Warning: Fowl Subject
Please just don't be a dumb cluck about it!
We've arrived at our destination: the summer doldrums. . . the final fleeting weeks when we kick back from work, go on vacation, celebrate family reunions, stroll the Iowa State Fairgrounds, and largely succeed in ignoring the political controversy swirling around us, 24/7. So, in honor of August's laid-back vibe, I'm choosing to focus this column on a completely mundane topic. . .
Chickens. Can you imagine a topic any lower on the pecking order?? Who could possibly get into a flap over it?
As it turns out, plenty of people. Chickens are having a moment.
In my grandma's era, almost every farm woman sold extra eggs, saving her earnings to build a nest egg. This "egg money" was her side hustle, at a time when married women had few financial rights or resources.
Growing up on the farm, we raised chickens, like any other self-respecting family. My sister and I had the daily chore of gathering eggs. We didn't enjoy it much. The hens sometimes would ruffle their feathers, flap their wings, and fly down from their roost, as if to peck us. They never did. Other hens stubbornly refused to budge from their nests.
Although our chicken yard was fenced, one or two hens regularly escaped into our backyard. Chickens also were a challenge to protect from predators, including coyotes, racoons, weasels, foxes, hawks, and owls. Given the opportunity, they'd raid the chicken coop.
Dad's job was to catch the rooster destined for Sunday dinner. I'll spare you the details of its quick demise. Mom's job was plunging it upside down into a bucket of scalding water to loosen its feathers. Next came "dressing" the rooster. (It's more like undressing!) My sister and I were taught how to cut chicken into fried chicken portions.
When my oldest daughter was very young, she was traumatized by a very aggressive rooster at her grandparents' farm. My father-in-law made sure that this rooster was not around to crow about it the next day!
But fast forward. Yesterday's chickens have flown the farm coop. Today we're talking backyard chickens in towns and cities.
Egg Money Adds Up
This trend accelerated in 2020, when supply chain issues during Covid made eggs scarcer than hen's teeth. As the Pandemic receded, avian influenza re-emerged with a greater intensity. More recently, inflation, combined with avian flu, pushed prices 70% higher. That's not chicken feed!
Classes in raising backyard chickens surged. RentACoop and Rent the Chicken businesses sprouted up in the U.S. and in Canada, including equipment like feeders and waterers. RentaChicken on Long Island, New York hås a wait list through 2024. Many other backyard enthusiasts simply are winging it.
When my family visited our "city" cousins in San Diego over a year ago, they surprised us "farm folks" with these chickens in their small chicken backyard coop.
Closer to home, I've noticed local families now are selling eggs. I saw this wooden stand in one yard. Just two houses down another family has hatched the same idea.
When I stopped, I learned the first family has 41 chickens in their backyard coop, which adjoins a cornfield. The woman opened an egg carton, explaining which chicken breeds laid each egg: Golden Comet, Buff Orpington, Black Australorp – and more!" Whatever happened to Grandma's favorites: Rhode Island Reds and Plymouth Rocks?
When I asked if the proceeds were going into her middle-school daughter's college savings fund, she said that after her daughter repays her $50 for the wooden stand, then 50% of the profits from the egg sales will be hers.
Both families are selling eggs at the town's fledging farmer’s market. But neither are raising chickens to serve at Sunday dinner.
A few blocks away, another homeowner shared that his chickens are behind a new backyard privacy fence. "We give away eggs to five or six families in the town we used to live," he said. I asked, "Do you ever give away chickens?" "No," he replied emphatically, "Only the eggs. We love our chickens. We can hold them, and pet them."
He added, "That's why we moved here. They passed an ordinance against chickens." It must really have ruffled their feathers.
Chickens Egg on Protests
A day or two later, I noticed in a Facebook post that a young boy in a neighboring small town was selling eggs at an outdoor stand. Maybe I've stumbled onto the perfect small-town marketing hook for recruiting families to live here. Forget about promoting good schools or bike trails! The key may be zero backyard chicken ordinances.
Case in point. Sixty miles south in Des Moines, an ordinance was proposed last month to ban roosters and limit the number of chickens per yard from 25 to 12. Neighbors have complained about crowing roosters and the smell of chicken litter.
News Flash: You don't have to own a rooster unless you want to hatch the eggs. It's a hen party: they'll lay eggs on their own.
After the first reading of the ordinance was approved, chicken advocates flocked to City Hall. They carried protest signs and paraded their chickens in small coops on wagons.
