Last summer, Genevieve Shaw Brown rented chickens to keep in the backyard of her family’s summer home in East Quogue, N.Y. “I saw it on an Instagram post, and I thought it would be fun,” said Ms. Brown, 43, who works as a freelance journalist and lives the rest of the year on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. “The kids were immediately taken with them, almost like pets.”
Her children, now 13, 11 and 9, named the four chickens Chicken Nugget, KFC, Betty and Hei Hei (the chicken’s name in the Disney movie “Moana”) and staged games for them, like the chicken Olympics, in which they raced across the backyard. Each chicken laid an egg every one to two days, and in the morning, the children would collect them and make scrambled eggs or baked goods. Sometimes, the family would give eggs as gifts.
At the end of the summer, when the rental company Clark Farm, based in Higganum, Conn., came to collect the chickens, Ms. Brown immediately signed up for summer 2025.
And now she’s really happy she did.
“Last year when we did this, everyone thought it was so strange,” she said of the summer rental. But this year, it’s a different story. An outbreak of avian influenza has contributed to soaring eggs prices across the country (wholesale eggs now cost an average of more than $8 a dozen, up from $2.25 last fall), and many Americans are determining that it makes sense to have their own local — very local — supply.
These would-be farmers are not purchasing coops or flocks, as many did during the coronavirus pandemic (and before). They’re renting. And numerous companies across the country, mainly farms, are supplying chicken coops (chickens included) in the spring and summer, when chickens lay a lot more, and then picking them up in time to return to their winter homes: the farm that is set up for them.
“We’re sold out,” said Joe DeFrancesco, the owner of Farmer Joe’s Gardens, which does chicken rentals in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and the lower half of New York state. “This is not normal. We are doing more rentals this summer than we’ve ever done.” (The company said it still had some space for rentals later in the summer. The April deliveries are sold out.)
The Easy Chicken, which builds custom chicken coops for clients, said its rentals had increased 70 percent so far this year compared with the same time last year.
Rent the Chicken, a 12-year-old company based in Freeport, Pa., that has affiliate partners across the country, said chicken rentals were up 20 percent compared with the same time last year, and online inquiries had increased about five times.
Jenn Tompkins, an owner of Rent the Chicken whose clients call her Homestead Jenn, said the company would take back chickens if people decided it was not for them. Maybe they are going out of town too often or they don’t like the smell of chicken poop? “It’s OK,” she said. “We call that chickening out, and we will pick them up early.”
Rental companies deliver chickens to a customer’s home in the spring, once the chicks are grown and able to lay eggs — those available for rental usually range from six months to 2 years old. (Their egg production starts to decline after three years in a life span of about five to 10 years.)
Companies also typically deliver a coop to keep them in, all the feed they need for the season, and food and water dishes. All the renter needs to do is refresh the coop (move and clean it), give the chickens food and water, and collect the eggs — each chicken will usually lay an egg every one to two days.
Some families opt to name the chickens, play games with them and make custom egg cartons to put the eggs in.
Companies renting chickens say they are taking steps to keep their birds safe from avian influenza, including keeping them separate from other livestock. Renters are encouraged to keep chickens away from other birds, including wild geese.
But infectious disease experts have their concerns. “Personally, I don’t think it’s a good time to have backyard chickens,” said Dr. Robert H. Hopkins Jr., the medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. “We are in a situation where we have a virus that is widespread in wild birds, and it’s hard to keep backyard chickens away from wild birds, so I just don’t think it’s a great time to be in a situation where you may potentially bring something into the home that could cause problems.”
But, he said, if you really want them, make sure to watch out for any signs of illness, like lethargy or decreased appetite. If you see any, stay away. “If they are sick, you need to not touch them whatsoever,” Dr. Hopkins said. “And if you really have to, you need to use protective equipment.” (He said it was safe to touch chickens as long as they were not sick, but he did recommend taking precautions: “Even if you are refilling an outdoor bird feeder, go outside and feed them and then come inside and wash your hands with soap and water. Don’t touch your eyes and mouth.”)
And while egg prices have received a lot of press coverage, these rentals will not help save money. Prices vary by location, but in Long Island, for example, it costs $1,195 to rent four chickens for three months from Rent the Chicken. If the chickens produce up to 28 dozen eggs in total, each dozen would have to cost about $42 to break even financially.
Rental companies say their clients are after the certainty of having fresh eggs, not cheap prices. And they do not want to wait until summer.
“When people make their reservations now, they are like, ‘How soon can we get the chickens?’” Ms. Tompkins of Rent the Chicken said. “There is more of an urgency.”
“I started getting calls around January,” said Mr. DeFrancesco of Farmer Joe’s Gardens, whose calls normally start in the spring. “I think what we are seeing is people wanting to have some security with their food sources. They want to know where their food is coming from and have some control over it.”
Michelle Woeber, 56, an environmental scientist who lives outside Pittsburgh, is entering her fifth season with Rent the Chicken and can’t wait for her chickens to be delivered in the next month. (She tries to get the same hens — Mabel, Helga, Sapphire and Ethel — every year. “You get to know their personalities,” she said.)
Ms. Woeber has not had trouble finding eggs at a store, she said, but she has now learned that nothing tastes like the eggs she collects that morning.
“You would be blown away by the difference,” she said.
“I actually think if people could try these types of eggs, they wouldn’t mind paying more for them,” she added. “When you see how hard these chickens work you realize we have been spoiled with egg prices.”
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