Supporters of backyard hens will have to wait until Feb. 16 to learn whether the City Council will allow them to keep chickens inside city limits.

A vote was postponed Monday for two more weeks. Mayor Bill Bell said he'd only received the updated draft ordinance that morning and had yet to read it.

The delay disappointed members of Durham HENS (Healthy Eggs in Neighborhoods Supporters), about 100 of whom showed up to support Durham joining the ranks of the state's chicken-supporting cities.

Despite the delay, nearly 20 people spoke to the council -- all but two in favor of legalizing chickens. Those two were Victoria Peterson, and Lavonia Allison, president of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.

Allison scolded the packed room for not showing the same civic enthusiasm for more worthwhile causes. Chickens were a waste of time and not important to Durham, she said.

Peterson agreed and said Durham needs to stay an urban-minded, chicken-free zone.

"I was raised with a rooster named Oswald, and roosters are mean," she said, not realizing the proposed ordinance would allow hens only.

Peterson also suggested unnamed cultural groups could take advantage of the ordinance by sacrificing chickens -- not raising them for eggs. This practice has been reported to animal control for years, but sparingly and as part of religious customs the city can't prohibit on constitutional grounds.

The two critics were outnumbered by the 17 supporters who spoke. They said science supports backyard hens: chicken manure is easy to compost and disease easy to quell simply by washing hands. They also said other cities have had few problems and that allowing egg-laying hens in backyards makes even more sense now as a sustainable food source during the recession.

The group also asked that permit fees be lowered, and that an element of the chicken coop requirements be amended to ease their installation.

"Food scenes are born from the pantries and backyards" of everyday people, said Charlie Deal, owner of Jujube restaurant in Chapel Hill and the soon-to-open Dos Perros restaurant downtown.

He also reminded folks the ordinance would not force anyone to own chickens.

That argument touched on Bell's main problem with the proposal, which concerns the rights of property owners to object to chickens in their neighbors' yards.

Planning Director Steve Medlin said his office had worked with the city attorney to amend the proposal to include a notification provision for surrounding property owners if their neighbor applies for a hen house permit.

Neighbors would have 30 days to object, though that would not necessarily keep the permit from being issued.