North Jersey homeowners joining trend of raising chickens in the back yard
April 6, 2014, 10:56 PM Last updated: Monday, April 7, 2014, 6:47 AM
By LINDA MOSS
Staff Writer
The Record
Victor Alfieri doesn’t mind ruffling a few feathers when it comes to chickens. For years he passionately battled with officials in Wayne to win the right to keep egg-laying hens in his back yard.
Alfieri, a 43-year-old Dumont native, said that he and his wife, Michele, 39, were early advocates of the sustainability and urban homesteading movement in North Jersey. They decided to start growing their own food in 2006 at their Wayne home, and later began to keep hens to produce eggs.
“We were kind of in on the beginning of it in this particular area,” Alfieri said. “We kind of opened a lot of eyes.”
Health-conscious American consumers are increasingly crying foul about the antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides, herbicides, genetic engineering and the age of the fare they are eating. For people like Alfieri, who is known as The Chicken Man, the solution is to seize control and produce your own fruits and vegetables, and raise your own hens for all-natural, organic eggs.
