Urban hens are on their way out in Tecumseh.
Following interest from the community, the town launched a two year pilot project in 2020 allowing homeowners to obtain a license to keep the animals in residential areas.
Since then, complaints over the upkeep of coops and feed attracting rodents have been piling up, prompting council to pass a motion to put an end to the program.
Councillor Andrew Dowie says the town gave the program an honest effort.
"There are unintended consequences that happen. People, if they don't strictly follow the rules, they could cause tremendous harm to their neighbours. We tried it. There were a lot of problems that exceeded our ability to enforce it in a way that was satisfactory to the residents as a whole."
Councillor Brian Houston says he was in favour of the pilot, but it just didn't work out.
"I was certainly in support of a pilot from the get go and it's unfortunate that we had some instances and some permits revoked because people weren't taking care of them. The results of not taking care of them outweigh a lot of the benefits."
Councillor Rick Tonial says fresh eggs are good, but not worth the trouble some neighbourhoods have had to deal with.
"Having fresh eggs, yeah that's important, but it doesn't outweigh the property standard issues, all the rat issues. So I'm able to support this recommendation to not continue on with the hen project just to the fact that the repercussions that it causes to the outlying neighbours."
Residents with coops now have until March 1, 2022 to remove them and re-home their hens.
At its peak, the pilot project saw 13 permits issued to residents who kept a total of 76 urban hens.