One might expect to be able to pick out the residence with the chicken coop in the back, especially on a quiet block in Point Breeze.
But when I stopped by Marie Teasdale's apartment house on Wednesday, there was no farm smell or loud clucking. The chickens in question were pecking around with a minimum of fuss. When Teasdale let them out of their fenced area, she got them back in by clapping and marching behind them.
In short, those chickens are better trained than my dog.
Teasdale, 27, applied for a permit with Pittsburgh's zoning hearing board to keep 12 chickens on her property on McPherson Boulevard. She also had sought permission to keep beehives, but withdrew that part after the idea ruffled some neighbors' feathers. I had a lot of questions for Teasdale, but here's one that's always puzzled me: What makes someone want to own chickens in the city?
Teasdale, who is originally from Portland, Ore., studied environmental science there and took an urban farming class.
"It was my absolute favorite class," she said.
The idea of making fresh produce and vegetables available to the benefit of a community and the environment inspired her to create her own mini-farm. Besides the chickens, Teasdale is planting a large garden and has a compost pile.
She owns nine chickens. The Urban Agriculture Zoning Code says that a person can own three chickens as long as the minimum lot size is 2,000 square feet. From there, it's one chicken per 1,000 square feet.
Teasdale's property (a house and two vacant lots next to it) is well above 12,000 square feet, so the request is within the parameters of the relatively new law.
She said she checked with her immediate neighbors when she first began housing the chickens, and found no opposition. So when she went to the hearing last week, she didn't expect much squawking, because not one person ever raised any concerns with her before.
A few neighbors showed up to complain about the chickens, claiming they smelled bad, attracted predators and could carry diseases, such as the avian flu.
"I was honestly very surprised," she said.
Teasdale disputes each point. She said she has never come across a case in her studies of chickens spreading avian flu in North America.
She adds that she keeps a clean coop. I don't know what constitutes an acceptable coop because I grew up on concrete, but I walked through the area, and it smelled and looked clean to me. Also, I didn't step in any chicken ... you know.
As to the predators, she acknowledges the neighborhood has a rat problem, but it predated her chickens. Also, she said there is no rat problem on her property.
She's awaiting a decision from the board, but in the meantime, she is moving her chickens to a bigger coop, which is being built. It will have two levels, a drainage system and fencing to keep predators out.
If the board decides against her, she plans to seek another permit for a different number of chickens.
If there is a next time, though, she says she'll attend the hearing with neighbors who support her, as well as pest control and farm experts.
"I can understand where the apprehension is from, but I think it's unwarranted," Teasdale said.
2011年11月10日星期四
2011年10月25日星期二
Grantwood Village roosts its case
Grantwood Village recently hatched a plan that was eggs-actly what chicken lovers wanted.
The village will allow residents to keep chickens in their backyards. The hens will scratch out a living by providing their owners with fresh eggs.
"We feel that this will be a good law," said Cathy Forand, chairman of the Grantwood Village Board of Trustees. "We were looking for ways for people to have chickens without disturbing their neighbors."
Households will have a limit of four hens with no roosters, so as to keep down the noise. They must be kept in a covered, fenced enclosure with the chicken coop inside of it. The area and coop must be kept clean to avoid fowl odors.
Finally, the enclosure must be attached to the back wall of the house.
"One of our concerns was not violating the city's out-building law," Forand said. "In Grantwood Village, it is against the law to have an unattached structure on the property."
By attaching it to the back wall, the coop and cluckers also will not be seen from the street.
The village's board of trustees approved the plan at its Oct. 18 meeting. An ordinance to pass the plan will be on the Nov. 15 agenda.
Since none of the trustees knew anything about chickens, they turned to resident Elise Vandover, 43, who became the unofficial "chicken commissioner."
Vandover has raised chickens outside of Grantwood Village for much of her life. She sometimes serves as a consultant for groups interested in raising chickens. Working with the trustees, she helped put together the regulations that will be part of the upcoming ordinance.
"We've asked people to have an open mind," said Vandover at the trustees' meeting. "Chickens are quiet, but they need work to keep them clean. The goal is not to enrage your neighbor."
Florence Stalley, 80, is a longtime resident who earlier objected to the proposal.
Her concern was people having a large group of chickens in their backyards. During World War II, her family kept 50 hens on their property for eggs and food. She knows how messy chickens can be.
