NYC NOW - Why More City Dwellers Are Raising Chickens

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

Keeping chickens in city backyards is becoming more popular. WNYC’s Morning Edition producer Verónica Del Valle visits a Jersey City backyard farm to see what urban chicken keeping actually looks like and the rules to know before starting a flock of your own. Got any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail] cred: Verónica Del Valle/WNYCMayor Mamdani releases 170K documents related to post-9/11 air quality New renderings of the MTA's IBX project serving Brooklyn, Queens are out  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jene Pierre. We started out with three chickens, and one night we came to put the chickens to bed and somebody had thrown this duck over the fence. A lot more people in our area are raising chickens in their backyards. On today's show, we visit a home-turned farm in Jersey City to see what urban chickenkeeping looks like.

But before we get into that, here's a few headlines. that have our attention. The Mumdani administration released documents this week, suggesting that city leaders misled the public about the safety of the air quality in lower Manhattan following the 9-11 attacks. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani hasn't responded to the report, but one of his staffers posted on social media

that the EPA said the air was safe. In the years since the 9-11 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people, nearly three times more people have died from health complications in the aftermath of the attacks. The EPA has not responded to request for comment. We all can appreciate having something to look forward to, right? Well, for leaders of the MTA, that something is the Inner Borough Express, better known as the IBX project. There's no timeline for when the project will be done, but the MTA shared new renderings to show how stations will look on the future

rail line between Brooklyn and Queens. Apparently there will be 18 different stations connecting to 17 subway lines, and every station will be fully accessible for commuters. You can check out the renderings for yourself and read more about the IVX project at our news site, Gothamas. Oh, and one more thing. Broadway Week is currently underway. From now until September 20th, theater goers can get two-for-one tickets to participating shows like the Book of Mormon, Wicked, or Hades Town. There are about 20 other shows to choose from, so grab the deal while you can. All righty. Why did the chicken cross the road? To listen to this podcast, of course, let's jump into the show. Think about the sounds of New York City. You may think of the nonstop

traffic, right? That guy leaning on his horn, the trains, the sirens, or even that ice cream truck jingle that gets on everyone's nerves this time of year. But I'm sure for most of us, a chicken squawking? That definitely is a chicken squawking. That definitely is a the first thing that comes to mind. However, keeping foul in a city backyard is becoming more popular these days. And once you start thinking about what that actually means, the questions they really pile up. Like, how does a backyard with a few chickens turn into a farm? What happens when the birds wander? And what rules do you have to follow? WMYC's morning edition producer Veronica Del Valle wanted to see what urban chicken keeping actually looks like up close. Hey, Veronica, welcome to the show.

Hi, Janay. How'd you get into a story like this anyway? So my team and I were talking about 2025 when egg prices kind of went crazy during the bird flu outbreak. And a lot of people were just casually talking about getting their own chicken from home. And it seems like the data really lines up with that. The number of people raising chickens, according to the federal government, is on the rise. There are more farms that count as small providers. Those are places with less than 50,000 chickens than there are the big guys with 50,000 or more.

And once again, that's just everyone who has their chicken registered with the federal government. And of course, all of that doesn't account for everyone who has not registered their chicken with the literal federal government. And so people skipped the grocery store and headed straight to the coop when it came to getting their eggs. Absolutely. In fact, one of our colleagues was actually sharing eggs with a lot of the staff here when egg prices went through the roof. I'm mad I didn't get in on that. So, Veronica, I understand that you hit the street. to find out what this actually looks like. So I crossed the Hudson River

and headed to the corner of Ogden Avenue and Ferry Street in Jersey City Heights. And there I met a lovely woman named Cheryl Parkone. Hi, Shirley. Yep, Veronica. Take a tour first. Yeah, let's do that. And then we can do questions.

And in her backyard, for more than a decade, she has been running urban quack farm. Quack farm is crazy. Urban quack farm. You know, you see her lovely little house, the blue front door, chili peppers, cucumbers going around the side, you kind of walk around the corner and then there is suddenly so much going on on there. Can you name every animal on this farm? Like, can you do it off the top of your head? You mean every breed or every animal?

