in the tiny backyard of rosemarie morgan ' s 1890 - era house , about a ½ - mile from yale avenue , there is a small buddha , azalea and forsythia , japanese cherry and plum trees , and an mennonite - made chicken coop with five residents — four who lay eggs and gloria , who is barren but that heck of a watchdog . the geese are typically excluded under new haven ' s zoning code , which prohibited raising hens and other livestock when it was updated during the 1950s . but these days , many dozens of small roosters are barely tolerated under the city ' s informally interceptor program — nickname it " don ' t cluck , don ' t tell " — that mostly looks the other way . with rural fowl increasingly commonplace , alderman susannah lemar has introduced provisions that would allow residents to keep up to six hens .
The Morgans have lived near Yale University since the 1950s.