However, after hearing the proposal, she was pleased at the limit of four birds.
"They've got some good restrictions here," Stalley said. "I'm fine with it, now. My only concern was the number. A lot of people have shown interest, so I expected the village to approve it."
The issue came up in September when the village discovered that a resident had kept three hens for over a year in her backyard. However, a look at the village's code showed there were two contradictory ordinances; one said chickens were considered to be a pest while another said they could be pets.
Passage of this new bill will wipe the old ordinances off the books, freeing chickens to have a new home to come to roost.
The village will allow residents to keep chickens in their backyards. The hens will scratch out a living by providing their owners with fresh eggs.
"We feel that this will be a good law," said Cathy Forand, chairman of the Grantwood Village Board of Trustees. "We were looking for ways for people to have chickens without disturbing their neighbors."
Households will have a limit of four hens with no roosters, so as to keep down the noise. They must be kept in a covered, fenced enclosure with the chicken coop inside of it. The area and coop must be kept clean to avoid fowl odors.
Finally, the enclosure must be attached to the back wall of the house.
"One of our concerns was not violating the city's out-building law," Forand said. "In Grantwood Village, it is against the law to have an unattached structure on the property."
By attaching it to the back wall, the coop and cluckers also will not be seen from the street.
The village's board of trustees approved the plan at its Oct. 18 meeting. An ordinance to pass the plan will be on the Nov. 15 agenda.
Since none of the trustees knew anything about chickens, they turned to resident Elise Vandover, 43, who became the unofficial "chicken commissioner."
Vandover has raised chickens outside of Grantwood Village for much of her life. She sometimes serves as a consultant for groups interested in raising chickens. Working with the trustees, she helped put together the regulations that will be part of the upcoming ordinance.
"We've asked people to have an open mind," said Vandover at the trustees' meeting. "Chickens are quiet, but they need work to keep them clean. The goal is not to enrage your neighbor."
Florence Stalley, 80, is a longtime resident who earlier objected to the proposal.
Her concern was people having a large group of chickens in their backyards. During World War II, her family kept 50 hens on their property for eggs and food. She knows how messy chickens can be.
However, after hearing the proposal, she was pleased at the limit of four birds.
"They've got some good restrictions here," Stalley said. "I'm fine with it, now. My only concern was the number. A lot of people have shown interest, so I expected the village to approve it."
The issue came up in September when the village discovered that a resident had kept three hens for over a year in her backyard. However, a look at the village's code showed there were two contradictory ordinances; one said chickens were considered to be a pest while another said they could be pets.
Passage of this new bill will wipe the old ordinances off the books, freeing chickens to have a new home to come to roost.
2011年10月9日星期日
Backyard coops produce great pets
Neal Brown has a chicken farm so tiny, the North Carolina Poultry Federation doesn’t even know it exists. The City of Greenville does, however, and that’s why Farmer Brown is not looking to expand.
Brown and his wife, Paula, have joined a growing number of urban dwellers cooping laying hens behind their homes. Raleigh has so many city chickens, coop owners organized the annual Tour d’Coop, which sells tickets for a first-hand look at keeping chickens in an urban environment.
Proceeds from the Tour d’Coop benefit a local food bank.
Greenville allows up to four hens per dwelling, but no roosters, for obvious reasons.
While the urban-coop movement is largely egged on by animal or environmental activism, that is not what inspired the Browns to raise chickens at their home in Westhaven subdivision.
“Our granddaughters said they wanted either a pony or chickens,” Brown said. “We went with chickens.”
The retired railroad conductor went to work last fall on building a playhouse for granddaughters Sarah Ruth, 3, and Caroline, 5. The structure’s bottom half became an indoor/outdoor chicken coop this spring.
Playing off the unique building’s dual purpose, an attached sign reads, “Chicks Over Chicks.”
Brown had never raised chickens, so he relied on the Internet for guidance.
“I went on Craigslist and found a guy in Hookerton with about 10 varieties of chicks,” he said. “I asked if he could determine their sex, and he said no.”
From an initial batch of 10 chicks, Brown ended up with four birds he could keep. He gave the roosters away.