Every animal, every individual guy. Okay, so I have at least 30 or so chickens, different breeds. Some of the breeds are Polish, Rhode Island Reds, Black Copper Morans, Buff Orpington's. I have a call duck. That's a special little duck there that you see. I have six ducks. There are plants. There are rabbits. And then there's a hive with 60,000 bees, four dogs, three cats, and a fish.

Wow. The dogs are used to the chickens. And it's good because, you know, some people have seen hawks. And hawks attack chickens. But when they hear our dogs barking, they don't come by. So I've never had an issue with hawks. Can you tell me a bit more about the space? So it's deceptively large, not in terms of space, but in terms of how she's organized her life around it.

It is impressive how much she's managed to fit in there between the coop and the little shed for the rabbits, the pond, the fenced off garden, the beehive in the corner. It is kind of your standard city lot, but with a whole lot in it. So how does Cheryl go from a few birds to all of that? So Cheryl told me that she just started farming as a way to teach her kids about kind of the fundamentals of agriculture. She grew up on a farm. She wanted her kids to have a similar experience. For my children who were around seven or eight years old, I wanted them to teach them where chickens and eggs and such came from. And my partner said, why don't we incubate some eggs?

So we got a dozen fertilized eggs from Wyckoff, which is a gopheal farm. and we incubated them. My kids turned them twice a day until they hatched, and 23 days later, they started hatching. And according to her, it very quickly spiraled out of control. We started out with three chickens, and one night we came to put the chickens to bed, and somebody had thrown this duck over the fence.

So you're telling me that ducks just ended up on this lady's front porch? Ducks just ended up on this lady's front porch. She very quickly became known as the chicken lady. Word spreads. Wow. So do the animals actually like live back there? They live back there. They stay back there.

But sometimes they disobey a little. Cheryl told me she has a bunch of like little teenage chickens. And they jump the fence. They like run away. Sometimes her neighbors show up and they're like, hey, Cheryl, chicken. But a few neighbors that are familiar with the farm, and they heard them for me. I said, just open the gate and they'll run in. And they open the gate and they run back in.

The neighbors and the chickens, it's all like one big community now. In the middle of Jersey City. In the middle of Jersey City. And I think it's so cute that she calls them her little teenagers. Did you pick up on any teenage behavior when you were there? You know, I did meet this chicken who was part teenager, part over. protective mother. This is cinnamon. See, she likes to be pet. Again, all chickens have different personnel. She's okay with being pet. She's a Rhode Island red, but she's,

she looks like she's trying to find a place to lay her egg. And I have to tell you, about half an hour after the biggest egg I've ever seen in my entire life. Whoa. Like a small fist. Look how big that egg is. That is a huge egg. It's big and brown. Yeah. And sometimes Those are double yokers. Oh, my goodness. Now I need cinnamon to do that 11 more times. And she does. She is a type of bird that is a particularly hardy breeder.

She is laying eggs all through the winter. We've been talking with WMYC's Morning Edition producer, Veronica Del Valle, about what it actually looks like to raise chickens in a city backyard. Cheryl Parkhone started her farm as a way to teach her own children about agriculture. But that was 15 years ago. Her kids are grown now. After the break, what a new generation of city kids is learning there

and what you need to know if you're thinking about raising chickens yourself. This is NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. We're talking with WNYC's Morning Edition producer Veronica Del Valle about raising chickens in a city backyard. Cheryl started the farm for her own kids, but they're grown now. Veronica, what did the farm become after Cheryl was done raising her kids? So Cheryl told me firsthand that having a farm isn't just, about having a farm. It's also about being a pillar of the community. It's something she saw from her dad when she was a little girl who was kind of a doctor in this rural tiny town in the Midwest.

