Naomi Watts isn't counting any of her chickens until they hatch, but the Buffalo City council is warming things up with a vote expected to approve her pioneering urban chicken coop on Rhode Island Ave.

Almost a full year after Watts began raising chickens in a coop behind her West Side home, she's almost ready to return them to the roost, this time with the full legal blessing of originally skeptical city officials.

Watts intent is not to have a massive commercial farm, and her initial reading was that chickens for personal use were allowed within city limits.  When city officials disagreed, she sent her chickens for safe keeping to a farm in Fillmore NY, and became the focus of a study to change the law.

The plan to be voted on today includes a 5-chicken limit and several other rules to protect neighbor concerns about smell and noise. 

Watts expects to have her chickens returned soon after today's city council vote, but she tells WBEN's Barbara Burns that she is ready to relocate if denied

Her effort is part of a national movement,that also includes Mark Stevens and his wife who have asked permission to rent several vacant parcels blocks on Wilson Street for vegetable farming. 

Meanwhile across the nation, a California-based Web site, BackYardChickens.com, has 35,000 registered members and signs up 100 new members a day. The Web site boasts an active message board discussing the more than 37 breeds and posting pictures of their prized poultry.

The movement got a huge symbolic boost this spring when the first family installed a 1,100-square-foot vegetable garden at the White House. Advocates say poultry is the natural next step in the sustainable back yard; chickens produce eggs, devour kitchen scraps and add manure to the compost pile.