A debate that has been had in other Maritime communities is now playing out in Cape Breton, where some people are crying foul over chickens being kept in their neighbourhoods.

“We have a neighbour that is complaining about the chickens, the noise and the smell, and there’s no bylaw here that says you can’t have chickens,” says New Waterford resident Edward Thorne, whose barn is home to more than a dozen chickens.

The chickens belong to Thorne’s grandchildren. Holly McSavany says she has been taking care of the birds as part of her 4H club.

“If they took away my birds then I’d have nowhere to keep them, which means I wouldn’t have them, so I wouldn’t get to do the project with my club, and we would lose points altogether,” says McSavany.

Cape Breton Regional Municipality Coun. Kendra Coombes says she has been hearing complaints about the noise and smell from residents who live in the area. She also says she’s surprised there are no regulations in the municipality for people who have livestock on their property.

“When I was looking through the other bylaws, there’s very little regulations in regards to this, and if there is, it’s very much condensed to cities,” says Coombes.

But that could soon change as the issue heats up around the CBRM council chambers.

“The idea is, we are going to have staff issue a paper regarding the keeping of livestock in densely urban areas, but some of it has been amended to look at our lying rural areas,” says Coombes.

Thorne doesn’t believe his chickens are a problem, and he hopes the crackdown won’t mean he has to get rid of the birds.

“We will have to destroy the chickens. We will have to destroy the chickens because we can’t sell them,” he says. “That’s not part of 4H to sell the chickens. We don’t sell the chickens, we don’t sell the eggs.”

McSavany says the chickens are more like pets to her.

“When someone wants to take it away … it’s mine. It’s as bad as someone wanting to take away your dog,” she says.

Coombes says she’s not necessarily against someone having livestock on their property, as long as it’s not a disruption to the neighbourhood.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Kyle Moore