A Maine man born without eyes and parts of his brain and right lung — and whose heart is on the wrong side of the body — has won a legal battle to keep six emotional support chickens.
C-Jay Martin, 25, of Bangor, was born blind with a bilateral cleft palate and lip, missing a third of his brain and half of his right lung and with his heart on the right side of his chest, the Bangor Daily News reported.
Martin, who also has autism, epilepsy and ADHD, began developing anxiety and depression around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the outlet.
His mom, Amy Martin, this year decided to get him six backyard chickens from a Facebook group to help him cope with his emotional problems.
“During COVID, C-Jay started struggling because he’s very social and we lost all our activities and no one came over,” Martin told the news outlet. “For the past two years, he wasn’t talking to anyone and was very withdrawn.”
She found out that chickens were popular emotional support animals during the pandemic — and that their “chatter” could provide C-Jay with comforting background noise, the Washington Post reported.
She also learned that chickens are gentle creatures who pose no danger to her son.
“Some are really cuddly,” Martin told the newspaper.
So she got C-Jay’s doctor to provide an emotional support animal prescription — but the family ran into a snag because Bangor has an ordinance against keeping fowl in the city.
Their only option was to get an exception, but that proved to be no easy task.
Officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development told her to submit an application to the Bangor Board of Appeals.
“I wasn’t looking to file an appeal,” she told the Washington Post. “We’re not getting chickens so we can sell eggs. This is to accommodate a disability, so the process should be different.”
Meanwhile, her son bonded with his feathered friends.
He named them Stella, Salty, Popcorn, Cheeks and Pepper.
He is still deciding what to name the sixth, according to the outlet.
“He fell in love with them,” Martin said, adding C-Jay now volunteers at a local church, a food bank and Ronald McDonald House. “He has more of a reason to go outside. He gets very excited.”
She then decided to file a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission, claiming the city was discriminating against her son by not giving him an exemption to the no-chicken rule.
But the commission found no evidence of discrimination, so Martin filed a request with the Bangor Board of Appeals.
Seven people spoke during a recent hearing, including five who urged the board to allow the family to keep the chickens.
“As a parent, I know how fiercely Amy takes care of C-Jay and this is a great way for him to feel socially and emotionally supported,” Imke Jandreau said, the Bangor Daily news reported.
“They’re not a nuisance, we don’t hear them, we don’t see them, and we as neighbors would have never known there were chickens in the backyard,” the neighbor added.
The two people who opposed the request said they worried that allowing chickens in Bangor would bring rats into the neighborhood or encourage others people to also get chickens.
Jeff Wallace, Bangor’s code enforcement director, said the city had not received any complaints about the chickens of Sept. 25.
He said he doesn’t believe the birds attracted the rats in their neighborhood because rodents have been found in other areas where there are no chickens.
Eventually, the five-member board voted to approve Martin’s request.
“It was a resounding support,” Wallace told The Washington Post, adding that he believed media coverage and the community’s support played a role in the outcome.
The elated mother expressed her gratitude to her neighbors and hopes her family’s story will make it easier for others in a similar situation have an easier time with the bureaucracy.
“When we fight for something, we fight for everyone,” Martin told the paper, adding that two days after the hearing, “we got our first egg.”