When Donny Henderson calls the girls, it’s usually not for his two daughters but the family’s six hens, which he defended as pets in a recent Lower Burrell Zoning Hearing Board action.

Henderson and his wife, Erika, won a decision recently by the city’s zoning hearing board that now classifies their chickens as pets and a necessity given the medical needs of Donny Henderson. But the couple had to assemble experts, including a doctor and an attorney, to prove their case to the city.

Their neighbors along Prospect Circle also spoke in support.

The board voted 4-1 in favor of the Hendersons.

“We are very blessed that the gentlemen on the board listened to our story,” said Erika Henderson. The ordeal was financially and emotionally distressing, she said.

Although the board’s ruling is freestanding, city council will discuss the recent zoning hearing board decision at their July 5 meeting. Council is not required to act on the decision but can appeal it, according to Lower Burrell Mayor John Andrejcik.

No one objected to the Henderson’s position during the hearing.

The Hendersons almost lost the chickens after a city’s code enforcement officer gave them notice April 1 that they had seven days to get rid of them. The city received a zoning complaint about the birds’ location. Farm animals are allowed in residential areas — but on sites that are at least 10 acres. The Henderson’s yard is less than an acre.

The couple appealed and asked the zoning hearing board to interpret the city’s zoning code for farm animals and residential districts.

The Henderson case is unique in some ways, Andrejcik said.

“The animals were not livestock in the normal scheme of things,” he said, “they were pets.”

The couple — who included the chickens on their family Christmas card last year — said they aren’t using the chickens as traditional farm animals. That is, they are keeping the birds beyond their best egg-producing years. They have no plans to process them or replace them with younger hens.

The Hendersons said the birds have been pets that also served as emotional support for Donny Henderson, who is diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and anxiety.

The Hendersons’ daughter, Genevieve, 17, said, “When I could come home from school, one of the chickens, Clover, would walk up to me and my friends wanting us to pick her up.”

Neighbors testified that the birds don’t make that much noise. Erika Henderson added that some neighbors ask for the chickens to visit their yards to eat the ticks and stink bugs.

Upon learning more about the Henderson’s chickens, city officials recognized the Hendersons weren’t operating a farm. They agreed that the animals are pets and not treated like traditional farm animals.

A video was offered to the city showing the chickens responding when called by name and taking food from the hand of Donny Henderson.

But it was Henderson’s medical condition that mattered in the case, according to a hearing transcript.

Chickens or other farm animals would not be classified as pets in a residential area had it not been for the medical necessity for them, the board ruled.

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