New Haven Independent

Dr. Michael J. Darre, a professor at the University of Connecticut agriculture school extension offered lessons in the care and feeding of laying hens during the session at Edgewood School.

The program was the first class in the “Chickens 101” course often promised during the long campaign to allow city residents to raise up to six hens without the expensive and time-consuming process of zoning appeals. The Board of Aldermen passed it last month.

“My job is to get people to raise {chickens} and raise them properly, Darre said before his breezy two-hour lecture. The talk laid out a lot of information in easy bites, talking about breed selection, feeding, housing and protecting the birds from disease.

UConn staffers brought enough pamphlets, CDs, booklets, and even a coloring book to cover a table in the Edgewood auditorium. Darre brought a depth of knowledge and the skill to impart it, along with some startling statistics.

For instance: About five billion chickens are consumed in the U.S. each year, with one million hatched and dispatched each hour. There are about 330 million laying hens in the nation, with about four million of those in Connecticut, he said. Of those, 3.99 million belong to Moark, a division of Land O Lakes, he said.

Darre said each hen needs only about one and a half square feet of space. They like to be close together and a perfectly serviceable coop can be built on a wagon. He showed some coops, from cut-rate to condo to lavish. “For a half-dozen birds, you don’t need a major structure,” he said. He said hens need close company and showed pictures of coops with their doors wide open and chickens still inside.

Chickens do get sunstroke, need about twice their weight in water each day as food, and require protection from predators such as owls, coyotes and fisher cats, a particularly vicious breed of animals imported into the U.S. to prey on porcupines.

About food, he said simply, “Buy good commercial bagged feed at a feed store. He spent the next 20 minutes explaining about the nutritional needs of hens and how most if not all are met with a good commercial feed.

He also talked about the diseases that chickens are prone to contract, including rickets, crazy chick disease, curly toe paralysis and pale bird syndrome and how most are cured with a vitamin. For example, vitamin D3 will take care of rickets and crazy chick is caused by a lack of vitamin E.

Cleaning should be done regularly but not obsessively, he said. “Dry clean first, then wet clean, then disinfect,” he suggested.

Natalie Shonka of East Rock (pictured) said she is helping a friend raise hens. She learned a lot about chicken diseases, most of which are not transmitted to humans. Other diseases are prevented by washing hands after handling the birds or their leavings.

“It’s easy to find out about food and housing,” but delving into the diseases makes the whole enterprise seem less simple, she said.

Janis Underwood of Westville said she is interested in raising hens, but not right now. She is at foreground in the photo, sitting with UConn expert Elizabeth Hall.

“I have too much to do, but perhaps as a retirement project,” she said. She grew up in Maine; her family raised chickens for eggs and meat, she said.

Rebecca Weiner, the Westville resident who led the successful fight to legalize the keeping of hens in New Haven, said she wasn’t disappointed with the turnout. Only three members of the public attended.

“I take it on myself that we didn’t get enough publicity,” she said, promising to try again in the spring.