BISHOP, Calif. — Two redheads got the feathers flying. Lucy and Goose were just tending to their business of clucking, laying eggs and pecking up bugs in Laura Smith’s backyard.

“They’re like vacuum cleaners,” Smith said. “There isn’t a bug or a spider out here.”

But not everyone was enamored of the industrious exterminators. A neighbor of Smith’s in the J Diamond mobile home park complained to city officials, pointing to a 1966 ordinance that prohibits “any poultry or animal yard” within 100 feet of a residence. Smith replied that the ordinance applied to commercial chicken yards, not pets.

“I know some people will say, ‘This is just about a few silly chickens,’ ” Smith said. “But there’s a lot more to it. It’s about our basic freedoms. It’s about being told what you can and cannot do. ... We’re a rural community. ... What’s the big deal about having a couple of chickens in Bishop?”

The big deal is that Smith is a City Council member. Her refusal to get rid of Lucy and Goose based on her interpretation of the law struck some as an abuse of power. Others, mostly chicken owners who worried that their coops’ days might be numbered, backed Smith.

In January, the City Council took up the issue. At a nearby public hearing, the boss of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which all but colonized Bishop and the Owens Valley to siphon its water, was explaining the agency’s plans for the area.

Nevertheless, chickens drew one of the biggest City Council audiences in memory.

Bishop’s birds have stirred an emotional debate that goes beyond domesticated poultry. It’s caused this Eastern Sierra town of 3,600 to examine its identity: Is Bishop city or country? It’s pitted natives against transplants derided as “flatlanders,” and uncorked resentments rooted in the long-ago water grab.

“It caught me off-guard,” said Mayor Jeff Griffiths, who recused himself from the matter because of a conflict of interest: His son once kept chickens for a 4-H project. “I can’t go to the grocery store without people stopping me to ask about chickens. I ran an ultra-marathon and when I passed the aid stations, people asked: ‘How’s the chicken issue going?’ ”

No one knows how many chickens there are in Bishop. A century ago, the Owens Valley was fat with poultry and egg farms, and Bishop was the hub of the industry. Merchant G.H. Dusenbery built an egg ranch and packaging plant three miles west of town where 3,000 hens produced an average of 1,650 eggs a day.

“It’s a foregone conclusion that as Owens Valley’s new development progresses a host of hens will be sitting on top of the world and the eggs will be rolling everywhere,” a 1928 story in the Los Angeles Times predicted.

Today, within Bishop’s 2-square-mile city limits, it’s a different story. Main Street is traffic-choked and homes in cozy neighborhoods sit on standard 50-by-100-foot lots. With only 2 percent of Inyo County privately owned — most of the rest is federal land — attitudes toward personal space are deeply ingrained.

“There are people who’d like to go back to the days when we had no sidewalks or gutters and no fences and you could see your neighbors,” said Frank Crom, 70, a former mayor and council member and a vocal opponent of chickens. “But times change. ... We’re so jammed in together.”

“A lot of people like myself feel we’re a rural community,” said Pete Watercott. “It’s what I love about Bishop.”

Watercott, 58, — better known by his stage name, Fiddlin’ Pete — has been performing Western music for more than 30 years.

“When people ask me, ‘Where you from?,’ I tell them that’s a loaded question,” Watercott said. “Technically, I’m from Minnesota. But if I say I’m from Bishop, the natives will say, ‘Pete, you may have lived here for 30 years, but you’re not from Bishop.’ ”

Watercott, a skilled carpenter, and his wife, Kathryn Erickson, have fashioned a country oasis on their lot within sight of Main Street: Fruit trees and a greenhouse. Then there is the chicken coop — a spacious two-story cottage with a roof. It currently sleeps seven.

Erickson and other pro-chicken people are upset about comments by City Council member Bruce Dishion, who said that people raising chickens were knowingly breaking the law.

The acrimony bubbled over on Home Street during a heated discussion that ended with the police being called.

Clifford Crickette, 81, says he’s never liked his next-door neighbor, although it’s hard to pin down why except for a vague complaint involving a noisy rototiller. Larry Clark, 62, swears he has no animosity toward Crickette — although he does have a problem with his four chickens.

“He’s raising them right outside our bedroom window,” Clark said.

One day, Clark and Crickette exchanged words in front of Crickette’s home.

“He kept saying, ‘You’re trying to get my chickens killed!’ ” Clark said.

“He kept asking me why I didn’t like him,” said Crickette. He sprayed Clark with a garden hose. Clark dialed 911.

Police calmed everyone down, but Crickette has no intention of getting rid of his chickens.

“I’m keeping them just to keep him pissed off,” he said. “And for the fresh eggs.”

Voters will decide in November whether residents can keep chickens.

The ballot measure, if approved, would allow residents to have up to four chickens or rabbits or a combination of the two as long as coops and food are kept 20 feet from a neighbor’s property line. The referendum will cost taxpayers about $2,500.

“I’m going to beat the bushes so it passes 5 to 1,” Watercott said.