Susan Orlean: Backyard Chickens - "The It Bird"

The number of people growing vegetables in home or community gardens has increased tremendously in the last year or two.

Experiencing a similar renaissance is backyard chickening. (Chickening = birth of a word.) How else to explain the existence of Backyard Poultry magazine?

In this week’s issue (Sept. 28) of The New Yorker, the author Susan Orlean (“The Orchid Thief”) writes about her foray into raising chickens.

“Chickens seem to be a perfect convergence of the economic, environmental, gastronomic, and emotional matters of the moment, plus, in the past few years, they have undergone an image rehabilitation so astonishing that it should be studied by marketing consultants.”

Unfortunately, Orlean’s article, "The It Bird," isn’t available online, but a three-minute video of Orlean and her chickens is on The New Yorker site. Click here to watch.