OLDS — Could rabbits – or rabbit-raisers – take advantage of newly-allowed chicken coops in Olds?
Coun. Debbie Bennett raised that concern during town council’s April 26 meeting as chicken-raising rules were finalized.
Bennett said she had recently learned that people can buy or build chicken coops and use them to raise rabbits. She said that could be a problem and explained why.
“There would be no fees applicable to these coops/hutches because they’re (for) rabbits and not chickens, so there wouldn’t have to be any kind of permit or their height that structure, how many you can have on a parcel,” Bennett said.
Chief administrative officer Michael Merritt said he’d have to look into that.
He reminded council that bylaws covering activities in Olds are “living documents” and as such, they come back to council for proposed revision from time to time. That could occur in the case of rabbits.
“If there’s a need to make adjustments we will do it," Merritt said. “But we had promised that we’d be returning the community standards bylaw back to council for a few other changes.”
“Well I never thought of it either,” Bennett said. “It was just brought up and it was just like, ‘Oh, OK, maybe none of us thought of that one.’”
