Bastrop ramps down chicken wrangling campaign after relocating 251 feral birds from downtown

Bastrop is ramping down its special chicken-chasing operation after city workers thinned down the thriving feral fowl flock from nearly 300 birds to a mere 15.

After months of regularly scheduled chicken wrangling events — which involved the city’s animal control officer, police officers and public works employees — the city will now be chasing roosters and hens on an as-needed basis.

“I make a point to spend a lot of time downtown on the weekends, and over the last three weekends, I’ve seen one rooster,” said Bastrop City Manager Lynda Humble. “So I think we’ve significantly made a dent in that population.”

The announcement, made during last week’s City Council meeting, marks a final chapter in the iconic flock’s long history in Bastrop. Many residents say the fowls’ ancestry dates back to the 1800s and served as a reminder of the town’s rural agricultural roots. In 2009, the birds’ charm was honored with the passage of an ordinance that created the Farm Street Chicken Sanctuary, a haven for chickens to roam freely along a 1,500-foot stretch of Farm Street between the railroad tracks near Fayette Street to Texas 95. 

Under that protection, the flocks’ numbers blossomed and, as the constant crowing and feculence drove many residents to their wits’ end, downtown residents’ perception of the birds shifted from charming to aggravating. In May 2018, the City Council abolished the Farm Street Chicken Ordinance that gave protection to the feral fowl and created the sanctuary. The yellow banners that had lined Farm Street for nearly 10 years cautioning drivers, “Slow: Entering Farm Street Historic Chicken Sanctuary,” were taken down.

Then, with outside assistance from professional wildlife trapper Dan Hepker, the chicken trapping and relocation began in fits and starts. Between March and December of last year, during a period where two of Hepker’s self-designed traps were stolen and police officers faced some resistance from some chicken-loving residents, 99 hens, chicks and roosters were captured and relocated. Many went to the Capitol of Texas Zoo in southwest Bastrop County, others went to residents living outside the city limits.

But that did little to assuage the downtown neighborhood. The birds were still everywhere, and the roosters were as loud as ever. One business owner reported that the crowing roosters were threatening her business, the Pecan Street Inn, which had refunded several customers after sleepless nights.

Four months ago, the city upped its trapping strategy with regularly scheduled “wrangling events.”

One resident, who had been particularly vocal about the birds’ nuisance, returned to his home one day to find a “SWAT team in my yard” — of police officers, city employees and a few residents — chasing down the birds.

“It was a necessary force against an implacable foe. And it was successful — we slept calmly,” Glenn Johnson said.

In March, the city captured 33 birds, then 77 in April and 21 in May. By the end of June, a total of 251 birds had been removed from the neighborhood. All that remained were the clever, hard-to-catch chickens that roosted high in the trees, an estimated 15 in total.

“The chickens that are left behind now are smarter than the average bear, the pickings are scarce,” said Bastrop Public Safety Director James Altgelt. “There’s not as many, and they’re much savvy.”

Going forward, the city will rely on its animal control officer, Amy Jordan, to activate trapping actions if the chicken population begins to get out of hand.

“We’ll continue to be proactive, we’ll just do it on an as-needed basis rather than having it calendared,” Humble said.