Chicken keeping in New York City?

Chicken trainer, Lily Kesselman, shows workshop participants how to build a chicken tractor.

Chicken Keeping Workshops Come to the Bronx

Chicken keeping in the city? While it started out as a bucolic activity a few years ago,  chicken keeping has evolved into a serious niche in the sustainable food and urban agriculture movement. “I think it’s because people want to know where their food comes from,” said Greg Anderson, Urban Agriculture Manager for Just Food.   

Just Food supports community run farmers markets and its City Chicken Institute has sponsored over 21 chicken coop building projects in community gardens and a few schools throughout the city. They also offer monthly workshops for individuals interested in chicken keeping at Imani Community Garden in Crown Heights Brooklyn and, starting this year, at Paradise on Earth Community Garden on Fox Street in the Bronx.

The organization also has a City Chicken Meetup group with over 800 members and has discussions on chicken care such as problems and illnesses, coop design and where to find food.

“People are finding out that the way commercial institutions produce food is counter to their own beliefs and value systems,” said Anderson. “They want a bit more control over their food which I think is very similar to the popularity of farmers markets and green markets now.  People want that connection to their food.”

The organization decided to add workshops at the Bronx location because of the growing numbers of people attending their Brooklyn workshops.  Anderson said people have come from New Jersey and Connecticut to not only be educated on chicken raising, but also learn how to change the city ordinances of where they live to keep chickens. In New York City chickens are classified as pets and it is legal to keep them.  But don’t think about getting the hens a male companion. Keeping roosters is illegal due to their crowing.

Lily Kesselman, led the recent workshop in the Bronx and has been conducting chicken training for the last two years. Kesselman learned urban agriculture and animal husbandry from Just Food’s Farm School.  She filed for a grant to build a coop in Brook Park Community  Garden and then built one in her backyard.

“Just like I don’t think you have to be a vet to have a pet, I don’t think you have to be a farmer necessarily to have chickens,” said Kesselman.  She said chickens bring many benefits to a community garden and backyard including aerating soil, pulling weeds and eating food scraps that would normally go into the trash.  “I just think having chickens is really do able, and the eggs are far superior than what you’d buy at a grocery store.”

There’s also the question of how to deal with a chicken when it reaches the end of its egg laying cycle. Anderson said his organization only advocates keeping chickens for their eggs.  “After they stop laying, we can help people find places to send the chickens to.” He noted there are several farm sanctuaries upstate, on Long Island and even a few in Manhattan. But Anderson understands that people have different views about eating the chickens.

“Some people understand that after the chicken stops laying and before old age sets in that they may cull that chicken and eat it.”  Culling is the process of slaughtering the chicken for food.  “Some people view it as humane and others view it as inhumane.  That’s something we leave up to the individual.”

Future chicken keepers also need to know about urban predators.  “A lot of people move to the city and think there are no more prey animals. They let their chickens run around in their yard and they see a hawk come down and grab a chicken. Or they don’t lock their chickens up at night in a safe place and they come back and a raccoon has killed off their chicken,” said Anderson.

Michael Masefield learned about chicken predators the hard way. A former Staten Islander, Masefield has lived in the Bronx for the last ten years and was drawn to chicken keeping because he wanted something less urban in his urban environment. He came to the Bronx workshop to learn how to build a chicken tractor which allows a chicken to free range while being protected. “My chicken got attacked in the yard by a hawk and I wanted to build something to protect them,” he said. 

“Anyone who is looking to become a chicken keeper, educate yourself about the different breeds and what type of things this chicken will need to have a comfortable life,” said Anderson.

Workshops are offered through October in Brooklyn’s Imani Community Garden in Crown Heights on the second Thursday of the month and on the last Wednesday of the month in Paradise on Earth Community Garden on Fox Street in the Bronx.