Becoming a Farm

[Sanitary Stache]

I’m not sure this is badass worthy, but my home is becoming a farm in the eyes of my State to avoid Zoning Ordinance restrictions on easing goats and chickens.

I received a notice of violation from my zoning administrator a week ago because I have goats and chickens. My Towns development review board thinks goats and chickens are not allowed in most of the zoning districts in Town.

My response is to get more goats so I can be regulated under state rules and exempt from local zoning.

I have gone a little down the rabbit hole of local zoning as racist and dominant culture exclusion. I have also totally bought into how creating a farm animal/pet animal dichotomy has contributed greatly to the inhumane treatment of confined animal feed operations and is also closely tied to the concept of Whiteness and racist purity.

[Turtle]

Congratulations! 

[Zikoris]

I love the concept of this and the fact that the rules where you are allows for something so hilarious.

"Oh, so you don't like my two goats? Well, then I'll just go get 100 MORE GOATS AND YOU CAN'T DO SHIT!!!" Trollolololol

[Tass]

How many more goats does it take?

[uniwelder]

Sounds awesome! I’m looking forward to hear more as this progresses.

We used to have a few chickens and a couple lambs. Fortunately, the neighbors all thought they were amusing and in the proper zoning.

[Cranky]

We had to register with the Dept. Of Agriculture, and get a city license for our chickens. The city inspector came out to look at our coop. LOL

So far they are holding firm on the subject of goats, though.

[Sanitary Stache]

We are waiting on our Farm Determination. A committee at the Agency of Agriculture reviews our Farm Prospectus and then decides if we are a farm. The purpose of the Farm Determination is to ensure farms of a certain size are following water quality based Requited Agricultural Practices. There is a list of thresholds that cause a farm to fall under these RAPs. The threshold we are trying to cross is $2000 gross annual sales of products principally produced on the farm.

We wrote up a business plan that essentially called for us to sell five $300/year shares plus a dozen eggs/week to our neighbors. Each share gets an assortment of crafting supplies from gots and chicken parts (feathers, skulls, hides, tallow) and some other homestead products like goat meat, frozen chicken, soap, tea blends, tinctures, and dried and preserved food. We envision growing our goat herd by housing non milking goats in small pens located with a mile from our house on neighbors property with invasive scrub growth (glossy buckthorn, japanese knotweed, honeysuckle) and hard to manage slopes. We also envision improving our milking and animal processing facilities to allow for milk and cheese sales and kosher and halal slaughter and butchering.

We have produced what we intend to sell in our shares over the past year, we just consumed it ourselves or traded on the bartering market. We already have three subscribers for our farm shares and three neighbors have already gathered fencing in anticipation of us housing goats on their property.

The gerfufle with the Town Zoning began a few months ago. A property owner in town was causing a problem with their neighbors because their goats and chickens and ducks and turkeys were constant roaming. The Development Review Board had been primed to crack down on this by another farm in town near where the Chair of the DRB lived. I never heard what cause that other farm to shut down, but it did.

So the nuisance animals get a complaint and the Zoning Administrator decides the Zoning Ordinances don’t allow Agriculture. . Maybe the chair of the DRB lead him down this path. I am not sure. But the DRB holds that Agriculture isn’t  allowed in any but the three most renovate zones (where Agriculture is specifically allowed).

Agriculture includes the production of food, beekeeping, orchards, boiling syrup, greenhouses, raising livestock, equines, and poultry, and some other activities incidental to farming like storing farm products which I assume is compost and feed and whatever is produced for sale.

A few weeks ago now, one of my neighbors asks for a variance from the DRBs decision that agriculture isn’t allowed. She asks for a variance to have a greenhouse and a chicken coop with chickens.

I am on the DRB. I haven’t been to any of the other meetings that a relevant to this topic because I have missed most meetings since the pandemic started. I had heard how the last decision went and I decided I needed to go to this meeting to get the full story since I have goats and chickens and here the DRB is saying I can’t.

