Noisy fowl flap comes home to roost on B.C.'s Salt Spring Island

A battle is shaping up on Salt Spring Island in B.C.'s Capital Region District, with some residents upset over the noise coming from the island's chicken farms.

The island is home to a growing number of hobby farmers including Ashleigh Roslinsky who, after receiving two complaints over noise, heads to court in the hopes of resolving the dispute next month.

"These animals are awake long before a lot of us are. They are waking up at 5:30, six o'clock, seven o'clock in the morning, sometimes earlier than others do. And this has caused some issues in the neighbourhood with some folks," she told CTV's Your Morning on Thursday.

Roslinsky has 12 chickens, 18 ducks and three geese on her property, but she says the noise they make compares to barking dogs, road traffic or the nearby ferries.

"We have traffic going by every single hour going to the ferry. So, the decibel reading by our (Capital Region District) bylaw officers from the roosters was actually very comparable to traffic going by the house down the road," she said.

In order to reduce the impact of noise, Roslinsky says she doesn't let her birds outside before 8:30 a.m. and has tried to insulate her chicken coops as much as possible. But she argues that in a rural community like Salt Spring Island, some noise from animals is inevitable.

"There's a lot of folks that live on Salt Spring because they want to live the rural life. Unfortunately, part of this life means that there's going to be animals around you," she said. "There's going to be noise. You're going to hear chickens, you're going to hear roosters, you're going to hear cows and some folks just don't like that part."

Watch the full interview with Roslinsky at the top of this article.