Katie Whalen of Port St Lucie, Florida, is eager to raise chickens for their eggs amid rising prices and a bird flu crisis. Despite her enthusiasm and commitment to self-sufficiency, Florida's confusing regulations hinder her plans to keep fowl at home. While nearby Clermont has enacted laws permitting residents to have hens, Port St Lucie's city officials deem raising chickens incompatible with community standards, citing a lack of enforcement resources. Meanwhile, a successful Backyard Chicken Program thrives in unincorporated St Lucie County, reflecting a growing trend toward home poultry farming in response to supply issues.
"I've been wanting for a while to get chickens because I'm into gardening and the whole permaculture stuff that I'm learning about. And obviously chickens are very beneficial in that system."
"Clermont, a city 20 miles west of Orlando, responded to the egg crisis last week by passing a new law that allows residents to keep up to five hens in properly constructed coops."
"Officials insist they don't have enough code enforcement officers to make inspections or otherwise regulate the cottage industry. Raising chickens has been determined to be incompatible with the city's design and a population that now surpasses 250,000."
"Nationwide, an estimated 84 million chickens are kept privately, broadly similar to the numbers of cats and dogs kept as pets."
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