I didn't want to hijack that other chicken thread but...   I live in a fairly rural town in PA, near the borders of OH and WV and most of the areas around us are allowed to have chickens so I thought I'd see if we were. The people at the borough building didn't know so they said they'd ask the animal control officer and get back to me. I asked him myself because he is my neighbor. He said there's only rules about dogs and cats and no ordinances about any other animal so he said he saw no reason why I couldn't keep chickens. If a neighbor were to call the borough to complain, they would call him and since there's no ordinance against keeping chickens, I wouldn't be breaking any laws and he would be okay with it.   However, 2 weeks later, the code enforcement officer from the borough called me back to tell me that no, I wasn't allowed to keep chickens because there's nothing in the ordinances about them. (?!) I asked him if he discussed this decision with the animal control officer and he said no. (The conversation then turned pretty rude, actually, when I brought up that I was told there was no ordinances about chicken keeping and he said, "Well the ordinances were written with the assumption that people weren't going to have farms on their lots. Do you want a COW too?")   Anyway, now I have 2 different answers to the same question. Does anyone have any suggestions about how to proceed?

Hi, fellow gardeners. I live in a small house with a small yard in Pennsylvania, about 20 minutes from both Ohio and West Virginia, with my husband, 2 daughters, 4 cats, and tiny dog. This will be my third year of attempting to grow my own food and I'm also interested in getting chickens, maybe next summer. I'm hoping to soak up all of the advice here I possibly can. :)