By Tom Latek
Kentucky Today
Allowing residents to keep chickens as pets is becoming an important issue in towns across Kentucky, Rep. Steven Doan, R-Erlanger, told the Interim Joint Committee on Local Government, along with how these “backyard” chickens could enhance local communities.
Doan told members of the panel that legislation on this issue is important because of challenges he is seeing in northern Kentucky.
“There is actually some litigation right now,” he testified. “Some folks had them for a number of years as emotional support chickens, believe it or not. I believe one of the people had autism, and so the city has taken some steps against those folks, and they have filed an ADA lawsuit.”
Doan’s co-presenter, one of his constituents, named Eric Bunzow, testified having backyard chickens is relaxing.
“I like to go and grab a chicken, and sit it on my lap, and sit in the backyard while the other chickens run around,” he stated.
Bunzow explained that the bill was constructed “to give the cities and municipalities control of what people can and can’t do with their chickens, other than saying they can’t have them.”
Doan previously filed this measure, House Bill 806, in the 2025 legislative session, but no votes were taken on it. The short, one-page bill defines a backyard chicken as a “domesticated hen kept on residential property for personal egg production and educational purposes, excluding commercial farming.”
Sen. Steve Rawlings, R-Burlington, said that, at a city meeting he recently attended, critics of this legislation were almost universally talking about how chickens spread disease.
“As I sat there, I thought, ‘people have had chickens from time immemorial,’ and I had read articles about what a great fertilizer chicken waste is,” Rawlings said. He then asked how the advocates would respond to the disease criticism.
“If you don’t have them, you wouldn’t know,” Bunzow responded. “As far as what they bring, it’s nice eggs. You know what is coming in and what is coming out.”
While homeowner associations could still regulate against backyard chickens, the bill would prevent local governments from enforcing any ordinance, zoning regulation, or policy that, “prohibits a person from keeping six or fewer backyard chickens on any residential property.”
The Kentucky General Assembly’s 2026 legislative session begins on Jan. 6.