For the last year, a small group of Cary residents has been pushing for a change in the town's ordinance to allow people to keep chickens.

The council dismissed the idea quickly last summer, but proponents have refused to quit, even as a resident keeping illegal chickens found out how serious the town is about it.

Fern St. Clair said she thought it was overkill a couple weeks ago when animal control officers and Cary police showed up with a warrant.

"Well yeah!" said St. Clair. "I mean how much did that cost the city to look for a chicken?"

"We went into the residence, did locate five chickens in the residence," said Deputy Chief Barry Nickalson. "We took those into custody."

Nickalson says it shouldn't have come to that; police had tried to work with St. Clair to get rid of the chickens without even a fine.

"A day or so later, we got a call from a resident reporting that chickens were present on the property," said Nickalson. "That's how we got back involved in it."

St. Clair admits she knew the chickens were illegal, but she, and more than 300 other people, according to a petition, think they shouldn't be.

"We're still hoping we can get chickens accepted in Cary," said St. Clair.

CaryChickens.com is a grassroots campaign to get backyard chicken coops legalized.

Organizer Alissa Manfre says she wants chickens for eggs, to help fertilize her garden, control pesky insects and just for a good quiet pet.

"If you have a really irresponsible person who has chickens, then you can have issues," said Manfre. "But a really irresponsible person with a house or a yard or a dog or a cat you have as many, if not more, issues."

Manfre say it's a growing trend that's been successful in every other Wake County municipality.

Last week, her group submitted an application through the town's new Citizen Issue Review Commission program, hoping to get an official study done for the town council.

For those worried about the fate of the chickens that were confiscated by Cary Police, they found good homes for the birds elsewhere.

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