At the meeting, things move fast because the board has already decided Agriculture isn’t allowed. I am not prepared. Most of my reasoning about why the Zoning Ordinances say nothing about goats and chickens is forgotten. I spend most of my talking time trying to sort out the action the board intends to take. When I talk about having goats and chickens next door to the applicant, the board gets upset with me. I then get flustered and lose most reason.

The board somehow decides that my neighbor can have a greenhouse. They don’t actually make a determination here. They seem to just ignore that agriculture includes greenhouses rather than allowing a variance for a greenhouse. Then they deny the variance request for chickens. They are even more upset with me that I don’t abstain for a conflict of interest. I am embarrassed.

A week later I get a letter. The board has complained that I am violating the Zoning Ordinaces and I am to remove my animals or appeal. I appeal on the grounds that the board does not have the authority to regulate agriculture. My appeal will be heard in May. If I have the farm determination then I am exempt from Town zoning ordinances. If I am not a farm then I have to try to convince the board that they have made a mistake in their interpretation of the ordinance.

I have little to no expectation of being able to convince the board they are wrong. So then I appeal to a higher court and try to get that court to say the DRB has exceeded their authority. In the meantime I have to pay $600 in fines and if I lose at the Environmental Court then I have to give up the animals. Hopefully by then the campaign to re-write the zoning ordinances will have resulted in laws that allow chickens at least and goats cows horses ducks, etc. at best.

[Gone Fishing]

Good luck.  Years ago, I kept goats, sheep, chickens, rabbits and ducks inside city limits with the aid of a 6 ft wooden fence.  All was well until I loaned my goats (2) to the neighbor to clear some brush.  They escaped and animal control got 3 calls within 10 minutes.  A cool neighbor called me and gave me heads up and I was able to intercept animal control before they took my goats. I was technically outside the law (mainly lot size and distance from property line).  The animal control fellow said he had never had a complaint and phoned into city hall with instructions to issue me a permit.  I went down and picked it up ASAP.  I just made sure not to loan my goats out anymore…. Now I live in a rural area where I belong and just have to worry about actual coyotes vs elected ones.

[joe189man]

How big is your lot? i would be real careful going down this rabbit hole. do you want to be regulated like a farm just so you can have a goat? Once you said water quality, that perked my ears as your "runoff"  or any water that flows off your lot onto your neighbors property could be collected and tested and you could be fined depending on the outcome. I am sure you thought of this, as your name is Sanitary Engineer, but i would urge caution or recommend that you move to a larger property outside town.

[Sanitary Stache]

We have a 0.12 acre lot.
It is the start of a pretty typical backyard homestead.
I haven’t gotten too familiar with the details of the required agricultural practices. I understand them to exist specifically because my State will not measure contaminate concentrations (nutrients primarily) leaving our farms and polluting our water.

I am pretty sure the RAPs might cause me to upgrade my composting systems, but I can’t envision significant costs associated with meeting the requirements.

We have decided we would give up the goats rather than move. The costs and disturbance associated with moving aren’t worth the food security, fresh cheese and enjoyment of the goats. But I will not be forced to give up the chickens. That is a hill I will die on.

[uniwelder]

We have a 0.12 acre lot.
It is the start of a pretty typical backyard homestead.

Did you mean 1.2 acres?  Otherwise, thats about 50'x100', and with a house, wouldn't give you much space at all.  With goats (not sure how many you currently have, but must be at least 2), thats more of a feed lot than a homestead.  I understand you said additional goats would be located a mile away on someone else's property, but with the number of chickens it sounds like you have, it seems like there's barely enough room for them as it is.

With my 2 lambs, the grass on my 3/4 acre property (probably 1/2 acre was for grazing) was enough to keep them fed spring through fall.  For context, we'd buy them in spring and then slaughter in the fall when the grass couldn't keep up, usually by November.

