Some home-cooked omelettes may taste a little fresher in Nashville, now that the Metro council has voted to allow property owners throughout the jurisdiction to keep small flocks of chickens in their back yards—2, 4 or 6 birds, depending on acreage. The ruling legitimizes leghorns (and other breeds, too, but we like the alliteration) in all 35 districts, except where otherwise restricted by Homeowner’s Associations.
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In 2012, Metro passed an ordinance allowing residents to keep chickens for a $25 annual fee, but that legislation included an opt-out clause for a handful of districts (see Amendment 1)—an inconsistency that laid an egg with some policy critics. The Tennessean reported a 30-8 vote to strike down that opt-out clause at the January 21st council meeting, following a half-hour debate. However, this move also ruffled some feathers in districts 12, 20, and 28-33, as they must now allow city chickens despite opposition from constituents.
A popular tenet of the (ahem) “modern homesteading” movement—a close substitute for another term at the center of a trademark controversy, but that’s a post for another day—backyard chickens have become increasingly popular in cities throughout the United States. Urban Chicken Advocates of Nashville (UCAN) champions city chickens as “garden companion animals” and “a source of healthy local food.”
Those against urban chickens generally point to noise and odor, which Nashville’s ordinance aims to keep in check by prohibiting roosters and allowing only small numbers of hens.
According to the resource website BackyardChickens.com, other Tennessee jurisdictions that have adopted Chicken Ordinances include Brentwood, Williamson County, Murfreesboro, Smyrna, Clarksville, Chattanooga, Jackson, Johnson City, Knoxville, Memphis, Maryville, Kingsport and Germantown.
