DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 6:53 p.m. January 26, 2009
The ‘Chicken Whisperer’ of Johns Creek
Andy Schneider raises poultry, helps others do the same
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, January 26, 2009
Andy and Jennifer Schneider’s yellow ranch-style house looks like any other you might expect in John’s Creek: The grass is neatly clipped and flower beds are groomed. An American flag even hangs in front.
But walk inside the immaculate home and you’ll likely hear a sound more befitting a barnyard than suburbia. A cacophony of peeps. A chorus of chirps. A choir of chicks.
Phil Skinner/AJC STAFF
Andy Schneider, known as the Chicken Whisperer, tends to his hatchlings in Johns Creek.
Phil Skinner/AJC STAFF
Schneider puts a baby chick to sleep with his gentle touch.
• Audio slideshow: Schneider talks about chickens
KEEPING CHICKENS (ABRIDGED VERSION)
Joys:
• Steady supply of fresh eggs.
• Better compost due to their nitrogen-rich waste.
• Chicken tricks, such as teaching them to "fly" to your arm for a treat.
• Fun, self-sustaining backyard activity with family.
Challenges:
• House-training; luckily, chicken diapers are available.
• Warding off predators.
• Navigating local ordinances about chicken ownership.
• Noisy roosters. Thankfully, one doesn't need roosters for hens to lay.
Pets stories
- Back to AJCPETS
- Find Atlanta volunteer opportunities for pet lovers.
On this day, Andy Schneider — self-dubbed “the Chicken Whisperer” — has returned from the post office with two cardboard boxes carrying 125 newborn chicks. Seventy are already promised to Atlanta residents through the Schneiders’ company Atlanta Pet Chickens, just one sign that clucking is increasingly spoken in the city. One by one, he takes the flocks of creamy Buff Orpingtons, black Barred Rocks, Silver Laced Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds and striped Ameraucanas and dips their beaks into water and seed to introduce them to their new home, a brooder he’s built with a Rubbermaid plastic bin. The chicks he doesn’t sell will stay there for six weeks before joining the mid-size chickens he keeps in a 12-foot-by-6-foot straw-bottomed brooder in his garage.
Due to his MeetUp.org group, many Atlantans know Schneider as their go-to-guy to get in the “game,” even if the game is played, er, raised in an urban backyard, garage or deck. He created the online Atlanta Pet Chicken Meetup Group to find others who share his plucky passion; membership has grown to 284 members in less than nine months, he said.
“He gets questions daily, probably five an hour,” Jennifer Schneider said. “We call it the chicken hotline.”
The Chicken Whisperer, 39, got his start peddling pet poultry about five years ago when on a whim, he purchased some chicks as a gift to his wife. He had raised poultry before, but this time, wanted them for fresh eggs.
About a year ago, he placed an ad on Craigslist.org to sell a few chicks. The calls came pouring in, but not from Farmer Joes.
“The majority of people pulling in my driveway were soccer moms with minivans,” said Schneider. “I knew something was going on.”
It might be a chicken revolution. Oakhurst Community Garden director Stephanie Van Parys said that just two years ago, the Decatur garden couldn’t fill a single “Chicks in the City” class on raising backyard chickens, but now offers four a year with long wait-lists. Meanwhile, Atlanta’s Craigslist.org site currently boasts nearly 100 ads for all things chicken.
Jenna Eddy-Loving credits the Chicken Whisperer for helping her family start a backyard brood at their Alpharetta home. More importantly, he encouraged the stay-at-home mother to try again when her first half-dozen baby chicks died from too much, well, loving.
“I kind of overdid it with the heat lamp in an attempt to keep them from getting cold,” she confided. “He definitely talked me down from a ledge on that one. He’s so helpful and patient with people who are looking to learn.”
Schneider and other chicken enthusiasts use the Meetup Group as a forum for sharing advice, such as how to build a brooder for under $50, and ways to deter predators. He also advertises upcoming events like his Chickenstock and Eggtober Fest.
Most importantly, he helps chicken owners navigate local chicken ordinances. Cities such as Atlanta, Decatur and East Point allow people to raise up to 25 backyard chickens within certain space parameters. (Many counties and municipalities require 2 or more acres to house livestock.)
“It’s an absolute lack of understanding from all sorts,” he said of governments that ban backyard flocks for city-dwellers and suburbanites. “A lot of people have images of rural chicken farms that have hundreds of thousands chickens. They think whether it’s six chickens or 600,000, they’re going to stink and be loud.”
Schneider says that chickens are like any animal; if the owner doesn’t regularly clean the pen from waste, an odor and unsightly appearance are inevitable.
While he keeps his legally, he claims he had his chickens for nearly two years before neighbors knew. The Schneiders raise about 30 chickens, such as Isa Browns and pint-size Seramas in backyard coops. Because he’s raised them since birth, many of them gather eagerly at his feet. Now, he brings noisy roosters indoors at night and shares fresh eggs with neighbors to keep the peace.
Schneider, who with his wife, a teacher, also sells incubators and fertilized eggs to schools, believes the “chicken movement” is fueled by a number of reasons. For one, more people are interested in “going green” and use the chicken waste for compost, and view chickens as helping them become more self-sufficient. Others still like to know the source of their food and that it can be chemical- and hormone-free. And some simply keep fluffy varieties such as Silkies as unusual pets, he explained.
For now, helping people with hens is merely a hobby; the former emergency medical technician sells defibrillators as his real job.
But that could change, he said, once the chicken revolution goes mainstream.
“All it’s going to take is Paris Hilton showing up on ‘Extra’ with a Silkie, and the bubble is going to fly away.”
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