[Roots&Wings]

This family in highly regulated CA has goats and chickens on 0.1 acres, in case helpful for similar code issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM&t=38s

[uniwelder]

This family in highly regulated CA has goats and chickens on 0.1 acres, in case helpful for similar code issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM&t=38s

Amazing video.  Living in California does give some unique climate advantages.  Most of the focus is on growing veggies/fruits, with shots of the animals here and there.  I think there were 8 chickens, 4 ducks, and 2 smalll goats mentioned.  I have friends with a farm that raise veggies and chickens.  The chickens are rotated in the field after harvest of a particular section, otherwise they pick holes in every single tomato/squash/etc.  From the YouTube video, I only see the animals in a small pen area, with the exception of a shot of some chickens near the raised beds.  In order for them to grow anything, those animals must stay cooped up 95% of the time.  I feel sorry for the goats.

[Roots&Wings]

^ Yeah it's Pasadena, CA. I was thinking more from a land use code, maybe there's something there that might help OP's situation.

[Sanitary Stache]

Thanks. I’ll check out the video soon.

We are 0.12 acres. Not 1.2.

The chickens have a run on our neighbors property but the coop is a double decker arraignment on our property that also serves as a play structure for the kids with a slide a swing and a climbing wall.

The goats live in a “dry lot” which is a 65’x17’ fenced area on a steep bank.  It is dirt covered by hay and straw that the goats spread around on their own. Another neighbor owns half the bank and is happy for us to keep the brush growth down with the goats.  The goats seem to love it, they always come right back in on their own if we ever take them out. We have three does now, two in milk and 3 kids. The goat stall can accommodate 4 adult goats, but three is better long term to cut down on how often the bedding needs to be changed. The non milking goats will need to be moved to a pasture as soon as they are weened otherwise we will get some unhappy goats. Our neighbor where the chicken run lives also has some banks he wants us to put the non milking goats on his is a 4 acre lot that he uses mostly for a construction yard for his low volume excavation business. We have two other neighbors that want our goats to pasture on their property also. We will slaughter the weathers and any does we don’t want to breed in the fall  then keep 2-3 does to kid over the winter. The kidding stalls are in our basement where we also have a milking parlor.

The goats primarily eat hay, dairy pellets, and spent grain from a local brewery, though we also give them branches and saplings when they come our way. The chickens have a relatively big run (8’x24’). they eat boughten feed but also kitchen scraps and spent grain.

The State Agency of Agriculture is not convinced we meet their definition of a farm. I had anticipated they were biased toward recognizing farms, but they apparently are not. They are giving us another chance to convince them, but I am told it is a hard sell. And whereas I wanted to be regulated so they would tell me how to manage my nutrient waste, they want to be convinced I can manage it before they ok us being a farm.  So we may not be able to become a farm. I am familiar with how it sounds when a State agency tells you that there are options but what they mean is no. I can picture the committee that is making this determination and if I could get in the room with them I could see there being a chance of convincing them, but in writing and having to anticipate all of their questions and present my answers in a readable format might be too big a lift for me.

I’ll keep trying. 

We will put together a more thorough plan that addresses the committees concerns directly and it will be reviewed next month.

It is rather silly to call a homestead a farm, but it is offensive to ban homesteads outright. There should be a middle ground. I currently suspect I will be forced to create it. I am confident it won’t look like what I want it to look like.

[uniwelder]

OP, unless your neighbors open up their property for the goats to graze, their current conditions don't sound appealing.  I'm particularly concerned that you claim to be appalled by mainstream industrial scale feed lots, considering your conditions for them don't seem much different. 

Im my opinion, if you get access to the 4 acres, keep the number of goats the same.  If you're limited to your current property arrangement, get rid of the goats and just keep the chickens, assuming they'll be allowed.

[Sanitary Stache]

@uniwelder I hear your concerns and I am sure they are born from your own experiences and knowledge. I had a similar thought regarding the chickens this winter when some of them weren't doing well "is this enough space" I thought.  It was a thought thoroughly displaced as soon as I saw a video of chickens at an egg farm. Not only do my chickens have access to the outside, they actually go outside everyday all day.  You are not wrong that in a few months the kids will be too big for their stall and will need to be somewhere else, hopefully at this neighbors property, but somewhere else certainly.

