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Clucks in the yard

Farmer-friendly laws make it easy to raise chickens in Stowe village

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Step into Rebecca Chase’s backyard and it’s easy to forget you’re in Stowe village.

Greeting you is a brood of laying hens, happily clucking and pecking for worms. There are shiny black hens, brown ones dappled with white spots, hens with a mix of russet and mallard green feathers, and a lone white one.

When they’re not roaming about, they’re usually nesting in a custom-built henhouse where they lay 12 to 15 eggs each day. Most weeks, Chase sells about four dozen to her neighbors.

She distinguishes them by stamping them “QB,” for Queen Bee Eggs.

The brood provides more than food. Chicken droppings can be composted along with food scraps and grass clippings, and the birds love to feast on insects, providing natural pest control.

Her village homestead also includes a bountiful vegetable garden.

After taking a $10 course on how to build a raised garden bed, she built six. She raises kale, tomatoes, strawberries, onions, asparagus, peppers, sweet peas, herbs and other produce.

Chase grew up in Norwich, Vt., where she says she didn’t have a garden and never got her hands dirty. She focused on European studies and art in college, became an event planner, and lived in Paris and New York City before marrying Rob Foregger and moving to Stowe about four years ago.

Inspiration for the chickens came to her one day as she stood in her historic Pleasant Street home and gazed out toward the large backyard.

“When I first moved in, I thought, ‘I’ve been living in New York City, piled in like a bug. What can I raise?’ Like a lightbulb, I thought: Chickens!” Chase said.

Chase has plenty of company, and Vermont’s laws make it easy for backyard farmers.

Stowe, like most Vermont municipalities, has no zoning or health regulations about backyard chickens, according to Planning Director Tom Jackman.

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets doesn’t have specific limits on the number of hens that an individual can raise in an urban or suburban area, says Stephanie Smith, the agency’s chief policy enforcement officer.

Plenty of planning

True to her background as a planner, Chase spent two years researching backyard chicken farming before buying her hens late last summer.

It took her months to build an 8-by-10-foot henhouse that resembles a small barn; it was her first-ever construction project. She watched a 15-part YouTube series about construction and tackled the henhouse in stages, from digging the foundation to building a roof.

The flooring and walls are made from reclaimed wood and Chase repurposed old doors for the entrance. The result is a rustic-chic henhouse fit for the most discerning chickens.

Inside, the henhouse is spotless, with four nesting boxes and lots of fresh wood shavings. Chase controls the doors and lights with a cellphone app. A video camera she refers to as “my peep show” allows her to check on the chickens from inside her home.

“They are my charges,” Chase said. “I want to nurture them and make them happy.”

Chase focused on breeds that can withstand cold weather: Barred Rocks, the oldest American breed; Black Star, a breed known for its gold hackle and chest feathers; Australorps, a popular breed because of its prolific egg-laying; and Americana, a breed that lays bluish-green eggs.

She has named each of her 15 hens.

The Barred Rocks are named after famous women in history — Betsy Ross, Martha Washington and Sacagawea, among others. The Americanas are named after well-known Latinas; the Australorps have Austrian-inspired names.

Despite old expressions such as “pecking order” and “henpecked,” Chase hasn’t seen any leaders emerge among her chickens.

“They’re actually quite nice to each other,” she said.

She doesn’t have a rooster — necessary for fertilizing the eggs and breeding more hens — “because my neighbors like me and I want to keep it that way.”

When they’re not laying or sleeping, the hens can be found in the backyard pasture. Chase has built a portable wire enclosure that she moves every few days so the chickens always have fresh grass to nibble on along with plenty of bugs.

“They love everything creepy and crawly,” she said.

Raising hens in town offers certain benefits. For instance, while Chase once had to fend off a skunk with a kitchen knife, predators are less likely to invade the coop than if it were located in the country.

“It helps being surrounded by dogs,” Chase said.

It costs Chase about $50 a month for an organic feed mix of seeds and corn, which she supplements with apple slices and other treats. Add to that the cost of heating the henhouse in the winter and electricity, and she spends more than she makes selling eggs to her neighbors.

But Chase says the venture isn’t about making a profit; it’s about knowing where her food comes from and sharing the bounty with her community.

“It’s not about selling them,” Chase said. “It’s about sharing them.”

While living in New York City, Chase got food poisoning several times and attributes the illness to the number of people who came in contact with the food she ate.

Raising chickens and growing produce reassures her that the food she eats is safe.

It’s also healthier, according to some studies comparing eggs from free-range chickens to those from chickens raised on large-scale factory farms where birds are kept indoors in cages.

Eggs from chickens allowed to forage naturally have, on average, seven times more beta carotene, three times more vitamin E, two times more omega-3 fatty acids and two-thirds more vitamin A than factory farm birds, according to a study published by motherearthnews.com.

On a culinary level, while taste tests have been inconclusive as to whether free-range eggs taste better than the rest, their yolks stand higher and tend to be brighter in color.

“They range from bright orange to pale yellow, like the colors of the sun,” Chase said.

She believes her eggs are of high quality, in part, because her hens are well cared for and live stress-free lives.

“Happy is happy,” Chase said. “I put some stock in that.”

The chickens make Chase happy, too.

“Every morning it’s a pleasure to scoop under a hen’s warm body and have her give herself to me,” Chase said. “What could be more pleasurable?”

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