We know everyone's been obsessing and overloading on turkey all weekend long, so we thought we'd change the subject.

Let's talk chickens.

"The chicken lady is running late!" Mary Marzano exclaimed last Monday night. The news set a small but intense gathering at this month's Green Drinks event at O'Reilly's clucking.

The informal presentation by Grace Grund, Montclair's resident chicken whisperer, generated a lot of anticipation from the small but powerful group of local decision-makers and earth-movers who had gathered. The local elite included Vice Mayor Kathy Leventhal, Deputy Mayor Fred Profeta, Committeeman Jerry Ryan, Health Officer Bob Roe and Mary Marzano—yes, she who has been on Oprah (due to her wonderful Green Recoverings program).

Soon Grund and her husband Curtis arrived and the gathering settled down to listen and then peck away (pardon the puns) with packs of questions.

Fred Profeta introduced Grund by noting that Maplewood currently disallows residents from keeping and raising chickens on their property. But Profeta said that the trend was pro-chicken (citing other towns such as West Orange, West Caldwell, Montclair, Belleville, Verona, Millburn, Livingston and Cedar Grove that allow backyard chickens in one form or another) and pointed out that chicken-raising was gaining more traction than ever due to the local food movement.

Grund then detailed the how, when, what, what and why of raising chickens in your backyard. Her manner was so relaxed, engaging, funny and charming and the process of chicken-rearing seemed all so delightful that it was hard to resist the urge to power up the computer and order an online coop and shipment of chicks on the spot.

Grund has been keeping chickens for eight years and has about 15 chickens at the moment (she started with three). But, she said, "I didn't start out thinking I wanted to live in the suburbs with chickens."

"I grew up in Singapore living with chickens," she explained, then detailed how she would go to the market with her grandmother to buy live chickens. Her grandmother would then take the chicken to the backyard to "process" it. "Being Chinese, we used just about all the parts."

Grund explained how in Montclair your coop must be 10 feet from your property line and 50 feet from any neighbor's door or window. Since she has 15 chickens she has a rather large coop and a  15' by 25' chicken run hard by the coop. There is eight feet of wire fencing around the run and coop.

"Chickens don't like to be wet and they don't like wind," said Grund. At twilight she said, they "hop back into the coop and we shut the coop up at night to keep them safe from predators." In Montclair, the major predator has been raccoons—not cats, not foxes, not coyotes.

Grund has an infrared light bulb in the coop to help keep the chickens warm. She said there was a range of chickens one could choose from depending on the size of bird and size and color of eggs one wanted, with the bantams being smaller and the standards being larger. "It's fun to have a variety," said Grund.

She said the maintenance was not hard. Her chickens get fresh bedding once a week and she cleans out the nesting spot daily, putting the nesting material into her compost. In the morning, Grund lets the chickens out into the run, fills up their water using the hose, gives them scraps to eat, "and that's it." Her four children—ranging from a 7th grader to 19 year old—and her husband participate in the chickens' care.

The chickens lay their eggs in the middle of the day. At twilight they march themselves back into the coop. "If I time it right, they're all lined up in the coops. If they hear you coming, they come out. 'What's mom brought us?'" Grund explained that if you make this tactical error, you then have to try to get them back in ("You don't want to chase a chicken!" said Grund, to much laughter).

Grund says there are about 20-24 families in Montclair that raise chickens, but that she has the most chickens by far. She even picks up a stray chicken here and there: "I am a chicken safe haven," she joked. "It's the chicken underground railroad." She noted that recently a Glen Ridge family left their chickens with her as they prepared to move to Montclair where it is legal to raise chickens in one's backyard.

Grund said that her neighbors have not complained, although two anonymous calls had been made to the police claiming she was selling the eggs for profit (Grund co-owns a co-op organic store where she works three days a week, but does not sell her eggs there). She advised that you talk to your neighbors before getting chickens—and be generous. Grund said her neighbors are very appreciative of all the fresh, free, delicious eggs she gives them. "We will never eat a store-bought egg again!"

Grund said that the average chicken lives 3 or 4 years and has two good laying years. A rooster is not necessary to get chickens to lay—which is good since they crow all day long and are the biggest potential nuisance to neighbors.

Except, of course, for the rats.

Rodents? "Yes, we have rats," said Grund, "and we have to control them. You can't keep the food out. Make sure that the mucking happens."

It's actually not the chickens that attract the rats, but the food scraps. Grund said that you can avoid this by buying chicken feed from a supplier, keeping it in a rubber container and putting it right in the coop. Grund also pointed out that she has 15 chickens; a household with 2 or 3 birds should not have this problem.

And that's a good thing. When the subject of rats came up, Health Officer Bob Roe said, "That's a deal breaker." But others in the audience noted that people all over Maplewood who compost are attracting rats and many of them have had to adjust their composting habits to avoid rats.

In the end, the group seemed undeterred in their enthusiam for chickens and coops, though better aware of the challenges involved in fostering the fowls.

"You need to be committed," said Marzano.