What a crapshoot!
A Bushwick community garden is counting on its poultry to produce the balls for a fund-raising event dubbed “Chicken S— Bingo” later this month, and the farmers are confident their flock is up to the task.
“We’re gonna keep feeding them until they poop,” said Jason Reis, who helps run the all-volunteer Bushwick City Farm on Lewis Avenue at Stockton Street. “They go pretty often, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”
The agriculturists will let a few of their 40-hen flock loose, one at a time, on a large bingo board, while players wait with bated breath — and possibly pinched noses — for the fowl to foul up one the numbers.
High-rollers looking to gamble on the birds’ output can pony up $5 for two squares on the board — and if their number gets a plop, they will win one of several prizes donated by local businesses.
Reis said his crew will stuff the birds of play with their regular diet of greens and veggies ahead of the big night, then toss them more pellet food in the fenced-off field to make sure the game runs smoothly.
The Bushwick farmers are not the first to corral their cluckers into a spectator board game — they got the idea from a honky-tonk bar in Texas called the Little Longhorn Saloon, where chicken s— bingo is a Sunday tradition that goes hand-in-wing with country music and cold beer.
And like its Lone Star predecessor, the farm hoe-down will also feature live music and drinks, plus food from local barbecue joint Arrogant Swine and bar-room burger slinger Duncan’s Burgers, plus fall activities like pumpkin-carving and face-painting for the youngsters.
The garden will use the money it raises to buy supplies for its grassroots operation, where locals from all walks of life come together to help tend veggie patches and gather free eggs — a space that is as rare as hen’s teeth in the rapidly-changing ’hood, said Reis.
“In the face of all the gentrification happening in Brooklyn, it’s a really interesting space to have newcomers and people who have been in the neighborhood for a while to have a safe space to interact,” he said.
Chicken S— Bingo at Bushwick City Farm (Stockton Street at Lewis Avenue in Bushwick, www.bushw
