Delmarva Chicken Houses

This interactive mapping tool visualizes the distribution and operational status of chicken houses across fourteen counties on the Delmarva Peninsula. Developed by the Eastern Shore Regional GIS Cooperative (ESRGC), the application leverages recent aerial imagery and remote sensing techniques to identify the locations of poultry structures and assess their current condition.

Each chicken house is color-coded to reflect its operational status—In Operation, Not in Operation, Unknown, or Removed—based solely on visual cues from high-resolution imagery. In addition to operational status, approximate square footage is provided for each structure, calculated using GIS geometry functions.

Users can explore:

• Zoom into specific areas and identify poultry house clusters,
• Click individual structures for details on status and estimated size,
• Toggle layers and switch to imagery views for Maryland, Delaware, or Virginia.
• Filter the map by state to explore trends and distributions
• A dynamic bar graph gives quick insight into the total number of houses by status. 

Please note that the data is observational and has not been verified against permitting records or ground-truthing efforts, making it best suited for general analysis, trend observation, or preliminary environmental assessments.

This application is especially valuable for planners, researchers, environmental analysts, and the public interested in understanding the spatial patterns and scale of poultry operations in the region.

Partners

This application was developed by the Eastern Shore Regional GIS Cooperative (ESRGC) with support from the Mid-Shore Regional Council (MSRC) and the Tri-County Council for the Lower Eastern Shore.