PHILADELPHIA — Gwenne Baile, the mother hen of South Jersey’s thriving backyard chicken scene, knows her flock by more than just their names.
“Sandie, extra large brown eggs; Nellie, pale beigey-pink; Susie, baby blue; Emmie, slight greenish-blue; and Lizzie … same as Nellie,” Baile said, describing the rainbow of egg hues her pets-with-benefits regularly produce.
As for Iris, who’s 5 1/2: “She doesn’t lay eggs any more. We call that ‘hen-a-pause.’ But she’s still a very valued member of the flock,” said Baile — who isn’t called The Chicken Lady for nothing.
A 71-year-old retired nurse and midwife, Baile lives in Haddon Township with her husband, Ron, a retired technician, and their six hens.
Baile and her Camden County Chickens group have helped residents of the township and a dozen other South Jersey suburbs successfully organize campaigns for backyard hens. Thanks largely to Baile’s efforts, about 150 households in Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties now have hens; no noisy, randy roosters are allowed.
“Gwenne was my mentor,” said Emily Morgan, who attended one of Baile’s Raising Backyard Chickens in the Suburbs classes and led the grassroots campaign to implement a program in Voorhees. “Gwenne is passionate and knowledgeable, and I think it brings her great joy to teach other people how to raise chickens. We couldn’t have done it without her.”
Jaclyn Ricci called Baile “a driving force behind us getting chickens in Merchantville.” And Katherine Blinn, a lawyer who named her hens after female Supreme Court justices, said Baile showed residents and officials in densely populated Mount Ephraim that chickens could be good neighbors.
“A lot of people for some reason have the idea backyard chickens are like a large-scale poultry farm or something,” Blinn said. “A small group of hens in the backyard couldn’t be more the opposite of that. And it’s nice to be able to share fresh eggs with other people.”
Baile said the idea to explore the feasibility of backyard chickens in Haddon Township “popped into my head” during a local Green Team meeting in 2010. An online curriculum and certification program, Chickens + You, offered by a nonprofit educational organization called the Gossamer Foundation, has proven to be rigorous and invaluable, she added.
Long a feature of life in rural and small-town America, backyard chickens have become more common in other parts of the country in the last 10 to 15 years. Public interest in sustainable living and locally sourced food have helped make the notion of chickens in the suburbs seem less outlandish and more feasible.
Meanwhile, online resources such as BackYardChickens.com promote having a flock of one’s own as a form of stylish fun for the whole family.
“I’m working with people up and down the state of New Jersey now,” said Baile, noting that public education encourages backyard chicken policies that protect the interests of all. She also emphasizes that a commitment from individuals, and communities, is needed for backyard chickens to work.
