Why More City Dwellers Are Raising Chickens

0:00From W and YC, this is in YC now. I'm Jean-Apear. We started out with three chickens and one night we came to put the chickens to bed and somebody had thrown this duck over the fence. A lot more people in our area are raising chickens in their backyards. On today's show, we visit a home turned farm in Jersey City to see what urban chicken keeping looks like. But before we get into that, here's a few headlines that have our attention. The Mamdani administration released documents this week suggesting that city leaders misled the public about the safety of the air quality in Lower Manhattan following the 9-11 attacks. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani hasn't responded to the report, but one of his staffers posted on social media that the EPA said the air was safe. In the year since the 9-11 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people, nearly three times more

1:00people have died from health complications in the aftermath of the attacks. The EPA has not responded to requests for comment. We all can appreciate having something to look forward to, right? Well for leaders of the MTA, that something is the Interboro Express, better known as the IBX Project. There's no timeline for when the project will be done, but the MTA shared new renderings to show how stations will look on the future rail line between Brooklyn and Queens. Apparently there will be 18 different stations connecting to 17 subway lines, and every station will be fully accessible for commuters. You can check out the renderings for yourself and read more about the IBX Project at our new site, Gothamys. Oh, and one more thing. Broadway Week is currently underway. From now until September 20, theater goers can get two-for-one tickets to participating shows like the Book of Mormon, Wicked, or Hades town. There are about 20 other shows to choose from, so grab the deal while you can.

2:02Alrighty, why did the chicken cross the road? To listen to this podcast, of course, let's jump into the show. When you think about the sounds of New York City, you may think of the non-stop traffic right, that guy leaning on his horn, the trains, the sirens, or even that ice-cream truck jingle that gets on everyone's nerves this time of year. But I'm sure for most of us a chicken squawking... That definitely isn't the first thing that comes to mind. However, keeping foul in a city backyard is becoming more popular these days. And once you start thinking about what that actually means, the questions they really pile up. Like, how does a backyard with a few chickens turn into a farm?

3:02What happens when the birds wander? And what rules do you have to follow? WNYC's Morning Edition producer Veronica Del Valle wanted to see what urban chicken keeping actually looks like, up close. Hey, Veronica, welcome to the show. Hi, Jenae. How'd you get into a story like this anyway? So my team and I were talking about 2025 when egg prices kind of went crazy during the bird flu outbreak. And a lot of people were just casually talking about getting their own chicken from home. And it seems like the data really lines up with that. The number of people raising chickens according to the federal government is on the rise. There are more farms that count as small providers, those are places with less than 50,000 chickens, then there are the big guys with 50,000 or more. And once again, that's just everyone who has their chicken registered with the federal government. And of course, all of that doesn't account for everyone who has not registered their chicken with the literal federal government. And so people skipped the grocery store and headed straight to the coop when it came to getting their eggs. Absolutely. In fact, one of our colleagues was actually sharing eggs with a lot of the staff here when

4:07egg prices went through the roof. I'm mad I didn't get in on that. So Veronica, I understand that you hit the streets to find out what this actually looks like. So I crossed the Hudson River and headed to the corner of Ogden Avenue and Ferry Street in Jersey City Heights. And there I met a lovely woman named Cheryl Parkone. Hi, Shirley. Yep, Veronica. Take a tour first. Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that. And then we can do questions. And in her backyard for more than a decade, she has been running Urban Quack Farm. Quack Farm is crazy. Urban Quack Farm. You know, you see her lovely little house, the blue front door, chili peppers, cucumbers going around the side. You kind of walk around the corner and then there is suddenly so much going on there. Can you name every animal on this farm? Like, can you do nothing up your head? You mean every breed or every animal? Every animal, every animal, every animal, every animal, every animal guy. Okay. So I have at least 30 or so chickens, different breeds.

