In the case of a new farming initiative at the Greenfield Community Garden, the primary conundrum isn’t the age-old question, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” rather, it’s who is taking care of the chickens and what’s being done with all of those eggs?
“The basic setup of the operation is a CSA model. I contributed the housing, the fencing, feeders and chickens and basic knowledge,” explained Martin Anderton of Greenfield, founder of Urban Livestock Consulting Service and the driving force behind a new egg share program at the Community Garden. “Each family gets one day a week where they (manage) the coop” — and take home the eggs.
The program was started a few months ago at the behest of Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener, of Temple Israel in Greenfield and a member of the Greenfield Community Garden. According to Cohen-Kiener, Anderton connected with the community garden after building a number of raised-bed gardens for the senior center, which is right next to the community gardens.
While working at the center, Anderton says he noticed the nearby plots and asked if members would be interested in trying chicken manure as a fertilizer. They agreed, and he built a coop for the garden, provided about 20 hens and held a series of workshops on caring for the birds.
“We did a one-month experiment where we rotated the chickens through the whole garden. The chickens cleaned out pests, scratched up soil, and dropped nitrogen-rich manure, which led to healthier soil,” Anderton said. “Everyone loved the chickens being there so much that we decided to continue a concept of it into the summer.”
Based on the initial success, Cohen-Kiener said they came up with a more permanent program.
“It was so easy to do and so rewarding that we decided to set it up this year as an ‘egg share,’” Cohen-Kiener said.
For Greenfield resident Lydia Taggert and her family — husband, Eben Taggert, and sons, Asa, 12, Hugo, 10 — that means biking over to the gardens a few times every Thursday to check in on the chickens. They are one of the seven residences that are a part of the program.
“We go in the morning to let them out of the coop and refill their food, their water, put some fresh straw down and check for eggs, and we go again at night to put them to bed,” Taggert said. “We usually check in on them as well. … The kids like to ride their bikes over and say ‘hi.’”
On average, Taggert, who is a teacher at Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion School in Hadley, estimated they take home about nine eggs every week. And while joining the egg share program comes at a cost (around $80 per member, a price point that Anderton anticipates will decrease as time goes on), Taggert says her family gets a lot more out of the program than just eggs.
“My kids were really interested in learning about taking care of chickens — my one son wanted a chicken as a pet,” she said. “We saw it as a perfect opportunity to try it out and not have them in our yard, and take care of them every day.”
Building on the success of the Community Garden’s program, Anderton, who acts as a facilitator and helps members care for the chickens, says he’s looking to start new co-ops elsewhere in the region.
To that end, there are potential egg shares being formed on Deerfield and School streets in Greenfield. He’s also looking for chicken owners who might want to donate birds to the endeavor, and he’s actively seeking proposals for other locations. Notably, each coop requires a space where it can stay and enough interested neighbors to keep the hens healthy.
“We’re very interested in finding other people who would like to have one set up in their area,” Anderton said. “We would need to identify enough families to make it feasible and a space to make it feasible — that space could be privately owned or publicly owned, Either way, we would have to get clearance. Every project is going to be a little bit different, based on the needs of the individuals. Ideally, we will be able to set up a replicable model.”
Like Taggert, Anderton and Cohen-Kiener view the endeavor as more than a way to source local eggs. It’s a way to connect the community directly to the food chain in a sustainable way that’s also good for the local environment.
Caring for chickens “is such a life-affirming activity, very captivating for the children,” Cohen-Kiener said, noting there are two families and three single women who care for the Greenfield fowl. “The reason I’m excited that there are young families (involved) is because it’s become a part of their day — it’s a part of their carona (routine).”
Anderton grew up in Maryland, on the Delmarva Peninsula, a section of the East Coast that at the time housed 50 percent of the nation’s commercial chickens. Having worked for farmers indirectly on commercial chicken farms, Anderton says the egg share initiative is an act of environmental activism.
“Growing up, I saw chickens being abused, I saw waste from those chicken farms washing straight into large waterways, rivers, bays,” Anderton said. “I saw the impact that those commercial operations had on the environment, on people, on animals. It was miserable. Chickens don’t deserve that, people don’t deserve that, the environment doesn’t deserve that.”
Additionally, Anderton noted the coops can be moved from one place to another to replenish soil, supporting crops while simultaneously creating new opportunities for those in the local agricultural industry.
“There become more opportunities for people to, say, start a hatchery or produce more locally produced grain for feeding chickens. Once the chickens are past their maturity, they can be turned into other sources of food, such as chicken soup or stock, which can be sold or given to food pantries,” Anderton said. “This isn’t just about producing eggs. This is about creating a more sustainable way of life.”
Andy Castillo can be reached at acastillo@recorder.com.
For those who are interested in either joining a co-op or forming a new one, Anderton can be reached by phone at 413-325-1586 or email, good. homesteadhabitatsma@gmail.com. His website is homesteadhabitatsma.com
“We are looking for folks interested in donating healthy young laying hens to build more flocks,” Anderton said. “For instance, someone who has chickens but has decided they can’t care for them can donate them to one of our flocks, get a membership and still be able to care for, spend time with and get eggs from their hens while getting help and support from the community in the daily management.”