It’s a cock-a-doodle-brouhaha.
Residents on Long Island’s North Fork are Kentucky-fried mad about a plan to build a farm with 6,000 chickens in a residential neighborhood.
Locals in Southold are asking town officials to block the proposed egg farm on Ackerly Pond Lane, saying the stench and noise from the birds would cluck up the serenity of the area and force long-time residents to fly the coop.
“I hope this doesn’t get approved, I’ll move if it comes to it,” one immediate neighbor, Chris, told The Post on Monday.
“The smell is my main concern,” the 28-year old said. “I mean how can we even go outside and chill, or barbecue in the summer if that smell is constantly in the air?”
Other issues ruffling feathers include early morning crowing from the birds, which could attract flies and other pests — and potentially even affect groundwater by the amount of feces at the site close to other homes, residents said.
“When you have 6,000 chickens, you’re going to have a pile of manure that’s going to attract rats, mice and flies,” John Reichert, 87, told Newsday, which first reported on the hubbub.
“The stench will be outrageous — It would knock over a horse,” said Reichert, who lives about 60 feet from the proposed barn.
Southold’s town planning board was set to meet Monday and expected to pass the plan, which would build a 2,100-square-foot steel barn on a 16-acre lot. The parcel hadn’t been used as a farm for 50 years and was purchased for $650,000 last May by Grant Callahan, according to town records and a 2022 real estate listing.
The egg farm would also include storage for farming equipment and washing and packing the eggs, according to town records.
Southold is a rural part of Long Island where there are already active farms and vineyards but neighbors like Chris say they’re crying fowl because of the sheer amount of chickens and how close the farm would be to residential homes.
Under town code, Southold is a “right-to-farm community,” a designation that provides strong protections for agricultural practices such as raising animals, plowing fields and spraying crops — even when those activities create smells, loud noises, or disturbances.
Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski, a fourth-generation farmer, told Newsday that although locals’ concerns are “absolutely understandable,” farming has long been a core part of Southold’s identity.
But, Krupski said, so is being a good neighbor and working to minimize effects on surrounding homes.
