Family fights to keep chickens, runs ‘afowl’ of neighbor – Times-Georgian: Local News

Five-year-old Ryan Bartrug loves his chickens.

“We bought a rooster and four hens when they were only a day old,” said his mother, Teresa Bartrug. “He has learned all about the chickens and has given them all names. He helps take care of them and loves collecting the eggs.”

“Ryan has Asperger’s symdrome, a form of autism,” his father, Roderick Bartrug explained. “His teacher says it’s good for him to be around animals. That’s the main purpose for us having them. It would be hard to tell him that we have to get rid of something he’s so attached to.”

However, that could be what Bartug has to tell his son because his attempt last Tuesday night to get a conditional use permit from the county ran into opposition from a neighbor who doesn’t want the chickens in his neighborhood.

After hearing testimony from both sides of the dispute, the Carroll County Board of Commissioners voted to table the request until next month’s board meeting to further research the legality of backyard chickens.

The Bartrugs live on a half-acre of property at 285 Lambert Overlook Circle, a manufactured home subdivision not far from West Georgia Regional Airport near Mount Zion.

“We bought this house about two years ago and was told it was out in the country,” Roderick Bartrug told the hearing. “We moved here from Columbus, Ga., because I work as a diesel mechanic in Atlanta. We never came here to cause any problems. We’re just quiet people. We keep to ourselves. We didn’t hide our chickens. They are in plain view from the road.”

The county planning commission voted 5-0 last month to recommend approval for the Bartrugs to keep the chickens, if they limit the flock to four birds, keep the coop as far as possible from the opposing neighbor’s property and either have no roosters at all or have their present rooster surgically silenced.

“We’ll silence the rooster surgically,” Roderick pledged Tuesday night. “Most of Carroll County, in my understanding, is agricultural. The next road over, they have horses, pigs and everything. I want to be able to help my child.”

However, the neighbor, Curtis Cole, who lives at 408 Wallace Circle, near the Bartrugs, took the podium to present an opposing view.

“I just bought the property back in April,” Cole said. “I wasn’t aware of chickens being in the neighborhood. Nor did the Realtor, who I was buying the home from, tell me anything about anyone having chickens in the subdivision.”

via Family fights to keep chickens, runs ‘afowl’ of neighbor – Times-Georgian: Local News.