I am confident that my homestead is in an entirely different universe than a concentrated animal feeding operation.  For one thing, where my goats live is a space pleasant enough for me to enjoy my mid day coffee in. I sit on a stump they like to stand on and they visit and chomp hay while I scratch their horns and sip my coffee looking out on the neighborhood and the nearby hills.  The CAFO lots (for cows, I have never heard of concentrated animal feed lot for goats) I have been in are overwhelmingly odiferous, liquid shit coats all surfaces, and cows are either confined in a stall or packed in a mass on a concrete pad covered in liquid manure. Their stainless steel fate that of the slaughterhouse conveyor belt.  The automatic milking parlor only slightly less gut wrenching.

[Money Badger]

Now I live in a rural area where I belong and just have to worry about actual coyotes vs elected ones.

Just snorted on my laptop reading this one!  ;-)

[Weathering]

Why not have a neighbor with a larger lot size request to keep goats. I think what you are seeing on this forum, and from those around you such as the Farm bureau, is that farming and small lot sizes do not mentally go together. You may do it very well in real life, but on paper a small lot being a farm seems like there would be problems (e.g. setbacks, smells traveling beyond the lot line, agricultural buildings being too close to dwellings, etc).

I used to live on a lot exactly the size of yours. I agree that much can be done on a lot that size. I had 5 trees in excess of 40 feet on the property,  two flower gardens, and a miniature palm tree garden. Also, I own the URL GotaGoat.com

[Sanitary Stache]

Now I live in a rural area where I belong and just have to worry about actual coyotes vs elected ones.

Just snorted on my laptop reading this one!  ;-)

I missed this post.  Thanks for the story @Gone Fishing .  I really appreciate it. We are moving our non milking goats further out of town to a neighborhood more familiar with goats, then getting out is a primary concern.

[Sanitary Stache]

Why not have a neighbor with a larger lot size request to keep goats.

This makes a lot of sense to us. 

Finding examples of zoning regulations that allow urban livestock, there is always lot size and setback requirements.  I don't envision convincing my Town to adopt ordinances that leave those setbacks and lot size criteria out.  If I can convince the Town to adopt ordinances that allow livestock and chickens, then there would also need to be a board that approves situations that don't meet the standard set of allowable conditions, like my property.  But if I could use my neighbors larger property, then maybe I wouldn't have to convince a board of people that my plan is viable.

One thing I am finding is that explaining my plan is hard.  I am not an expert in farming.  The people I have to explain myself to are not experts in farming.  It is hard to trip up on arguments I know are conditional and somehow navigate that those arguments apply, but only when they apply, and a property run operation can manage the concerns.  Anyway, it is hard.

[PMG]

It sounds like you have a very humane and nice set up on a very small piece of property. If you’re able to become a farm does that set precedence for others on similarly small properties to keep herd animals?  I think you and your neighbors safe the exception rather than the rule.  I would hate to see it made easier for others to keep animals in bad environments.

[Sanitary Stache]

The point of the farm determination, besides bypassing the Town ordinances, is to fall under the jurisdiction of regulations.

The farm determination provides the process for regulating farming that the Town lacks. In the absence of standards, the zoning board has tried to ban certain activities.

In addition to being upset that someone is telling me what to do, I am worried that the zoning board is able to assert their culture on the residents of my Town. Many of the zoning board members, like people on this forum, or in other towns in my State, think that living in a certain type of residential neighborhood means they can keep elements of the other out of sight. They think they moved to an urban setting specifically to not live near chickens. And that is not the case. There are rules.

In my town the lack of rules specifically restricting animals does not mean that there aren’t other rules. I wonder if I would have a different perspective if one of my neighbors complained against my animals. I would certainly want to know their concern and address it if possible. But none of my neighbors are coming forward with problems. Only neighbors are coming forward with solutions and use of their property.

But yeah @PMG   I agree there should be rules and a process for flexibility based on each situation.