You can keep backyard chickens in Grand Rapids — with a permit and no roosters

A surprising number of Grand Rapids backyards have a small flock of hens in them, clucking away two blocks from a coffee shop. It’s been legal since 2016, when the City Commission amended the animal code after running a two-year pilot to see whether city chickens would actually cause problems. They mostly didn’t, and neighborhoods from Eastown to Creston quietly took up the hobby.

The rules are specific, and worth knowing before you buy a coop. You apply through the city’s Development Center for a permit, good for three years. How many birds you can keep depends on your lot: up to four hens on a parcel under 5,000 square feet, up to six on anything bigger, and the lot has to be at least 3,800 square feet to qualify at all. The coop can’t be more than eight feet tall, has to sit in the back yard only, and must stay ten feet off every property line. Together the coop and run can’t eat up more than half your rear yard. If you rent, your landlord has to sign off in writing.

And one rule that settles most of the neighbors’ worries before they start: no roosters. None, at any age. The crowing bird that wakes a whole street at dawn is flatly banned, which is why a legal city flock is a quiet thing — a handful of hens scratching in a fenced run, laying eggs, and otherwise minding their own business.

It puts Grand Rapids among the Michigan cities that decided fresh eggs and a little urban homesteading were worth a permit and a setback rule. Walk an older neighborhood on the southeast side on a warm morning and you’ll hear it: not a rooster, but the low, contented muttering of hens doing their work behind a garage.