Burlington reconsiders backyard chicken rules inside city limits

Burlington is reconsidering whether residents inside city limits should be allowed to keep chickens, even though city code now prohibits keeping fowl under Burlington City Code Section 6-13. The city has invited residents to weigh in through a community survey, and staff is now sorting the results for Burlington City Council ahead of an August work session.

The current rule is a flat ban on fowl in the city. Any change would move Burlington toward a more detailed permit-style policy that would have to decide who qualifies, how many birds a household could keep, and whether roosters would stay banned. That kind of rewrite also would force the city to define how it would handle complaints about noise, odor, escaped birds and property maintenance, along with setbacks for coops, screening, fencing and cleaning standards.

That question has already drawn a strong response. FOX8/WGHP said Burlington received 1,500 survey responses on the issue, and Community Engagement Manager Morgan Lasater said staff was reviewing the results and preparing data for council to review at the August work session. Burlington’s own backyard-chickens page says council is reconsidering the restriction, signaling that the issue is now squarely a city-governance question rather than a one-off neighborhood complaint.

Burlington has been here before. Ordinance No. 980 would have amended the city code by removing the ban on chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and other fowl and creating a new Chapter 6.16 for keeping poultry and related regulations. The Alamance News has said a similar backyard-chickens push failed 3-2 in 2021, showing that council divisions on the issue are not new.

The practical tradeoff is clear. Supporters point to fresh eggs, a small-scale food source and the appeal of keeping a few hens without moving into the county. NC State Extension says a few hens can supply all the eggs a family needs and that manure and bedding can be used as organic fertilizer. Opponents worry about sanitation, pests, crowing roosters, stray birds and disputes over whether coops are kept up properly.

North Carolina does not impose a statewide backyard-chicken cap, so Burlington’s decision would come down to local rules. If council loosens the ban, the city will have to write an ordinance that is narrow enough to enforce and specific enough to keep neighborhood standards intact.