Vice President JD Vance has added a custom chicken coop and 12 baby chicks to the U.S. Naval Observatory residence, giving the vice president’s official home a new, private feature just completed on May 29. The coop, donated and built without taxpayer money, was installed with a design meant to echo the Victorian-style house where the second family lives.
That makes the new vice president residence poultry coop more than a backyard flourish. It is a tailored addition to one of Washington’s most visible homes, with a round turret and faux slate roof that mirror the residence itself while sitting on the grounds of the 72-acre Naval Observatory. The Vances picked out the 12 chicks to start the flock, and the project arrived as a family event over the weekend brought local 4-H students to the residence to teach other children about the newly installed coop.
Matthew DuBoise, who oversaw the installation, said he told his team to design a custom coop the Vances would fall in love with. He described it as something he thought was amazing to do for the country and called the Naval Observatory a place of history and significance. His reaction reflected the way the project was framed inside the residence: personal, but tied to a home that has carried public meaning since vice presidents began living there in 1977.
The new coop also fits a pattern. Joe Biden added a heritage garden to the property, Karen Pence contributed beehives, Kamala Harris had pink wallpaper added to the house’s library and Dan Quayle added a heated swimming pool in 1991. But the chicken coop stands out because it was donated rather than paid for by taxpayers, a contrast that gives the private addition a sharper edge inside a public setting.
Vance has also been unusually ready-made for the symbolism of backyard poultry. During the 2024 campaign, he talked about high egg prices as a sign of inflation and joked that his two young sons eat about 14 eggs every single morning. For now, the newly installed coop answers that joke with a tangible result: a flock of 12 chicks at the vice president’s door, and no sign yet of whether more will be added.