Now, the hens have the run of the Browns’ backyard and allow the girls to pick them up and carry them. Holding a big brown hen, Caroline recited their names: “Holly, Heather, Calico and Crooked Neck.”
Crooked Neck was injured as a chick and cannot hold its head up straight.
“I found out that when that happens to them, they’re not supposed to survive,” Brown said. “They’ll either starve to death or the other chickens will kill them. Does that chicken look like it’s starving?”
Crooked Neck manages to strut around the yard and find plenty of chicken feed despite the condition. Besides feed, the birds will eat most any flowering plant. For meticulous landscapers such as the Browns, that can be a problem.
“They’ll eat everything but the weeds,” Brown said. “They love my hostas and every blooming plant I’ve got, but they won’t eat my weeds.”
Brown has had to wrap some of his more delicate plants in chicken wire. To reward him for his troubles, the chickens produce daily eggs.
“We started keeping egg cartons this summer,” Paula said, displaying a carton filled with brown eggs, “because we knew we were going to start getting eggs.”
“I love breakfast,” Neal Brown said. “It’s my favorite meal of the day.”
Brown and his wife, Paula, have joined a growing number of urban dwellers cooping laying hens behind their homes. Raleigh has so many city chickens, coop owners organized the annual Tour d’Coop, which sells tickets for a first-hand look at keeping chickens in an urban environment.
Proceeds from the Tour d’Coop benefit a local food bank.
Greenville allows up to four hens per dwelling, but no roosters, for obvious reasons.
While the urban-coop movement is largely egged on by animal or environmental activism, that is not what inspired the Browns to raise chickens at their home in Westhaven subdivision.
“Our granddaughters said they wanted either a pony or chickens,” Brown said. “We went with chickens.”
The retired railroad conductor went to work last fall on building a playhouse for granddaughters Sarah Ruth, 3, and Caroline, 5. The structure’s bottom half became an indoor/outdoor chicken coop this spring.
Playing off the unique building’s dual purpose, an attached sign reads, “Chicks Over Chicks.”
Brown had never raised chickens, so he relied on the Internet for guidance.
“I went on Craigslist and found a guy in Hookerton with about 10 varieties of chicks,” he said. “I asked if he could determine their sex, and he said no.”
From an initial batch of 10 chicks, Brown ended up with four birds he could keep. He gave the roosters away.
Now, the hens have the run of the Browns’ backyard and allow the girls to pick them up and carry them. Holding a big brown hen, Caroline recited their names: “Holly, Heather, Calico and Crooked Neck.”
Crooked Neck was injured as a chick and cannot hold its head up straight.
“I found out that when that happens to them, they’re not supposed to survive,” Brown said. “They’ll either starve to death or the other chickens will kill them. Does that chicken look like it’s starving?”
Crooked Neck manages to strut around the yard and find plenty of chicken feed despite the condition. Besides feed, the birds will eat most any flowering plant. For meticulous landscapers such as the Browns, that can be a problem.
“They’ll eat everything but the weeds,” Brown said. “They love my hostas and every blooming plant I’ve got, but they won’t eat my weeds.”
Brown has had to wrap some of his more delicate plants in chicken wire. To reward him for his troubles, the chickens produce daily eggs.
“We started keeping egg cartons this summer,” Paula said, displaying a carton filled with brown eggs, “because we knew we were going to start getting eggs.”
“I love breakfast,” Neal Brown said. “It’s my favorite meal of the day.”
2011年9月19日星期一
Wally's Chicken Coop Comes to Storrs
Wally’s Chicken Coop is not your normal sit down and eat restaurant. Instead of tables and chairs, Wally’s is decorated with a long wooden bench where customers can sit down and eat chicken bits and French fries out of a paper bag. But with handful of chicken restaurants around the Storrs area, one might wonder what makes this new joint special.
“It’s all homemade,” says Mike Natale, co-owner of Wally’s. Specializing in “chicken bits,” which Natale describes as handcrafted chicken nuggets cut from whole breast chicken and made fresh daily, Wally’s Chicken Coop offers a variety of chicken sandwiches, meal combos that include their house-made chicken bits and a side of French fries as well as breakfast sandwiches.
With the average price of each meal around $6 or $7, “it’s fairly priced,” says Matt Jerrild, a UConn student as well as a first-time customer to Wally’s Chicken Coop, who ordered The Mongo, described as a large order of chicken bits with a large order of fries and a can of soda.
