Hens could lay in Michigan’s residential backyards under a bipartisan bill introduced in the state House in January.

House Bill 4049, introduced by Rep. James DeSana, R-Carlton, would allow up to five chickens per quarter-acre of property, with a limit of 25 chickens in residential areas. Rep. Jason Morgan, D-Ann Arbor, is a co-sponsor.

“Eggs are too damn expensive right now, and this legislation could make a real difference,” Morgan said in an email to Michigan Capitol Confidential.

The bill would allow people living under residential zoning restrictions to keep egg-laying hens on their property. If enacted into law, the bill would override local ordinances that ban hens in residential areas.

Any number of hens higher than the limit specified in the bill would be subject to local zoning laws. The bill would not ban local governments from enforcing nuisance laws on noise, hours of operation, or advertising. The bill allows cities to ban roosters, if they choose, because of possible noise complaints.

Response to bird flu has led to the slaughter of 6.5 million chickens in the last year, bill sponsor DeSana said in a press release, contributing to a spike in retail egg prices.

A 2019 law that took effect Dec. 31, 2024, is another factor influencing the price of eggs in the state. It requires all eggs sold in Michigan to come from cage-free hens.

The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is reviewing the legislation and doesn’t have a stance, according to Jennifer Holton, chief emergency management communications officer.

The city of Midland bans chickens and livestock within city limits. However, the much larger cities of Detroit and Ann Arbor allow chickens. 

Emily Dudley, a Midland resident, supports the bill and would like it to apply to people who own less than a quarter acre of land.

Dudley is preparing to lobby the Midland City Council to allow chickens, she told CapCon in an interview. She added that it is important for children to learn to raise animals and become more self-sufficient.

Dudley pointed to gray areas in the city‘s safety standards, which treat soil as safe to touch but presume that it is unsafe to eat animals raised on that soil.

Gardens and fruit trees are not prohibited, Dudley noted, and they grow in the soil.

Midland City Council members did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Midland, the home of Dow Chemical Company, bans chickens out of concern over potential dioxin contamination, according to a two-page fact sheet from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.

“Chickens can consume dioxins when they peck at the soil and eat insects from the ground,” according to the state document on poultry and livestock production. The fact sheet notes that Midland's ban does not apply along the lower Tittabawassee River or the downstream section of the Saginaw River.

The Wayne County Airport Authority prohibits motorists from parking at the Detroit Metro Airport Chevrolet Bolts that have not received the repairs recommended by a recall notice from General Motors. The authority cites concerns that the vehicles could catch fire.

“For customer safety, Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles that have NOT been repaired by the recent recall are prohibited from parking at all DTW facilities,” said the notice on the airport’s website.

Screenshot of Detroit Metro Airport's website.

Bolts that lack the needed repairs could cause catch on fire, Matt Morawski, director of communications at the airport authority, told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email. The airport is reviewing parking policies for electric vehicles, he added.

“This work is being done under an environment of changing regulatory and technological requirements,” Morawski added.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned Bolt owners on Aug. 20, 2021, to park their vehicles outside, citing safety concerns.

The concerns expressed by the airport authority show what happens when government policies get ahead of markets and technological development, said Jason Hayes, director of energy and environmental policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

“When governments force products into the market before they have been adequately tested and vetted, you often end up with bad (or even dangerous) results,” Hayes told CapCon in an email.

Mandates and financial incentives from state and federal governments encourage automakers to produce electric vehicles, Hayes said.

Consumers, not the government, should take the lead in using new technologies, said Theodore Bolema, senior editor at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a member of the Board of Scholars at the Mackinac Center.

“When the government tries to artificially speed up the adoption of a technology by pressuring manufacturers to accelerate their development of new products, there will be more unanticipated problems and less opportunity for manufacturers in the industry and related markets to address the problems before the products hit the market,” Bolema wrote to CapCon in an email.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer mandated all state-owned vehicles to be electric by 2040.

Consumers have taken a more cautious approach, with approximately 50,000 EVs registered with the state, compared with millions of gas-powered vehicles. Nationally, sales of electric vehicles declined in the first quarter of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration

Ford Motor Co. announced in April that it was slowing production of its electric vehicles.

General Motors gave notice in 2023 that it would discontinue making the Chevy Bolt. It then reversed course and said on Oct. 8, 2024, that production would resume, with a new Bolt to be offered in 2026.