It’s a common misconception that roosters — which are not allowed under local law — are necessary for chickens to lay eggs. The average life span of a chicken is between five and seven years, and hens produce eggs for two to three years. Brinkmann said it only takes a few hens to provide enough eggs for an entire family. “Especially people with kids — it teaches people about the connection between the planet and food,” he said. “It’s often a thing that parents want to do with their children to teach them about nature, to teach them about food production, to teach them about animals and environmental effects.”

Brinkmann said that most chicken products consumed by Long Islanders are imported from other regions, which brings transportation costs and increases the carbon footprint of the process. “Plus, in order to keep that food fresh, we often have to treat the food in ways that we would not normally treat food,” he said. “A lot of the food we eat now is irradiated or it gets preserved in some way that is really not the best thing.”

A “backyard chicken movement” has been growing rapidly in recent years, Brinkmann said. “It’s a very common thing in many places today to allow backyard chickens, and it would be nice to see Long Island have more opportunities to raise chickens in their backyard.”

The three townships in Nassau County forbid chicken ownership, but there are two exceptions. If it can be proven that a particular property in the Town of Hempstead was a registered eggery before 1930, when the ban was enacted, the property owner would be allowed chickens. In the Town of Oyster Bay, residents can apply to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a special-use variance to keep chickens. Representatives from each township were unable to provide details about how many properties might fall into those allowable categories.