changes to the ordinance are "a long time coming" due to the repeated concerns she's heard from residents who are disturbed by roosters' "nonstop crowing all year long."

Westergaard said she also is supportive of the proposal to reduce the number of chickens allowed from 25 to 12, noting that someone with 10 hens could produce five eggs a day.

"That's a pretty high number of eggs, I think, for just growing backyard, just having backyard chickens and hens," she said.

Westergaard acknowledged there are a lot of people in Des Moines who have chickens, but "there are also a lot of people that live next door to where chickens and roosters are, and they are being disturbed of their peace and quiet. They are disturbed by the smell. They are disturbed by the uncleanliness of everything in these backyards."

She also said some of the surrounding Des Moines metro suburbs that allow chickens typically cap the number at six.

More: Ankeny City Council approves allowing residents to raise chickens in their backyards

"We're at a much higher number," Westergaard said. "None of our suburbs allow roosters. And you don't need a rooster for eggs."

Des Moines resident Wayde Stover, who attended Monday's parade, said he doesn't have any chickens or roosters on his property, but he's moving into a neighborhood where his neighbors do. He says he plans to buy eggs from them.

"I think restricting down to 12, it seems overly restrictive, especially for larger families," Stover, 41, said. "So, my neighbors who I will be renting from, they have six kids and so that's a lot of kids to feed. You want to be able to feed your family and sell some to your neighbors. It's really hard to do that with just 12 chickens, I think."

Stover added that he values being "close to the production of food."

"Oftentimes, we're so separate from it, we don't know what goes into making our food," he said. "But we need it every day to live. So I assume there's a lot of value in being close to that and understanding that sometimes it can be a little messy and sometimes it can be a little loud if there's a rooster. But that's what it takes to produce more chickens. And that's what it takes to produce food."

Stover said he's lived in neighborhoods that have had roosters and he's never found them to be "overly bothersome."

"For me, there's a lot of other neighborhood nuisances that are more bothersome than chickens," he said. "I've never been bothered by it, personally."

Fallon's neighbor Kevin Culver, who also attended the parade, said he feels having chickens in the neighborhood makes it "charming" and creates a sense of community.

"It's nice to be able to have that relationship with my neighbors where I can buy eggs over my fence, let alone clean, organic. It's small business, too," Culver said.

He applauds Des Moines' mindset of growth and urbanization but said it's created a lot of red tape over "everything," creating more headaches for small business owners. He said it's also peeling away Iowa's character, a place that "feeds the world."

"Our character is farming and we need to be able to allow that to characterize the uniqueness of our capital city and embrace it as personality rather than try and stifle it in the midst of growth," Culver said.

Ahead of the vote last week, Mandelbaum asked for further discussion on the proposed ordinance, noting there had been no work session. He also asked the council to consider taking a narrower approach to the changes.

"I think there are a lot of residents that have chickens. There are fewer who have roosters, but there are some who have roosters in reliance on this ordinance," he said. "I don't support lowering the number of chickens. I don't think that's necessary. I don't know why that is in this ordinance."

Mandelbaum said he understood that roosters can be a nuisance, but so can dogs and other pets.

"If we want to give our residents an ability to address that, I'm open to working on ways that we can do that," he said. "I also think that there are people who can own roosters without disturbing their neighbors and without creating an issue. And I'd like to try and preserve that for those folks who don't have concerns of neighbors."

Westergaard initially asked to fast-track the vote by waiving a second and third reading . That did not pass and the council will take up the changes again at its Aug. 5 meeting.

In the council chambers last week, multiple community members tried in vain to make comments about the issue. But Mayor Connie Boesen told one community member who stepped up to the podium that the council wasn't taking public comment.

Amid the outcries from the public, Boesen and council member Chris Coleman proposed allowing time for people to make comments Aug. 5.

Virginia Barreda is the Des Moines city government reporter for the Register. She can be reached at vbarreda@dmreg.com . Follow her on Twitter at @vbarreda2 .

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Des Moines could ban roosters, limit hens in yards. A chicken parade protested the change.