AURORA | Lawmakers cleared the way for Aurora residents to keep as many as four ducks in their backyards on Monday, voting overwhelmingly to allow the birds on more residential properties.
The code change came out of a policy committee discussion earlier this year about opening single-family lots up to some livestock animals, including pot-bellied pigs. Currently, ducks and pigs are only allowed on the few hundred acres across the city zoned rural-residential.
While council members turned down the proposal concerning pigs, they were more amenable to the proposal on ducks, asking staffers to draft language that would allow the birds in more residential zones.
The measure that the council voted in favor of Monday would allow residents to keep ducks wherever chickens are allowed currently. On lots smaller than 20,000 square feet, no more than two ducks could be kept, in addition to as many as four chickens. On larger lots, residents can keep as many as four ducks with up to four chickens.
Residents who keep ducks will be required to keep at least two of them, since the animals are “highly sociable,” according to Augusta Allen, the city’s field supervisor of animal services, who presented the proposal to a policy committee and the council this month.
Ducks must also be kept in a sanitary and appropriately large coop overnight and have access to a container with at least 30 gallons of fresh water between April and October to “carry out their natural water-related behaviors.” As with chickens, residents will have to complete a permit process before they are legally allowed to keep the birds.
Staffers said the ordinance would not conflict with a water conservation proposal introduced by the mayor, which was also finalized by a unanimous vote Monday, since the water needed to keep ducks is not “ornamental.”
Anthony Youngblood, the city’s manager of animal services, told Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky that a duck that is allowed to wander habitually may be taken from the owner, and the city’s animal shelter is capable of accepting surrendered birds on a limited basis.
The group also took turns serving up jokes and puns about the birds, asking staffers about the risks of “quackery,” “running afoul” of other city regulations and “getting our ducks in a row” before the measure passed.
Members voted 9-1 to pass the ordinance, with Curtis Gardner casting the lone “no” vote. They will have to vote once more on the item before it is finalized and becomes law.
It won’t be long until every single-family home is a farm or ranch. Look for horses to be next.
And I LOVE animals.
Sounds like a duck to me.
This is dumb
Continuing our slide towards third world status. Reminds me of riding buses in Latin america countries, no reason to not take your chickens, ducks, and pigs on the bus. No reason to not have them in the cities,other than, of couse, they are a sanitation hazard. No reason to not slaughter them for food, other than disposal of the offal is unsanitary.
If you want to own livestock move to the country.
Good for Curtis Gardner. He seems to be the only level-headed one on this subject. The Council is jumping through all sorts of hoops to make this happen and it leaves citizens wondering “Why?”
And I love ducks, but they have their place and it’s not in someone’s yard.