Look for the ordinance to be amended, possibly adding licensing, combined with stricter enforcement of existing animal nuisance ordinances. But don't count your chickens before they hatch. City Council members might chicken out.
Hatching a New Production Model
What else is causing this fowl ruckus? Most of the 300+ million hens raised for egg production in the U.S. live their lives in "battery cages" with 6-8 other hens. They're unable to behave like chickens – perch, scratch, walk, nest, or spread their wings.
A few decades ago, in response to this industrial model, some farm and rural entrepreneurs hatched a throwback model. When Successful Farming hosted its second ADAPT (Ag Diversification Adds Profit Today) in Kansas City in 1987, we invited Calvin Yoder to share his novel system, "Raising Range-Fed Chickens," on organically produced feed with no drugs. Farmers like Joel Salatin at Polyface Farms in Virginia pioneered portable chicken coops for rotational grazing in the early 1990s, and today you can choose from many models, including The Happy Farmer Mobile Chicken Coop.
It feeds into a growing concern about how food is produced in the U.S. In 2012, only 5% of layers were raised in cage-free housing; today, it's about 36%. Nine states ban the caging of egg-laying chickens. A few hundred food companies have pledged to use cage-free eggs, including McDonald's, Burger King, I-HOP, Denny's, Cracker Barrel, Kraft Heinz, and Target. Other companies already are doing it: Costco, Nestle USA, Taco Bell, CVS, Walgreens, Whole Foods, Arby's, and others.
Kroger backtracked on its original pledge, and now says 70% of its eggs will be cage free by 2030. Earlier this week, a lawsuit accusing Kroger of misleading shoppers with its "farm fresh" label on eggs from caged hens was dismissed. U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras in Chicago ruled that "farm fresh" didn't convey the same expectations as "cage-free," "free-range," or "pasture-raised."
Who Rules the Roost?
Iowa leads the nation in egg production. More than four million chickens were euthanized on one farm in Iowa in May. Between January 2022, and March 2023, over 58 million U.S. chickens (mostly layers) have been euthanized.
The estimated 13% of Americans who raise backyard chickens aren't buying commercial eggs.
It's ironic that part of the appeal of raising backyard chickens stems from egg shortages created by H5N1 avian influenza. Yet, as N5N1 continues to plague the U.S., will emerging zoonotic disease concerns lead to crack downs on backyard flocks? Over a decade ago, I wrote about zoonotic diseases in other countries that spread more easily because people lived near their herds of hogs and chicken flocks. Are we walking on eggshells here?
The folks in my rural community aren't activists, or foodies. They're thinking about giving their kids meaningful chores and lessons in earning money. They're thinking about keeping one source of their food supply close to home.
They're not thinking about zoonotic diseases . I'd rather not think about this, either. After all, this column is about a mundane topic . . . chickens, right? My aim is encouraging the contemplation of time-wasting questions like, which came first, the chicken or the egg? I'm not aiming to put anyone in a fowl mood, or like Chicken Little, run around crying, "The sky is falling!"
After all, backyard flocks are genetically different than commercial layers. So far, only a fraction of backyard flocks has been affected. Biosecurity is the first line of defense. Vaccines also are being tested, and certainly it would be much easier to vaccinate a backyard flock than a large layer house. The CDC is encouraging seasonal influenza vaccinations of livestock and poultry workers.
Perhaps the lesson for consumers is: Don't put all your eggs in one basket, or one production system. And in case you want a few chickens to come home to roost, I discovered these great ideas on the Internet for customized egg carton slogans:
Laid in the USA
Wicked Chickens Lay Deviled Eggs
Let's Get Yoked
Just Beat It
Just Got Laid
Guess what, Chicken Butt
Eat, Pray, Lay
We Came Second
How long will backyard chickens be having a moment?
Last year, a spokesman for Murray McMurray Chickens, Webster City, Iowa, summed it up best. "Egg prices will go down," he said in a KCCI interview. "But the interest in backyard chickens is kind of its own movement.”
Egging you on!!! Great article; not so great memories of “chicken daze from hell” plucking and gutting; I still can’t eat chicken if I think much about that process. But memories of “picking eggs” from the “new-fangled shed” where the eggs rolled on woven wire towards us. An automatic washer (swishing one wire bucket full at a time) made casing them for sale much more pleasant. I still yearn at the sight of chickens pecking in the garden, and hearing the rooster crow early morning is music! Not a nuisance to my ears. Thanks, Cheryl!!
I cackled throughout this piece, enjoying the many nuggets of humor, puns, and creative marketing ideas. Also learned a lot. Egg-cellent!