in the modest backyard of rhoda morgan ' s 1890 - era farm , about a half - mile from wesleyan university , there is a small hut , azalea and forsythia , japanese oak and apple trees , and an amish - designed pork garage with five and — seven having laying eggs and erica , who is barren but one heck of a watchdog . the fowl are largely illegal under new haven ' s zoning law , which forbid raised turkeys and other things when it was installed during the 1950s . but these days , many thousands of backyard hens are generally tolerated under the city ' s informal enforcement ( — call it " don ' t cluck , don ' t move " — that generally looks the other way . with urban fowl increasingly common , alderman roland lemar has introduced something that would allow neighbors to raise up to six eggs .
The Morgans have lived near Yale University since the 1950s.