The Coop attracts UConn students looking for an affordable, tasty bite, and with the restaurant just a little over one week old, the line of students speaks volumes to the quality of the food.
“[Business] is going pretty good,” says Natale. “It’s fun, it’s fun with the kids, they have a good time. We have a good atmosphere here.”
In response to their feelings towards past failures of other restaurants that have tried to stay alive in the same location, the brothers don’t seem too worried. “It doesn’t scare us at all,” says Natale. “We’re hard working guys and we just want to make a dollar for our kids and have some fun while we’re doing it.”
Although Natale along with his twin brother, Jeff Natale are co-owners of Wally’s Chicken Coop, the actual Wally is a 120 lb Bernese mountain dog who has been in the Natale family for three years.
“It’s all homemade,” says Mike Natale, co-owner of Wally’s. Specializing in “chicken bits,” which Natale describes as handcrafted chicken nuggets cut from whole breast chicken and made fresh daily, Wally’s Chicken Coop offers a variety of chicken sandwiches, meal combos that include their house-made chicken bits and a side of French fries as well as breakfast sandwiches.
With the average price of each meal around $6 or $7, “it’s fairly priced,” says Matt Jerrild, a UConn student as well as a first-time customer to Wally’s Chicken Coop, who ordered The Mongo, described as a large order of chicken bits with a large order of fries and a can of soda.
The Coop attracts UConn students looking for an affordable, tasty bite, and with the restaurant just a little over one week old, the line of students speaks volumes to the quality of the food.
“[Business] is going pretty good,” says Natale. “It’s fun, it’s fun with the kids, they have a good time. We have a good atmosphere here.”
In response to their feelings towards past failures of other restaurants that have tried to stay alive in the same location, the brothers don’t seem too worried. “It doesn’t scare us at all,” says Natale. “We’re hard working guys and we just want to make a dollar for our kids and have some fun while we’re doing it.”
Although Natale along with his twin brother, Jeff Natale are co-owners of Wally’s Chicken Coop, the actual Wally is a 120 lb Bernese mountain dog who has been in the Natale family for three years.
2011年4月6日星期三
Damage in Md. chicken coop fire estimated at $7 million
A team of fire investigators from the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office is combing through the ashes of a Cecil County chicken coop, trying to determine what caused Monday night's multimillion-dollar blaze at the egg producing plant.
Deputy State Fire Marshal Bruce Bouch said the 3-alarm fire at the ISE America egg processing plant at 605 Sassafras Road in Warwick, about a mile and a half from the Delaware line, destroyed about 220,000 chickens, each valued at $3.
The fire began at 7:20 p.m. Monday in the #2 chicken coop and quickly spread to two other 50-foot-by-530-foot coops before being brought under control by firefighters battling the flames and high wind conditions.
Bouch said the fire destroyed three coops and damaged a fourth chicken coop, which sustained heat damage.
Each coop was valued at $2 million.
The farm manager was alerted to the fire by a working high heat alarm system and called 911 when fire was seen coming from the #2 coop.
More than 100 firefighters from Kent and Cecil counties in Maryland as well as Delaware firefighters battled more than five hours to control. One Odessa firefighter was treated at Union Hospital in Elkton for a wrist injury and released.
Damage was estimated at $7 million, Bouch said.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Deputy State Fire Marshal Bruce Bouch said the 3-alarm fire at the ISE America egg processing plant at 605 Sassafras Road in Warwick, about a mile and a half from the Delaware line, destroyed about 220,000 chickens, each valued at $3.
The fire began at 7:20 p.m. Monday in the #2 chicken coop and quickly spread to two other 50-foot-by-530-foot coops before being brought under control by firefighters battling the flames and high wind conditions.
Bouch said the fire destroyed three coops and damaged a fourth chicken coop, which sustained heat damage.
Each coop was valued at $2 million.
The farm manager was alerted to the fire by a working high heat alarm system and called 911 when fire was seen coming from the #2 coop.
More than 100 firefighters from Kent and Cecil counties in Maryland as well as Delaware firefighters battled more than five hours to control. One Odessa firefighter was treated at Union Hospital in Elkton for a wrist injury and released.
Damage was estimated at $7 million, Bouch said.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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