Fresno County supervisors decided Tuesday not to move forward with an ordinance limiting roosters in Fresno County.

Instead, supervisors will create an ad hoc committee of community members and elected officials to craft an ordinance that would limit noise and animal cruelty while allowing hobbyists and farmers the resources to breed chickens for show and culture.

“I don’t think as this ordinance is written it can go forward today,” said supervisor Nathan Magsig who created the ordinance. “What I do propose is, delaying it and actually having a new ordinance brought back.”

Magsig said those interested in joining the ad hoc committee should reach out to his office. Supervisors unanimously approved creating the committee.

Board chair Buddy Mendes named Supervisor Luis Chavez as the board’s representative on the committee.

On Sept. 23, supervisors approved an ordinance limiting the number of roosters on private property to five before needing a permit. A permit would allow up to 25 roosters.

“We need to find some common ground where somebody’s rights don’t interfere with somebody else’s rights,” Mendes said.

Roosters Important to Hmong Culture

On that day, Fresno County resident Yahira Chacon told supervisors about the excessive noise and animal cruelty she’d witnessed at the property next to her parent’s Yokuts Valley home. She suspected roosters were being used for cockfighting.

“Hundreds of roosters, 400 roosters crowing at all hours of the night, tied up — that’s cruelty. That’s animal cruelty,” Chacon told supervisors Tuesday.

Magsig said he visited that home and described the noise as “intolerable,” with roosters crowing at nearly all hours of the day.

At the Tuesday meeting, however, for the second reading of the ordinance, dozens of rooster breeders and members of the Hmong community told supervisors that the rule would end their livelihoods and cultural practices.

May Vang, a schoolteacher and Hmong shaman, said roosters are important to Hmong cultural practices. She said the ordinance would stop them from practicing traditions.

“For generations, the use of roosters is an essential part of our spiritual culture and religious practices, beginning even before birth,” Vang said. “Limiting the number of roosters we can have would only take away a sacred part of our identity and also prevent us from passing these traditions for future generations.”

Supervisors Learning a Lot About Roosters

Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni told GV Wire his office doesn’t often get calls for noise complaints about roosters. But, he recognized that for the calls the office does get, there’s not much deputies can do without an ordinance.

“When you call and there’s nothing you can do, that’s frustrating,” Zanoni said. At the same time, he said he doesn’t want deputies to disrupt ag operations or cultural traditions.

Supervisors said Tuesday that they all learned a lot of chickens.

“This city boy is learning a lot of agriculture,” Supervisor Garry Bredefeld said at the meeting.

Supervisor Brian Pacheco, a dairy farmer, asked rooster breeders for further details. He had originally exempted 4H Club members and Future Farmers of America from rooster limits. He said based on responses that the five-rooster limit would not adequately maintain an operation.

Joan Beltran, a Fresno County farmer and rooster breeder, said he needs at least five roosters for each breed. He has 10 breeds. To raise show roosters, he needs at least 20 to 30 males to get one rooster.

“That’s over 200 birds of just males,” Beltran said.