5:07Some of the breeds are Polish, Rhode Island Reds, Black Copper Marans, Buff Orpink Nuts. I have a call duck. That's a special little duck there that you see. I have six ducks. There are plants. There are rabbits. And then there's a hive with 60,000 bees, four dogs, three cats and a fish. Wow. The dogs are used to the chickens. And it's good because, you know, the, some people have seen hawks and hawks attack chickens, but when they hear our dogs barking, they don't want to, they don't come by. So I've never had an issue with hawks. Can you tell me a bit more about the space? So it's deceptively large, not in terms of space, but in terms of how she organized her life around it. It is impressive how much she's managed to fit in there between the coop and the little shed for the rabbits, the pond, the fence, the garden, the beehive in the corner. It is kind of your standard city lot, but with a whole lot in it.

6:10So how does Cheryl go from a few birds to all of that? So Cheryl told me that she just started farming as a way to teach her kids about kind of the fundamentals of agriculture. She grew up on a farm. She wanted her kids to have a similar experience. For my children who are around seven or eight years old, I wanted them to teach them where chickens and eggs and such came from and my partner said, why don't we incubate some eggs? So we got a dozen fertilized eggs from Wycoff, which is a gaffle farm, and we incubate them. My kids turned them twice a day until they hatched and 23 days later they started hatching. And according to her, it very quickly spiraled out of control. We started out with three chickens and one night we came to put the chickens to bed and somebody had thrown this duck over the fence. So you're telling me that ducks just ended up on this lady's front porch? Duck's just ended up on this lady's front porch.

7:12She very quickly became known as the chicken lady, word spreads. Wow. So do the animals actually live back there? They live back there. They stay back there. But sometimes they disobey a little. Pearl told me she has a bunch of little teenage chickens and they jump the fence. They run away. Sometimes her neighbors show up and they're like, hey, Cheryl, chicken. But a few neighbors, they're familiar with the farm and they heard them for me. I said, just open the gate and they'll run in and they open the gate and they run back in. The neighbors and the chickens, it's all like one big community now. In the middle of Jersey City. In the middle of Jersey City. And I think it's so cute that she calls them her little teenagers. Did you pick up on any teenage behavior when you were there? You know, I did meet this chicken who was part teenager, part over protective mother.

8:13This is cinnamon. See, she likes to be pet. Again, all chickens have different personalities. She's okay with being pet. She's a Rhode Island red. She looks like she's trying to find a place to lay her egg. And I have to tell you, about half an hour after the biggest egg I've ever seen in my entire life. Whoa. Like a small fist. Look how big that egg is. That is a huge egg. It's big and brown. Yeah. And sometimes it was her double of yolkers. Oh my goodness. Now I need cinnamon to do that 11 more times. And she does. That's a type of bird that is a particularly hearty breeder. She is laying eggs all through the winter. We've been talking with WNYC's Morning Edition producer Veronica Devalle about what it actually looks like to raise chickens in a city backyard. Cheryl Parkhound started her farm as a way to teach her own children about agriculture. But that was 15 years ago.

9:14Her kids are grown now. After the break, what a new generation of city kids is learning there and what you need to know if you're thinking about raising chickens yourself. Are you hungry for some great investigative journalism that sounds like a music? Then Radio Lab might be the show for you. Radio Lab began over 20 years ago as an exploration of science, philosophy, and ethics. The show is in-sexfanded to become a platform for some of the best long-form journalism and storytelling you'll hear today. Join Chad, Lulu Miller, and myself, Lethth of Nostar, as we investigate stories that provoke, delight, and ask you to completely change the way you view the world. You can find Radio Lab wherever you get podcasts. This is NYC Now. I'm Jan A.P. Here. We're talking with WNYC's Morning Edition producer Veronica Devalle about raising chickens in a city backyard. Cheryl started the farm for her own kids, but they're grown now.

10:17Veronica, what did the farm become after Cheryl was done raising her kids? So Cheryl told me firsthand that having a farm isn't just about having a farm. It's also about being a pillar of the community. It's something she saw from her dad when she was a little girl who was a doctor in this rural tiny town in the Midwest. And her way of doing that is by teaching agriculture to kids in Hudson County. All helped found the Hudson County 4-H, which is kind of a local volunteering organization. I remember 4-H. Yeah. You associate it with like rural parts of the country, but there is one right across the river. And a lot of those kids come and help on the farm. She sees it as like a continuation of the work she used to do with her kids. Now my kids are, you know, grown 22 years old, 23 years old. So, you know, I'm hoping that it can transcend down to generations because now I'm teaching these teens that come, volunteer their time to learn the same thing.

