By Mary Jane Fine, Connecticut
A couple of years ago, Forbes magazine ran a story it titled, “Five Reasons Why Owning Backyard Chickens Is for the Birds.”
Among the objections noted by author James McWillliams were the expense (when one factors in the cost of coop, feed, vet bills and maintenance); the tendency of some owners to abandon their chickens once the birds stop laying; and the vulnerability of chickens to foxes and hawks and other predators.
Any chicken owner might consider throwing eggs at McWilliams. Or simply ignoring him and enjoying their backyard brood.
Connecticut residents T. Gates Councilor and Maurice “Punk” Beebe would be among the latter.
Councilor and Beebe (his mother’s affectionate term for him was “my little Punkin,’” which got shortened into his grown-up nickname) are relatively new to the world of chickens. And, truth be told, the idea, at first, was anathema to Councilor.
Beebe was, he says, “toying with the idea of raising chickens,” basically, “hounding him about getting chickens.” Councilor hoped his partner would drop the notion. Then, while nosing around a Williams-Sonoma one day, he spotted the book, A Chicken in Every Yard: The Urban Farm Store’s Guide to Chicken Keeping by Robert and Hanna Litt (Crown Publishing, $19.99) and bought it. He put the book in Beebe’s Christmas stocking.
And so it began.
“Chickens have long been appreciated for their feather colors and attractive forms,” the book’s authors note in Chapter 1, “traits that have earned them a place in the art of cultures around the globe…A flock of chickens adds such a beautiful sense of movement to your garden that this alone makes them a worthwhile addition to your yard.”
A worthwhile addition, indeed.
The acquisition of chickens has turned out to be beneficial to both men. Councilor breakfasts on eggs every morning and Beebe, the chef and owner of a restaurant in nearby New London, uses eggs for baking. A lot of eggs. A lot of baking. Every summer and every Christmas season, he and Councilor bake dozens and dozens of cookies — at least 10 dozen each of 22 types — for their annual seasonal parties.
“We use 80 pounds of flour, 60 pounds of sugar and more than 12 dozen eggs,” Beebe says. “They (the six hens) keep up pretty well.” He proudly flips through page after iPhone page to show the gorgeous results.
For the eggs that help produce those cookies, the girls get.
The girls — three Rhode Island Reds and three New Hampshire Reds — arrived as chicks about two years ago, a friend’s present for Beebe’s 50th birthday.
“They were at the ugly stage at four, five weeks,” he says, recalling the early days when the chicks lived in a big plastic tote, lined with wood shavings and topped by wire.
He initially considered naming them “Fricassee” and “Parmigiano” and so on, but just couldn’t see himself summoning them that way. So, together, he and Councilor thought up better names: “Amelia” for the chicken who was first in flight; “Beyonce” for the one with the most impressive tail-feather display; “Laverne and Shirley” for the two who routinely sought each other’s company; and “Big Red” for the biggest and boldest (and, yes, she’s Numero Uno in the pecking order). There is one still-unnamed hen because they can’t tell her apart from Laverne and Shirley. She may, they admit, be Laverne or Shirley at any given time.
And, speaking of unknowns: Because conducting an accurate nationwide count would be near impossible, there are no official chick-chick here, chick-chick there stats.
Enough people now raise hens that quite a number of towns and cities across the country have been forced to revise their ordinances on the subject. In Stonington, Connecticut, for example, the Planning and Zoning Commission altered an amendment to allow 10 hens, maximum, for those who have lots of at least 20,000 square feet.
Still, backyard hens can and do, on occasion, cause squawking from neighbors. In the not-too-distant town of Colchester a few years back, a woman complained to local officials about the guinea hens, chickens and parrots that lived next door, telling a local newspaper that she couldn’t enjoy her own yard because of the noise. Local officials ruled pro-chicken; the town’s regulations allowed it.
Hilery Slattery’s Colchester neighbors don’t complain about her 16 chickens at all, especially since she gives them eggs.
“We’ve had chickens for years, all different kinds,” she says. “We like a variety.”
The only resident who isn’t happy about the chickens? That would be Alice, the family’s donkey, who routinely chases them out of her paddock.
Alice’s paddock and the family’s home are part of a four-acre farm on which the chickens came to roost about a decade ago. First, there were five and it was all about enjoying fresh eggs. Then, the chicken population doubled — Speckled Sussex, Rhode Island Reds, Orpingtons, Silver Lace, Light Brahmans — and they became pets as much as eggproducers.
“My daughters love them,” Slattery says, referring to 16-year-old Myriam and 13-year-old Tybal. And with a four-acre farm to run around on, the chickens “can do whatever they want. They eat ticks and bugs.”
Everyone, Slattery says, seems eager to raise chickens nowadays.
Well, not everyone.
Jan Sawicki, who lives in nearby Norwich, raises ducks — a “weird childhood thing” she calls it — and praises duck eggs as being good for baking because they make baked goods fluffier. The coop that Sawicki’s six ducks call home is a former doghouse, with a cedar shake roof added by her husband. The coop itself sits inside a 12-by-14 chickenwire enclosure, complete with kiddie pool for bathing.
“They go into the coop by themselves at night,” she says. “In the past, hawks have eaten some. Now, I only let them out when I’m home.”
Sawicki is fond enough of her ducks that she no longer eats duck. She does eat chicken, though.
So, too, do Gates Councilor and Maurice Beebe. They maintain that harvesting eggs from their chickens made them more sensitive to fresh foods of all kinds. Harvesting their own eggs has also taught them a few things, one of which how relatively easy their care would be. And how wide-open are their diet requirements — layer pellets are the basis, supplemented by, as Beebe says, “just about anything.”
Just-about-anything includes Chia seeds and cracked corn and meal worms and pineapple and strawberries. They are not fussy, Beebe says, and would eat a chocolate cake if he left one within their reach.
Caring for the girls has been no problem at all, just a few hours each week for coop cleaning, Councilor says. He uses a grill brush and a little wire rake. It’s a chore he never envisioned for himself, he says, and grins.
Another thing neither he nor Beebe envisioned they’d do: They married. They’d met 19 years ago at Frank’s Place, a gay and lesbian bar in New London, and have been together ever since.
“We’re very compatible,” Beebe says. “Nothing bothers us.”
Their wedding was the most modest of at-home ceremonies: just Councilor, Beebe, Roxie, Sophie and a justice of the peace.
“It was right after same-sex marriage became legal federally,” Beebe says. “We waited ‘til it was more than symbolic. Now we get the same benefits as any married couple.”
And, like any married couple, they share workload and household responsibilities, chicken-raising being one. They also share an ongoing delight in their small brood.
“They’re very unique creatures,” Beebe says. “They’re like dogs sometimes. All you have to do is tap on the window and they’ll come running. They’ll follow you around in the backyard.”
As if on cue, Big Red pecks at the kitchen window. The other hens are gathered around her. They want attention. They want a snack. They want both. And they get both.
Mary Jane Fine raises chickens and writes from her home in Mystic, Connecticut.
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