A fowl trend growing in NYC
A Queens couple brings their pet chickens, which happen to provide eggs for their breakfasts, to Steinway Public Library, to discuss the pros and cons of raising farm animals in tiny apartments. (June 11, 2011) Credit: Daniel Goodrich
Robert McMinn's pets are like many in New York City. They eat his food scraps, enjoy playing in the park and keep household pests at bay.
But Esmerelda, Pennie and Dearie also regularly provide breakfast, laying fresh organic eggs at the Astoria, Queens, apartment that McMinn shares with his partner Jules Corkery.
They're 2-year-old Serama hens -- among a growing number of chickens raised in city homes and backyards.
"They're not incorporated into an agricultural system, but we use them agriculturally," said McMinn, 45. "There's a woman at the community garden who gets so excited when we give her a pint of chicken poop" to use as fertilizer.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture keeps no statistics on small-scale farming. But anecdotal evidence points to urban chicken-keeping as an upward trend. The number of websites dedicated to the topic and their followers has skyrocketed, with thecitychicken.com and madcitychickens.com among the most popular.
The backyardchickens.com forum begun in 2007 has grown from a couple dozen users to more than 94,000 today.
Hens are legal in New York City, considered pets under the health code. Roosters are prohibited for their crowing.
Chickens are kept in coops at community gardens and in apartments and backyards throughout the five boroughs, even in midtown Manhattan. They're usually bought by mail order from hatcheries. As chicks, they can survive up to three days without food after hatching, McMinn said.
His hens roam in his apartment, eating lettuce, watermelon, corn and leftovers.
McMinn and Corkery, 45, took their feathered friends, which they call "performance chickens," to the Steinway branch of the Queens Library on Saturday for one of many informational sessions they host on raising city chickens.
Children there learned how to properly hold the chickens. Veli Mehmedi, 8, of Astoria, even coaxed one to sit on his shoulder and head.
Adults, meanwhile, learned that hens prefer dust baths, eat most insects but not bedbugs, lay about 350 eggs a year and live about 12 to 15 years.
Natalia Paruz, 36, and Scott Munson, 42, of Astoria, said they hope to raise chickens alongside their five cats.
"We want them for functionality, for pets, for eggs and to help with the garden," Munson said.
"We've been thinking about this for a long time, but we're not rushing into it.," Paruz said. "They'd be a lot of fun, though."
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
