Good news for Lacombe residents who wants to keep some domesticated chickens on their property.

City council recently gave first reading to Bylaw 419.1 at their November 13th meeting to change the number of Urban Hen licenses available to one license for every 1000 people in Lacombe, and to accept the Urban Hen Initiative as a permanent program after two successful years of it running as a pilot project.

Corporate Services Director Diane Piche says neighbours must be cool with you having chickens in your backyard in order to be approved, and so far they haven't had any complaints.

“One of the requirements of having a permit to have urban hens in your backyard is to get an agreement from your neighbours that touch your yard, and it’s only 50% compliance, so if one is ok with it and the other isn’t, then you’re still good to go, but there hasn’t been any complaints fortunately.”

Piche sees this as a great learning opportunity.

“I think it’s a great program and it’s great for kids because it gets them involved in understanding how food gets to tables, and that’s always a good thing for kids to learn.”

Currently, all ten available urban hen licenses are spoken for, but with only two others on the waiting list, Piche thinks councils plan to change the number of available licenses to one for every thousand people will easily meet the demand.

Council voted to accept the Urban Hen initiative as a permanent program, to be reviewed annually.