ORANGE : Exotic Pets Don’t Fit In, Panel Rules

Pygmy goats, pot-bellied pigs, miniature horses and other “exotic pets” don’t belong in an urban setting, the Planning Commission decided this week.

The commission’s unanimous vote followed a year of debate about whether the city should adopt a “designer animal ordinance” that would allow miniature farm animals, snakes more than 6 feet long and other unusual pets to be kept in apartments or homes on lots smaller than 20,000 square feet.

The commission recommended that the city keep its current animal ordinance, which forbids even small barnyard animals on lots of that size and prohibits snakes longer than 6 feet. The City Council will decide whether to accept the commission’s recommendation at an upcoming public hearing.

Commission Chairman Randy Bosch called the existing ordinance fair, adding that it “takes into account impacts that can be caused by larger animals.”

Keeping pot-bellied pigs, pygmy goats and other tiny livestock in a small back yard could be unfair to the animals and a potential nuisance to neighbors, the commissioners said.

But Stephen Heilman, 17, who had asked the city to allow pygmy goats on 6,000-square-foot lots, said many of the commission’s concerns about goats were unfounded.

“This whole ‘Billy Goat’s Gruff’ thing is coming through,” said Heilman, an Orange resident who raises pygmy goats on a ranch in Corona. “They read their fairy tales, and that’s what they remember.”

The African animals, which can stand about 2 1/2 feet high and weigh 50 to 80 pounds, are quiet, clean, affectionate and intelligent enough to be housebroken, said Heilman, a regional youth representative for the National Pygmy Goat Assn. In many ways, they are a lot less trouble than a dog, he said.

A 20-by-10-foot pen in a normal back yard provides plenty of space for two goats, he added. And while they are capable of leaping fences up to 6 feet high, Heilman said his 50 goats never hop their pen that has a 4-foot fence.