Robert Kraft gets henhouse on Chestnut Hill

GO PATRIOTS!

"Robert Kraft scored his own personal fowl yesterday after Brookline health officials declined to throw the flag on the Patriots [team stats] poohbah’s plans to move his flock of chickens to a new locker room in Chestnut Hill.

Brookline Public Health Commissioner Dr. Alan Balsam sent word that the birds, which now reside at the family’s summer place in New Seabury, are welcome to winter at Casa Kraft in the toney town. However the barnyard biddies must be exiled to Cape Cod in July and August.

As we told you weeks ago, the Super Bowl biggie’s peeps petitioned the town for permission to bring the chickens home to roost during the cold months. But some of the Krafts’ neighbors were squawking because they didn’t want to be disturbed by the clucking fowl.

Balsam, who told us that three other town residents also keep chickens, had no problem with the request, but reserved the right to slap some restrictions on the pigskin poohbah’s whole back-to-nature experience.

According to a letter sent to the Krafts on Monday, the gentleman farmer must have both an enclosed shed and a pen - so there’s not a Chicken Run through the neighborhood. He must also feed the birds inside the shed and properly compost their waste. Roosters, which are ever so noisy, are not allowed.

Neighbors who cried fowl over the Krafts’ request, reported that the family already has a shed and workmen were seen adding onto it yesterday.

“As far as composting, they are either going to use one of our composting bins or something else they buy at Home Depot,” Balsam told the Track. “However, it will be inspected by the town.”

Balsam’s chicken cops will make unannounced visits to check on Kraft’s coop, and Farmer Robert will have to submit a pest control management plan as a requirement of the “Keeping of Animals” permit."

from bostonherald.com