Four chickens snack on a treat of dried mealworms, which Katie Hitt shakes into the run of their coop from a red plastic cup.
These chickens have lived in Hitt’s backyard in St. Louis since early April. She and her family have enjoyed the pale blue eggs the hens lay. And her three young kids are having fun with the birds.
“I mean, that's the first thing they're thinking of when they wake up in the morning, is like, how are the chickens and what are they doing?” Hitt said.
This is Hitt’s first time having chickens. She said she’s wanted them for a while, but she was nervous about doing something wrong. She doesn’t know anyone with a backyard flock, and there’s an overwhelming amount of advice online.
But then Hitt heard about chicken rentals.
Four Feathered Hens, a chicken rental business in St. Louis, would deliver hens and a coop right to her home. Its owners Emilie and Tom Schnitzer would provide expert advice. And, she would only need to commit to the chickens for a year.
So, the chickens moved in.
“It was just like, boom, there we go,” Hitt said. “We didn't have chickens one day, and then we had a whole set up the next.”
Demand for backyard chickens is high this year. That’s in part because of expensive egg prices and shortages at the grocery store brought on by bird flu, which led to fewer laying hens across the country. The price for a dozen large eggs climbed to a record $6.23 in March.
Buying or renting chickens is hardly a cost-saving measure, but those in the business say people are interested in a close-to-home egg supply.
“Our renters … they don't have to worry if the store is restricting how many eggs you can buy,” said Jenn Tompkins, the co-founder of national chicken rental business Rent The Chicken. “They don't have to worry even if the store has any eggs or not, because they just walk right outside and collect their fresh eggs.”
Rent The Chicken, which opened over a decade ago and is based in Pennsylvania, partners with farmers in cities across the country to rent backyard chickens. More people are interested in renting this year, Tompkins said.
“We've been so busy, we haven't even been able to compare numbers now versus last year,” Tompkins said. “When we looked in February, we were already about 20% ahead on this year versus last year this time.”
Hatcheries across the Midwest that supply backyard chickens also say they’re flooded with orders.
Murray McMurray Hatchery in Webster City, Iowa, sells about 3 million chicks a year to people across the U.S. Typically, the hatchery sells out about two or three weeks in advance, said President Tom Watkins. But this year, it’s sold out through October.
“That's 40 weeks of chickens that are pre-sold,” Watkins said. “We have literally sold them, you know, counted them before they hatched.”
It’s the same deal for Heartland Hatchery, which sells chicks at feed stores in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma. The hatchery had to buy a landline phone for the first time ever to keep up with the orders.
“Demand this year has been the highest I've ever seen since I've been in business for 29 years,” co-owner Alan Nieder said.
U.S. Postal Service shipping delays that have caused chicks to die in transit are also contributing to the high demand, Nieder said.
Chickens aren’t cheap
But even with the record-high prices for eggs, people should still expect to shell out more to keep chickens.
All the needed supplies — such as the coop, the feed and the fencing to protect the birds from predators — cost at least a few hundred dollars, said Katie Bell, an agriculture educator with the University of Illinois Extension.
“You could easily spend $500 before you even get the birds,” Bell said.
And that goes for renting chickens, too.
Packages from Rent The Chicken vary by location. But in several of its Midwestern cities, including Omaha, Detroit and Milwaukee, a six-month rental of two hens starts at about $500.
Four Feathered Hens in St. Louis, which opened at the beginning of this year, offers six or 12-month rentals. Its packages start at $95 per month for a yearlong commitment.
The most expensive package, at $190 a month, includes full care of the birds, co-founder Emilie Schnitzer said.
“We'll come out, we'll feed the chickens, we'll change out the bedding in the coop, make sure everything is going smoothly, just so it's pretty much the family only has to collect the eggs,” she said.
Hitt and her family are caring for the chickens themselves. She says her kids are picky eaters, but they get excited about the eggs from their chickens.
“They're already deciding whose chicken is whose,” Hitt said. “‘My chicken laid this one, I'm going to eat that one.’ It's really cute.”
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
