Homer, Hei Hei, Winner, Winner (yes, there are two), Jerkface, and Birdie Sanders make their home in the “Egg Plant.”
Adorned with a sign reading “Laid in the USA,” the Egg Plant — housed in Julie Alkire’s backyard in Toledo’s South End and occupied by Mrs. Alkire’s six feathered friends, which she bought as chicks from Tractor Supply in the spring — is one of many back-yard chicken coops scattered throughout the Toledo area.
The outdoor birds, which typically lay eggs reliably for about two or three years and live eight to 10 years, have become trendy back-yard dwellers as Toledoans look beyond conventional pet choices.
A 2013 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed 13 million Americans owned back-yard fowl, with 4 percent more planning to do so in the next five years.
“Usually somebody’s chicken gets out on the [neighborhood] block watch page, then all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Oh my goodness everybody, the chicken’s out,’ “ said Liz Dickens, a self-identified “crazy chicken lady” who mothers six chickens in West Toledo. “’Oh, that’s so-and-so’s chicken!’ ‘Oh my God, they have chickens too?’ ‘Yeah, they have chickens too.’ ”
Local chicken owners often find each other and trade advice on social media, whether in their respective neighborhood Facebook groups or in the 369-member group “Toledo Area Backyard Chickens.”
Although a fun and lighthearted hobby on the surface, some local chicken owners warn that getting started can be pricey, and keeping the back-yard birds requires a great deal of responsibility and attention. Each of the four local chicken owners who spoke with The Blade said they had never owned chickens and did extensive online research before adopting.
Katy Masters, the owner of five chickens in the Old West End, had never met a chicken in real life before she adopted her first three hens two years ago. Mrs. Masters said she initially aimed to invest a maximum of $300 in her chickens, but ended up spending about $1,000 after predator-proofing the chickens’ living area and adjusting for the chickens’ destructive behavior.
“This has been just a slow, progressive streak as I figure out what I’ve done wrong and decide the best way to fix it, sometimes multiple times,” Mrs. Masters said. “If you want some advice, just do it right the first time.”
Traci Torres — the founder and CEO of Connecticut-based My Pet Chicken, a website that ships pet chickens to all 50 states (and which both Ms. Dickens and Toledoan Holly Monsos used to order their feathered friends) — said that when she adopted her first set of baby chicks from a large-scale hatchery, she was initially surprised at how easy it was to raise them. She was also puzzled by how decentralized the information about raising them was.
“How could they just send these in the mail not knowing if the person on the other end is going to care for them?” Ms. Torres said. “I thought, ‘We can do better.’ ... We want to help take some of the anxiety out of it for new chicken keepers.”
Now, My Pet Chicken, which Ms. Torres founded in the mid-2000s, offers free chicken-care guides and handbooks as well as more than 400 chicken health articles on its website. According to Ms. Torres, the company has more than 50 clients throughout Toledo’s 30-plus ZIP codes.
Costs can vary for those looking to start a flock of their own. Prices for chicks on My Pet Chicken range from $2.55 at the most affordable, all the way up to $54, with most breeds ringing in at $3 to $4 per chick. Coops, too, are another expense. On My Pet Chicken, there are options available from $339.95 all the way up to $1,399. But budget-minded newbies have sought options from Tractor Supply or used recycled pallets and scrap wood to build coops of their own.
While chicken owners’ initial reasons for adopting their pets varied — Mrs. Alkire wanted to help her grandchildren make happy memories as she had on her own grandparents’ farm — Mrs. Masters sought back-yard birds because her allergies prevented her from keeping indoor fowl. Ms. Dickens got them to contribute to her urban farm, and Ms. Monsos got hers because she believed urban chicken-keeping was “sort of out there in the zeitgeist.”
All agreed that the chickens have become like family, and they could not imagine life without them. Each chicken has its own personality, they say, and each back-yard flock has its own unique dynamic.
“My understanding from people who grew up having a whole bunch of chickens and had to face down a hundred chickens to try to get their eggs, is that they can be pretty frightening and intimidating … but when you have five, and they all look different and you name them, you do see their personalities more because you can visually tell them apart,” Ms. Monsos said. “We can always tell who the head chicken is at any time and when feathers start flying around, then we know that there’s a contest going on.”
Even beyond Toledo, that sentiment appears to hold. According to a My Pet Chicken customer poll, 95 percent name their chickens and the No. 1 reason they keep chickens is “just for the joy of it,” Ms. Torres said. Eggs come second.
“You have no idea how personable they are and how fun they are until you hang out with them,” Mrs. Masters said. “That makes you want to take good care of them, and it makes you want to put in the extra effort.”
But keeping chickens in residential areas is not legal everywhere. The city of Toledo’s Municipal Code allows residents to keep up to six pet hens in their backyards — roosters are not permissible — but must limit nuisances and prevent unsanitary conditions.
Several townships in Lucas County require chicken owners to reside on lots of at least one acre, and some northwestern Ohio cities, such as Oregon, do not typically allow chickens on non-agricultural lots, but have an appeals process in place that makes decisions on a case-by-case basis. In 2017, Perrysburg saw conflict on fowl regulation, which ended in six residents registering and microchipping their 34 hens already living in the city, while any unregistered hens were barred from most of the city going forward.
“I would encourage anybody who’s unhappy with their town regulations to make a fuss — and not just themselves, but their friends and their friends’ friends,” Ms. Torres, My Pet Chicken CEO, said. “Local government exists to serve the community, and if the community is telling them, ‘This is what we want,’ I think they’ll listen.”
First Published July 2, 2019, 10:00 a.m.
