A Bit of a Set Back...

So there has been a bit of a set back. I attended another Animal Control Advisory Board meeting last night and a couple of issues have arisen.

1) The USDA (or was it the MDA?) is in the process of changing a regulation in Michigan that requires all livestock to have identification ear tags (and not just animals being imported into Michigan) in order to keep records on disease such as scrapie (the version of mad-cow that goats and sheep can get). In addition, entities such as the Ingham County animal shelter will be required to slaughter any un-tagged goats they pick up. Unlike un-registered dogs, which get impounded and eventually re-homed, goats will get impounded and slaughtered, with no option of re-homing. The animal shelter does not want to be responsible for "disposing" of the animals and also doesn't want to get a bad rap. Having to slaughter someone's untagged pet goat would be a public-relations nightmare! Furthermore, even if we specifically state in our goat ordinance that "ALL GOATS MUST HAVE IDENTIFYING EAR TAGS" a lot of people won't pay attention to the rules...and as a result, their animal could get needlessly slaughtered.

2) The Ingham County Animal Shelter is already under-funded and under-staffed. Allowing any new "critter" in the county will inevitably make more work for them. Regardless of how clearly spelled-out the regulations are in the goat ordinance, many people will obtain goats without ever reading the regulations.  A possible way to "pay-back" the animal shelter for having to deal with goats will be to require a licensing fee (like a dog license).

The plan is to collect more information on the USDA regulation and figure out the issues with the animal shelter and/or licensing fees. Then we will meet with the Animal Control Advisory Board again in late March (they only meet every other month). If the advisory board approves the updated resolution, then we can go to the Law Enforcement Committee to get the resolution passed (hopefully).

Another Meeting Tonight

I will be attending this month's Ingham County Animal Control Shelter Advisory Board meeting tonight. I hear that they will be discussing the goat issue quite a bit...in order to decide if the board will be in support of the proposed goat resolution at the upcoming Ingham County Law Enforcement Committee meeting next week, February 2.

Hope everything goes okay...if nothing else, I think we will be finalizing our version of the resolution (which may involve adding a few things such as the rumored ear tag requirement).

Update

Now there's been mention of some requirement for ear-tags on all livestock in michigan, regulated by the Michigan Department of Agriculture. Hopefully this won't trip things up too much!

Let's Get This Resolution Passed!

Hi Everyone,

As you may know, I have been working with the Ingham County commission to try to get dairy goats legalized in urban areas. The process has been moving along pretty smoothly and we are close to finishing! 

I have a meeting with the Ingham County Law Enforcement Committee on Thursday February 2nd (at 6pm) to present the resolution to allow goats. I'm pretty sure that getting the law enforcement committee's approval for the resolution is the last step in the process! My contact with the county commission suggested I try to find some other pro-goat (or pro-urban agriculture) people to come and show their support at the meeting (and possibly say a few words).

If you are interested in legalizing urban dairy goats in Ingham County and improving access to fresh and unadulterated milk in the city, please consider attending the meeting and showing your support. Contact me for more information.

Update- Getting the City Council On-Board

Taking the advice of my contact with the Ingham County commission, I contacted two city council members (one for Lansing, one for East Lansing) on Monday to let them know that some goat legislation may be coming their way (I'm pretty confident at this point that it WILL be coming their way). I'm thrilled to have heard back from both of them already...and they both sound like they're on-board and maybe even excited about it!

Hypothetical Progress Is Better Than No Progress At All

My contact with the Ingham county commission emailed me today with some updates. He said that he has mentioned the goat proposal to some other commission members. None of them were super enthused about it, but nobody seemed opposed to the idea either. He is planning on discussing the goat issue at the next commission meeting next Tuesday December 13.

He wants to have a resolution written and ready for approval by the Law Enforcement committee in January. It sounds like this was how the chicken ordinance went about (approval by the law enforcement committee was the main thing that had to happen). He said he may want me to make a presentation to this committee similar to the one I did for the Animal Control Advisory Board.

Once the resolution is passed in Ingham County, we still have to get ordinances on the books for each city in Ingham County. He suggested that I contact the city council person for Lansing and East Lansing and give them a heads-up that this resolution may be on its way. I'm a little confused about this because I don't think Lansing added anything to it's municipal code specifically about chickens after the chicken resolution went through in Ingham County (so why do we need to do it for goats?). I'm assuming it's just for more protection from the law and to prevent Lansing from outlawing urban goats if the county adopts a goat ordinance.

Update: Waiting Game

It has only be about a week since I gave my presentation to the Ingham County Animal Control Shelter Advisory Board, so I'm assuming little has happened yet. The next county commission meeting isn't for another week. This would be the first opportunity for the representative from the advisory board to talk to the board of commissioners about my ordinance proposal.

I realize it's a busy time of year for everyone and a lot of people are changing positions or leaving certain board positions, so I'll have to be patient and see what happens in the next month or two.

I want to be persistent and keep in contact we the people who will be representing the goat ordinance, but I want to avoid pestering them much too!