AUGUSTA, Maine — A bill to require cities and towns to allow backyard chickens is flying through the State House and should soon land on Gov. Janet Mills desk.
Rep. Jennifer Poirier, R-Skowhegan, sponsored the legislation after hearing that some cities and towns were prohibiting the birds despite the 2021 passage of a right to food constitutional amendment.
Maine was the first state in the country to enshrine a right to food in its state constitution. It reads “that all individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing.” Voters approved it with 60 percent support.
When it comes to backyard chickens, Poirier said she heard of one situation in which a city forced a resident to get rid of his hens and destroy their coops. And even though it was outside of her district, she decided to sponsor a bill to address the issue.
“People were coming to me because town ordinances were restricting or prohibiting chickens from being kept for food sustenance, so it seemed like an opportunity to help people out and advocate for food sovereignty,” she said.
The original version of her bill, LD 1655, placed specific restrictions on flocks, saying that a person could raise no more than 36 chickens on private residential land. It also proposed requiring at least 10 square feet of “secure outdoor space per chicken.”
But after a public hearing, the Legislature’s Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee simplified the bill, stating only that “a county or municipality may not adopt a regulation or ordinance that prohibits a person from keeping chickens on that person’s residential property.”
It does define chicken as a “female domesticated bird that is raised for meat or eggs.” It does not require cities and towns to allow roosters, defined in the bill as a “fully mature domesticated male chicken.”
The bill passed the House 131-8 and sailed through the Senate without a roll call vote.
Poirier said cities and towns can regulate backyard chickens through ordinances related to health and safety, but the bill will not allow them to ban chickens.
“It’s really about food sovereignty, it’s not a bad bill, it’s to help people out,” she said.