Nine-year-old Katie, who is featured on the inside-back cover of Backyard Roots, described the importance of chickens best when she was interviewed for A Family is a Family is a Family, an HBO special about gay families. “Daddy and Poppy met in a coffee house, then they got married, then they had us, and then we got chickens.”

David Gunderman describes it more as a plan concocted between Katie and her other dad, Andrew Raskopf. He says Andrew has always been a frustrated farmer, and just took him along for the ride. They’ve had an average of seven chickens for the past three years, and David is now a true believer. “it’s been a great experience for the kids. It teaches them empathy, responsibility, and wonderful, unconditional love.”