Pecks and the City
Fowl play or good eggs? Minneapolis poultry owners assert their flocks' right to roost.
By Rachel Hutton
Photo by Curtis Johnson
(page 2 of 3)
Nearby, Mary Britton Clouse has just introduced two rescued birds to the Nicollet Island flock. Ginger and Judi, sisters who have spent their lives confined to a basement, are experiencing their first taste of the outdoors. Britton Clouse cradles one of the twin golden birds in the crook of her elbow, fussing like a new mother. “When she gets over-tired she tends to darken a little here,” she says, pointing to the comb.
The thought of doting on a chicken may strike some people as odd and make others squeamish. Yet people dress their dogs in clothing, speak to them in baby talk, take them to shrinks, and name them heirs to their estates. Perhaps hugging a chicken isn’t really that strange.
While chicken owners say they enjoy the quality and freshness of the food their birds produce, the companionship aspect is undeniable. For just that reason, partners Jon Hering and Matt Vonk keep both a city and a country flock. “It’s so fun,” Vonk gushes. Hering says he loves the entertainment of the pecking order—“who’s doing what with whom.”
Inside the Kahns’ house, logs burn in the fireplace, the kitchen table is spread with potluck fare, and Phyllis stands at the stove, making latkes. The legislator is wearing her signature thick-rimmed glasses and has a flour handprint on the seat of her pants.
Willcütt chats with another guest. “How old are your girls?” he inquires—and he’s not asking about children.
Willcütt grew up outside New Prague and, in his youth, raised chickens, rabbits, and a pet goat. Currently a student at the University of Minnesota, he describes himself as an urban agrarian: equal parts hippie and hipster.
Curtis Johnson
A few years ago, Willcütt began co-teaching a community-education class titled “Chickens in the City” at Southwest High School in Minneapolis. Initially, he encountered some resistance. The first administrator he approached about the class told him that raising chickens in the city was illegal. (For the record, it is legal, as long as 80 percent of your neighbors within 100 feet say it is okay.) “She said, ‘Give me a call when avian flu is over,’ ” Willcütt recalls. (State animal health officials believe the risk of avian flu spreading from migratory birds to backyard flocks is limited.) Eventually, the class was accepted, and the three sessions he has taught have sold out. Willcütt estimates that he has encouraged dozens of individuals to start their own flocks, enough to cause Minneapolis Animal Control to run out of permit forms.
Most American chickens begin their lives in warm, humid warehouse incubators. At Murray McMurray Hatchery, in Webster City, Iowa, the favorite source for chicks among locals, roughly 100,000 chicks peck through their shells on a typical Friday afternoon. The baskets of tiny chicks, available in roughly 100 breeds, look less like birds than piles of multicolored cotton candy and the cheeping is nearly deafening. On Saturday morning, the chicks are packed into special postal boxes, trucked to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, and shipped via express mail (the plucky chicks can last three days without food and water).
Anxious customers who spent all winter studying McMurray’s full-color illustrated brochure (Willcütt calls it “a seed catalog of chickens”) pick up their peeping packages at the local post office. While adult birds can be acquired from friends, rescue organizations, agricultural supply shops, and even the Minnesota State Fair (many competitors sell their birds after judging), ordering chicks is, Hering says, “part of the adventure.”
The baby chicks are brooded indoors in a small, temperature-controlled space. A writer for Backyard Poultry who kept chicks in an aquarium in his living room says he and his wife loved watching the birds so much they called it “Redneck Television.” After a few weeks, the chicks can be moved to an outdoor coop, which, if properly insulated and heated, usually with just a light bulb, can be the chickens’ year-round home—even in Minnesota winters. Some owners build their own coops or modify a dog house or rabbit hutch while others purchase off-the-shelf products, such as the automated $1,300 Henspa or the more economically chic Eglu, a colorful plastic iMac-shaped pod made in the United Kingdom.
