Vice President JD Vance and his family are raising chickens at their residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory. The family has a dozen hens pecking inside a custom-made coop on a 72-acre federal observatory — but many other details about their experiment in raising chickens are unknown.
The coop was designed to mirror the Queen Anne-style architecture of the vice president’s residence at Number One Observatory Circle. As such, the henhouse is not cheap: It cost between $100,000 and $120,000, according to the owner of the North Carolina company that built the structure. But U.S. taxpayers didn’t foot the bill. The coop was donated by the company.
So who exactly will be raising the hens? And why are the Vances taking on this project? For eggs? For educational purposes? For feathered pets? A spokesperson for Vance did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment.
The Washington Post turned to former and current backyard chicken keepers to gather insights on what may be going on at Number One Observatory Circle. We also talked to the guy who built the pricey coop. We even checked with a city official to discuss whether the Vances are following the proper protocols to raise hens in Washington.
Who built the Vances’ coop?
The henhouse and run were custom-built by Carolina Coops, which specializes in high-end structures for those looking to pamper their backyard birds. Owner Matt DuBoise said Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy, wife of Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy, recommended him to the Vances. DuBoise had built a coop for the Duffys.
The Vances’ henhouse is elevated — about 2 feet off the ground — and situated inside a shed that is protected from the elements, DuBoise said. The design is such that the owner does not have to walk through “chicken droppings and chicken bedding” to tend to the birds. The keeper can access the hens via interior shed doors. The attached run is predator-proof, DuBoise said, and includes a solid roof, which helps prevent avian flu from spreading to the flock, as it can be “transmitted with migratory birds flying overhead,” he said.
Why are the Vances raising chickens?
In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Vance raised alarms about the high cost of eggs, which was apparently affecting his family’s budget. He and his wife, Usha, have three children. At a supermarket stop in Reading, Pa., Vance turned to his kids and said, “These guys actually eat about 14 eggs every single morning. Is that right?”
“Yeah!” one child responds, off-camera.
The family’s daily consumption is probably a joke, but it highlighted a possible reason the Vances wanted a coop: In their prime, the second family’s 12 hens may each lay up to six eggs a week, nearly enough to cover the Vances’ daily needs. Like many hen keepers, the Vances will have to figure out what to do with their eggs: Eat some, give away some, maybe even donate some to a food bank that will accept them.
The addition has led to speculation that there may be political motivations behind the flock’s appearance. It’s a theory that resonates with Danny Bowers, who keeps 19 chickens on a suburban property in Utah County, Utah. Bowers, who uses they/them pronouns, points out that some conservatives have embraced the values espoused by “trad wife” influencers, many of whom raise chickens.
Who will do the actual work of raising the hens?
It’s not clear, but Usha Vance, who is due to deliver the family’s fourth child later this month, may be off the hook for a little while — numerous state health departments say pregnant women should avoid handling chickens, especially chicks, because of the risk of salmonella infection.
DuBoise said he expects the family to take a hands-on approach with the chickens. When he was at the Naval Observatory, installing the coop, the Vance children were “very, very active, asking great questions,” DuBoise said. “That’s always a great sign when the kids are very curious and wanting to get involved.”
Is it legal to raise chickens in D.C.?
Yes, but chicken keepers must meet some requirements before the city will issue them a permit. Every coop in Washington must be located at least 50 feet from a building “used for human habitation,” according to regulations. A henhouse and run must also be at least 250 feet from any property line or, failing that, the owners must get written permission from all neighbors located within 100 feet of their property line.
There’s also a rule that you can’t keep roosters, said Tony Tomelden, the D.C. hospitality veteran who owns the Pug on H Street NE. Tomelden and his family raised chickens in their Brookland backyard for years, starting in the 2010s. Tomelden said it’s not easy to determine whether your chicks are cockerels (male) or pullets (female), unless you’re trained to know the difference. It’s only later, when a cockerel matures into a rooster, that owners learn — the hard way.
“What they say is, ‘You’ll know it’s a rooster when it lets you know,’” Tomelden said. “And so one of them did.”
I tried to confirm the regulations with a few people at D.C. Health. No one returned my calls or responded to my emails. But one city official said D.C. regulations don’t typically apply to federal property. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the media.
But locals don’t follow the rules, either, the official said. “I know we have plenty of people in the city that are raising chickens on properties that don’t meet [the] requirements,” he said.
Are there benefits to raising hens aside from eggs?
Backyard keepers often develop an emotional attachment to their chickens. Take Clara Cho. Her parents, Yon and Francie, have raised hens at their suburban New Jersey home, outside New York City, since Clara, now 27, was a senior in high school. Clara had grown up with dogs and cats.
The chickens “weren’t as affectionate as the cats or the dogs,” Clara remembered. “But they’d come for pets, and they would come out when you called them from the coop and everything. It was definitely sad when they passed away.”
Bowers, the Utah chicken keeper, thinks of their hens, especially a bearded white Silkie bantam named Karen, almost as emotional support animals. When Bowers is having a particularly bad day — they suffer chronic pain from several autoimmune disorders — they will cuddle up with Karen.
“You wouldn’t think a chicken could be such a comfort,” Bowers said. “But all I know is she’s 6 years old, and she better live to be, like, 20.”
Is this the first time a president or vice president has raised livestock in office?
Plenty of presidents have had livestock at the White House, including horses and cows, but the White House Historical Association found only one instance of a president raising chickens.
According to White House chief usher Irwin Hood “Ike” Hoover’s 1934 memoir, Forty-Two Years in the White House, an admirer sent two dozen live chickens to the White House during Calvin Coolidge’s presidency in the 1920s. Coolidge apparently kept the chickens near a mint patch that Theodore Roosevelt started for his mint juleps.
The White House Historical Association has not been able to verify the account from other contemporary sources.
DuBoise, however, believes Vance will be the first to raise chickens at the vice president’s residence.
Will the Vances save money on eggs by raising their own hens?
It depends on how you crunch the numbers.
The Post’s Unearthed columnist Tamar Haspel raised chickens for 15 years with her husband, Kevin, on their property in Cape Cod, Mass. If you read Haspel’s book To Boldly Grow, you quickly learn she and Kevin know how to stretch a dollar when it comes to raising birds.
I asked Haspel to calculate how much it would cost the Vances to produce a dozen eggs, based on the best information we could gather. She figured a laying hen would produce about 24 dozen eggs a year, which, based on feed costs alone, would come to $1.46 per dozen. That’s more than 70 cents cheaper than the average price per dozen of large white Grade A eggs, which stood at $2.19 in May.
But that price doesn’t factor in expenses such as water, supplemental feed, bedding, and the cost of the chicks. Nor does it factor in the price of the fancy coop, which the Vances did not pay for, but most Americans would. Haspel said that if you amortize the coop over the remaining months of the Trump administration, it would add $139 to every dozen eggs. If you amortize the structure over 10 years, it adds $35 to every dozen eggs.
In other words, it wouldn’t be a bargain.
“If you get a coop like that,” Haspel wrote via email, “don’t ever expect to make up the money in eggs. But mostly that’s not why people get chickens.”
