Split board votes to consider chicken ordinance

A Village Board that for the last six months has searched unsuccessfully for help in deciding whether Saukville residents can raise chickens voted last week to at least consider an ordinance that would allow a limited number of hens to be kept in backyard coops.

The board voted 4-3 to dust off an ordinance that was proposed and rejected in 2021 that would allow chickens on single-family lots and directed village staff to review it, propose revisions and bring it to the Finance Committee in May or June.

Voting against the measure were Village President Andy Hebein and trustees Brandon Donen and Wendy Smith, who said they and their constituents have concerns about chickens in the village.

“Most of the people I’ve talked to in the village are against the ordinance,” Smith said during an April 8 Finance Committee meeting that preceded the Village Board meeting. “I’m leaning towards not moving forward based on the people who have put me here.”

But Trustee Pamela Duckart said it’s unfair that residents of most municipalities in Ozaukee County can raise chickens but Saukville residents can’t.

“I really think this has gone so far out of whack,” she said. “I’m actually surprised that more people aren’t for this and for people being able to do what they want on their own property, especially when every one around us can do it and the people here cannot.”

The ability to raise chickens, Duckart said, would allow village residents to grow more of their own food.

“People aren’t doing this to get free eggs. They want to know where their food comes from,” she said.

The only municipalities in Ozaukee County that do not allow chickens, and in some cases other fowl, are Saukville, Belgium and Port Washington, which last year received a request to allow chickens but has not considered it.

The latest chicken debate in Saukville was sparked by a request submitted by Tim Schwister and his mother Barbara Schwister last year.

The board initially decided to hold an advisory referendum to gauge pubic support for chickens in the village only to later learn such a ballot question isn’t allowed under state law.

It then briefly considered but rejected conducting a community survey because it was too expensive and last month tabled action on the chicken issue to see if proposed state legislation that would prevent Wisconsin municipalities from prohibiting chickens would be approved. It died in committee last month.

Ultimately, the board decided the Schwisters’ request was fundamentally flawed because it sought to change ordinances that weren’t part of the zoning code, which would give the village more power to regulate fowl on residential lots, and voted unanimously last week to reject it.

Instead, the village will pick up where it left off in 2021, and the debate continues.

“Echoing some of the comments” he has received, Hebein said, it is likely at least some chicken coops will become eyesores.

“We’re assuming everyone is going to upkeep these coops in tip-top shape, which we know they’re not going to, at least not everybody,” he said.

Allowing chickens, Hebein said, is a slippery slope that would lead to requests to raise other animals in the village.

“We already see in Grafton they approved chickens and now they’re proposing ducks,” he said. “Those who don’t want chickens may want ducks. Those who don’t want ducks may want geese, so we’re going to be continually reviewing raising all kinds of animals in the village.”

The Village Board in Grafton, where chickens have been allowed since 2017, voted unanimously and without debate in July 2025 to also allow ducks.

“I think this will be a welcome addition,” Grafton Village Administrator Jesse Thyes said at the time. “We have not had any issues with the existing ordinance with the keeping of chickens.”

Twelve residents of Grafton, a village of more than 12,000 people, had permits to keep chickens at the time.

Hebein said Saukville residents are also concerned that chickens would attract wild predators to backyards and depress property values.

Trustee Jesse Duckart, the husband of Pamela Duckart who is also a proponent of keeping chickens in the village, said, “I would say there’s no evidence a chicken coop devalues property.”

The proposed 2021 ordinance would allow a maximum of four hens to be kept in coops on single-family lots and require residents to submit to the village building inspector applications and the registration numbers of the applicants’ Livestock Premises Registration with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

That type of oversight is key, Trustee Jim Nowlen said, adding he would not support a chicken ordinance unless it provided oversight that could help prevent and mitigate the spread of diseases like bird flu.

Applicants would also have to submit a site plan detailing the locations of coops relative to other structures and drawings or photos of the proposed coops.

Coops would be subject to lot-line setback requirements and residents who raise chickens would be obligated to keep coops clean, dry and “in sanitary condition at all times” and make provisions for the “daily removal and lawful disposal of chicken waste in order to prevent any adverse effects related to odor or unsanitary conditions.”

The on-site slaughtering of chickens would be prohibited.

The ordinance would give the village the authority to inspect coops and the properties where they are kept at the owner’s expense.

Although an ordinance allowing chickens in the village was advanced last week, it has a long way to go. After review by the Finance Committee, the proposal would have to be reviewed by the Plan Commission and a public hearing would need to be held before the Village Board could consider it.