Chickens on the lam

Monique Watts decided to get chickens for her Buffalo backyard when she ate fresh eggs at a friend’s home in New Mexico. “The mental factor of sitting among chickens is amazing,” she says. “It brings you into a completely different world of sound and movement and texture.” Last July, she bought five hens and custom-built a coop for them in her West Side backyard, but not before doing a lot of research. She looked up city law, found it was legal, and went ahead with her plans. But what she had found online was an outdated document. Due to an amendment in 2004, it’s unlawful to have fowl in Buffalo.

Last Saturday, an animal control officer knocked on her door, prompted by an anonymous 911 call. He gave her 24 hours to get rid of the chickens and Watts promptly moved them to a safe, undisclosed location. Since then, Watts and her husband, Blair Woods, have been busy. Both have a history of getting things done on the West Side: Among many other projects, they are founders of Urban Roots Community Garden Center, which has transformed their neighborhood. “It just seemed so natural for a gardener to have chickens,” Watts says.

Watts has now formed what she calls a “chicken task force.” She has already spoken with Niagara Councilmember David Rivera and others officials in City Hall, and is compiling some information to present to the Common Council to urge the Council to lift the ban. After a petition is delivered to the Council and the necessary public forum has been held, it may be a couple months before the ban could be lifted. “I strongly feel that I’ve made enough noise that people will think twice,” Watts says.

Locavores are increasingly looking for new and better ways to get their food as fresh and locally as possible; urban chicken farming may be one solution for Buffalonians. Chicken manure is excellent fertilizer for garden soil and chickens eat pest insects—not to mention the fresh eggs, which are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. An owner can manipulate the egg’s nutrients by controlling what it feeds the hens. Watts says she was getting four or five eggs a day at peak laying season.

The New York Times, Newsweek, and Slate have all run trend stories about urban chicken farming in the past two years. A magazine called Backyard Poultry was founded in 2006 to appeal to the urban chicken farming market. It’s a growing trend in many cities, including New York City, where backyard chickens is legal. In Madison, Wisconsin, a grassroots group called the Chicken Underground petitioned and overturned a city ban on backyard chickens in 2004. The movement is gaining steam .and Watts hopes it will extend to Buffalo.

Both Watts and Michael Murphy, an animal control officer for the city, admit there are more chickens in Buffalo than one might imagine. “It’s more than you would think, in places that you would be surprised,” Watts says.

Murphy says the 2004 amendment was made to outlaw cockfighting in the city. “I try to be as pleasant as possible with the constituents because they almost treat the chickens like pets,” Murphy. “A lot of times they get really attached.”

Watts is no eccentric; she’s an urban cheerleader and fierce defender of her Rhode Island Street neighborhood. She acquired the chickens to improve her lifestyle and is grateful that lawmakers are willing to reopen the discussion. “I know we’re not on a farm, we’re in a city,” she says. “You do it to scale.”

—ellen przepasniak