YACOLT, WA -- Chicken owners won a skirmish in the eight-month flap over fowl Monday night when the town council tabled an ordinance that would have banned the birds. If the ordinance had passed, Yacolt, population 1,065, would have become the only city in Clark County that excludes chickens. Even Vancouver allows chickens unless three or more neighbors complain. 

But complaints about noisy roosters from a few Yacolt homeowners last summer led the city council to ponder a fowl ban, even though apparently no one in town owns more than eight chickens, ducks, geese or other fowl. 

Following a public hearing in which five persons passionately testified against the ordinance and one in favor of it, Case, Mason and Tindall-Ellis came out against it, occasionally getting into a heated debate with Mayor James Robertson.  Mason accused the mayor of backing a ban.  The mayor denied it.  "I don't make the law," he said. "You people (the council) do. I just enforce it." 

Ordinance opponents said it abused the rights of a few residents and assaulted the own's rural character. 
"You have a right to live your life" in Yacolt, Tindall-Ellis said. 

The ordinance was just short of a ban. It would have allowed up to eight chickens, provided homeowners got council permission and never allowed birds within 100 feet of any house. But few lots are large enough to meet the 100-foot restriction. 

The ordinance also would have banned all other livestock, including ducks, geese, turkeys, pheasants, pea fowl, horses, mules, burrows, cows, llamas, goats, swine, rabbits and poultry. A separate ordinance regulates dogs. Cats and fish would be permitted. 

A CHONGWE man who picked eggs from a bush thinking they were a guinea fowl's and put them under a brooding chicken, was shocked when they hatched six tortoises.

Kanakantapa village chairman Richard Sakala told Zambia Information Services (ZIS) that the incident happened last week in Shimwengwe village near Kanakantapa resettlement scheme.

Mr Sakala said the named man, who also owns a farm in the scheme, was said to have boiled water and burnt the tortoises after noticing they were following the chicken.

The village chairman said after hatching the tortoises the chicken ran away. He said the chicken was later killed by the owner. [WHY  ????]

Health workers have already killed 520,000 chickens on the other 15 farms to prevent the disease from spreading to areas outside of the infected zone.  The birds are killed by placing them into large airtight bins and then gassing them with carbon dioxide.  The latest cull of the chickens will be completed on Friday, said Thomas Chan, director of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department.

Chan said the government will also set up an investigation team to find out what caused the recent outbreak and to propose measures to prevent its recurrence.  Officials said there were no signs so far that the latest avian flu was of the same strain that crossed over into humans and killed six people in 1997.

Last May, a similar avian virus infected thousands of chickens, forcing the government to destroy 1.37 million birds. That outbreak did not affect humans.

Farmers in Argentina released their chickens in protest at government policies only to see them caught by other protesters.  Granjeros del Este cooperative members were protesting in Mendoza city centre over being too poor to feed the chickens.

Other hungry protesters in the city centre quickly picked up the birds, calling them "a gift from heaven".

The cooperative is demanding £250,000 in aid from the local government, Los Andes reports.

The protests happened outside the local government building.