11:21This has become so much more, I'm sure, than she ever expected. What's her main goal with this? I think Cheryl really wants these young people to experience farm life. And now she's teaching these new kids who have very little experience. How to do it all by themselves. What I want to make a mark of is, you know, being here, showing city kids, or even people how to be educated. I just want to show them that it's okay to be able to self-sourcing stuff, right? Being able to take kitchen scraps and give them to your chickens because they eat all the scraps or nature's garbage disposals. And being able to use just the remnants of vegetables and put it in your garden and use that for compost for fertilizer. I mean, it really brings back full circle, you know, how you can build your own ecosystem in a very small space. And I'm hoping that the young kids will learn that as well. And she says it's all kind of intersected.

12:22The food scraps come from the plants, the plants feed the animals, the plants also are pollinated by the 60,000 bees that she has in the hive. It all works together and she really wants to emphasize that. She taught them how to pick up bales of hay, how to hold a pitchfork correctly, and how to be a better part of the larger food system. Wow, the bail of hay lesson. That's one, I guess I should take a class in. I did not know. She asked me if I knew how to pick up a bail of hay and I was like, with your knees, like a box. Yeah. It is not that. Well, do you know now? You have to pick it up by the strings, which I'm from New Jersey. I never knew that before. Well, Cheryl's in New Jersey. I know. I know. What's your excuse for Monica? There was no 4-H for you as a teenager. I'm listening to all of this. And as cool as Cheryl's farm sounds, Veronica, I live in Bedstuy.

13:25And I have to be honest with you. I sit on my balcony and instead of the great company of the person with me, I also have the, I won't say great company of a few chickens in my neighbor's yard and a rooster. Well, tonight, I have great news for you. Roosters are actually illegal in New York City. Okay, let's get to that because let's say somebody listening does hear all of this and thinks, you know, I have a backyard, I have a little yard space. Maybe I can get a few chickens, you know? Legally, keyword there. Legally chickens. Yes. What does Cheryl say they need to know before they do all of that? Honestly, Cheryl's biggest piece of advice is that people need to have all the information necessary before they get the chickens. Do your research. Check your laws and don't get too many because you can always grow into more.

14:29Jersey City where Cheryl lives, they say no more than 50 chickens, ducks or other poultry that includes pigeons. Be careful. 50 sounds like a lot. You need a license from Jersey City to get any birds and you have to keep them within 25 feet of a coop like Cheryl does, you know? The birds are restricted to the area around her backyard. You also don't want to create any health hazards with that coop, which is kind of why there are really, really specific requirements for what the coop looks like. Speaking of health hazards, I know those were the rules for Jersey. Let's go to New York City. New York City is pretty strict. Hens are permitted. Roosters are not. Say it again. Roosters are not permitted. And just in case my neighbor doesn't hear this, what should I do when I hear that rooster? Call 3-1-1. So you just can't create a public health nuisance when it comes to having chickens and you have to meet the city's health code. You have broken down a lot from me, Veronica. And I didn't know that I was going to walk into this.

15:30I didn't know that this would hit home for me like it did, but thank you. When I think about these small urban chicken farms in New York City, all right. Yes, you mentioned Cheryl's been doing this since 2012, but for people doing it now, I get it. We talked about the spike in egg prices, but what is Cheryl getting out of its deal? I think she's just taking it day by day and it really adds some value to her life. She put it this way. It gives you a project, something to look forward to, you know, every day. And it's not just the grind of the city, but it's nice to have a little piece of country, you know, when you're living in the city. That is certainly a perspective. Maybe not yours. That's WNYC's Veronica Del Valle and she seems to know me. Thank you so much, Veronica. Thank you for having me. And thank you for listening to NYC now. I'm Janette Pierre.

16:31See you next time.