Winter’s hopefully flown the coop and a few of this year’s spring chickens have sprung.
But you won’t find them flocking in the barnyard. They're in suburban backyards. It’s the Long Island town, Levittown, that's turning these pecking order birds into poultry housepets.
"It’s something that’s becoming more and more popular as the trend for local food, local produce, you know, like homesteading," Gia Codispoti, Suffolk County Farm, and Education Center, 4-H animal science educator, said. "As all that gets more popular, people are really liking the idea of owning their own birds and getting eggs right out of their backyard."
But keeping a personal hen house doesn’t just come with a handful of eggs. It also comes with a lot of responsibilities and rules. Like, did you know New York State requires people to buy chicks in quantities of six?
Why six? The law is meant to wean out families who buy these animals on a whim and then chicken out when the work gets too demanding.
The Suffolk County Farm and Education Center also tries to prevent irresponsible behavior with events like their “Raising Backyard Chickens” lecture April 1st. Attendees were instructed on how to properly raise and care for their birds whether they were starting out with chicks or full.
"They’re not the farmers," Codispoti said. "These are people who, this a new venture for them. A lot of them haven’t really done anything like this in their life before. It’s actually really great that they care about their education, and they’re taking the responsibility of animal ownership."
Non-farmers like one of our very own here at Stony Brook University.
"My grandma was ill," Harte said. "She loves animals. She has her cats, but she needs something that would get her outside. She would have to go to the coop and pick up the eggs and she could pet the chickens. I was like, hmm, this is an outdoor activity slash she has to come to my house to do it."
There are half a dozen two-week old chicks at the Harte house. Come August, these little biddies, that’s farm talk for baby chickens, will produce up to six eggs a week.
"I’m excited because I’ve heard that they taste better than any other store-bought eggs that you can buy, so I’m definitely going to have like a little brunch party when they start laying," Harte said.
If you’re interested in starting your own coop, you can email Codispoti or visit the Suffolk County Farm and Education Center’s website for more information.
