Armstrong Farm of Lattingtown

During the winter, Eddie Armstrong's 400 chickens produce fewer than 100 eggs a day, but as winter gives way to spring, they start laying up a storm. This week, Armstrong is collecting up to 20 dozen and, in summer, production will peak at 30 dozen a day.

Armstrong has always raised chickens. As a boy, he had won prizes at agricultural fairs in Bethpage and Mineola (Mineola agricultural fairs!), but until he retired from driving an oil truck five years ago, he raised only enough to supply family and friends with eggs. Now he keeps his chickens (plus a few ducks and a peacock) on his 8 acres in the northernmost reaches of Lattingtown.

Most of the chickens are a mixture of Rhode Island Red with a little White Leghorn thrown in. Armstrong likes their gentle temperament, and also the Amish farmers in Lancaster, Pa., from whom he buys the 16-week-old "teenagers." "They're good people, and they give you an honest price."

The same can be said of Armstrong, who makes little profit from the cage-free, free-range eggs he sells for $5 a dozen.

The chickens have the run of three large rooms and the spacious yard they empty on to. Actually, the chickens can roam wherever -- could even cross the road -- but they tend to stay close to their feed and water.

There's been a farm at 20 Peacock Lane since 1939, when Armstrong's dad, Frank, rented the acreage from the Guthrie family, brought seven Jersey cows and established a dairy. In 1959, when Frank was killed by a bull, the Armstrong Dairy had 130 cows, but the business did not survive long without him.

Frank's son Eddie knows he could make a fortune by selling the farm, but he promised his father he wouldn't. And besides, he said, "farming is in my blood." -- Erica Marcus

Eddie Armstrong holds a bucket of eggs as he walks past many of the chickens who laid them at his farm in Lattingtown. (Newsday Photo, 2010 / Erica Marcus)