And her way of doing that is by teaching agriculture to kids in Hudson County. Shirl helped found the Hudson County 4H, which is kind of a local volunteering organization. I remember 4H. Yeah. You associate it with like rural parts of the country, but there is one right across the river. And a lot of those kids come and help on the farm. She sees it as like a continuation of the work she used to do with her kids. Now my kids are, you know, grown 22 years old, 23 years old. So, you know, I'm hoping that it can transcend down to generations because now I'm teaching these teens that come, volunteer their time,

to learn the same thing. This has become so much more, I'm sure, than she ever expected. what's her main goal with this? I think Cheryl really wants these young people to experience farm life. And now she's teaching these new kids who have very little experience how to do it all by themselves. What I want to make a mark of is being here, showing city kids or even people how to be educated. I just want to show them that it's okay to be able to self-sourcing stuff, right? being able to take kitchen scraps and give them to your chickens because they eat all the scraps

are nature's garbage disposals and being able to use just the remnants of vegetables and put it in your garden and use that for compost for fertilizer. I mean, it really brings back full circle, you know, how you can build your own ecosystem in a very small space. And I'm hoping that the young kids will learn that as well. And she says it's all kind of intersected. The food scraps, come from the plants, the plants feed the animals. The plants also are pollinated by the 60,000 bees that she has in the hive. It all works together. And she really wants to emphasize that. She taught them how to pick up bales of hay, how to hold a pitch for correctly, and how to be a better part of the larger food system. Wow, the bail of hay lesson. That's one. I guess I should

take a class in. I did not know. She asked me if I knew how to pick up a bail of hay and I was like with your knees, like a box? Yeah. It is not that. Well, do you know now? You have to pick it up by the strings, which I'm from New Jersey. I never knew that before. Well, Cheryl's in New Jersey.

I know. I know. What's your excuse, Veronica? There was no 4-H when I was a teenager. I'm listening to all of this, and as cool as Cheryl's farm sounds, Veronica, I live in bedstide. And I have to be honest with you, I sit on my belly. And instead of the great company of the person with me, I also have the, I won't say great company of a few chickens in my neighbor's yard and a rooster. Well, Janay, I have great news for you. Roosters are actually illegal in New York City.

Okay, let's get to that because let's say somebody listening does hear all of this and thinks, you know, I have a back, y'all. I have a little yard space. Maybe I can get a few chickens, you know, legally. Key word there. Legally, chickens. Yes. What does Cheryl say they need to know before they do all of that? Honestly, Cheryl's biggest piece of advice is that people need to have all the information necessary before they get the chickens.

Do your research. Check your laws. And don't get too many because you can always grow in. into more. Jersey City, where Cheryl lives, they say no more than 50 chickens, ducks or other poultry, that includes pigeons. Be careful. 50 sounds like a lot.

Definitely. You need a license from Jersey City to get any birds, and you have to keep them within 25 feet of a coop like Cheryl does, you know. The birds are restricted to the area around her backyard. You also don't want to create any health hazards with that coop, which is kind of why there are really, really specific requirements for what the coop. looks like. Speaking of health hazards, I know those were the rules for Jersey.

Let's go to New York City. New York City is pretty strict. Hens are permitted. Roosters are not. Say it again. Roosters are not permitted. And just in case my neighbor doesn't hear this, what should I do when I hear that rooster? Call 311.

So you just can't create a public health nuisance when it comes to having chickens, and you have to meet the city's health code. You have broken down a lot from me, Veronica, and I have, I didn't know that I was going to walk into this. I didn't know that this would hit home for me like it did, but thank you. When I think about these small urban chicken farms in New York City, all right, yes, you mentioned Cheryl's been doing this since 2012, but for people doing it now, I get it. We talked about the spike and egg prices, but what is Cheryl getting out of it still?

I think she's just taking it day by day and it really adds some value to her life. She put it this way. It gives you a project, something to look forward to, you know, every day. And it's not just the grind of the city, but it's nice to have a little piece of country, you know, when you're living in the city. That is certainly a perspective. Maybe not yours. That's WMYC's Veronica Del Valle, and she seems to know me. Thank you so much, Veronica.

Thank you for having me. And thank you for listening to NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. See you next time.