— The chickens have come home to roost at the Illinois governor’s mansion, but this time it’s not a political metaphor.
Nine chickens, from breeds like Ameraucana to Rhode Island Reds, are cooped up at the Executive Mansion.
The hens landed at the 159-year-old official state residence a couple of weeks ago, after they were rescued from a woman who couldn’t take care of them any longer. They are enclosed inside a pen in the mansion’s rose garden.
Springfield is among the Illinois cities that allow people to keep chickens, but these hens are the first known to have resided on the mansion grounds — at least in recent generations, said David Blanchette, a former administrator with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency who’s now a spokesman for Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn.
It’s the latest addition to a sustainability theme that’s developed at a place that now features rain barrels, a compost area to create fertilizer for the landscaped mansion grounds and a vegetable garden that grows things like herbs, lettuce and tomatoes.
The birds are staying in a white henhouse donated by the Heritage Poultry Breeders Association. Providing some of the feed is Archer Daniels Midland, the Decatur-based agribusiness giant that’s moving its headquarters to Chicago. Mostly, though, the hens are eating chicken scraps such as lettuce and potato peels.
The chickens come in different colors: black and red, gray and brown, just brown and just white. Collectively, they’re laying about six or seven eggs a day.
“They’re all hens,” Blanchette said. “You don’t want roosters in there because, if you have roosters, suddenly the eggs become little chicks, and these eggs are for eating.”
