The call to IT was strange. The Cochin Rooster accidentally changed the password on the cash register and someone had to come and unlock it.
“We had to explain the situation – the chicken changed the password, and we don’t know what it is, and he won’t give it away,” said Sue Cristante, the owner of the fluffy bird. She brought her pet chickens to work and dressed them up as bumblebees to advertise that customers at the Peavey Mart hardware store in Ontario, Canada, could now buy beehives. “It took them a while to respond.”
At the store, Cristante, 56, shares her experience with customers who are starting their own herds. Before the pandemic, the company probably sold one chicken coop a year. “Now we can’t keep them in storage,” she said. “The chickens have really taken to it.”
US $30 billion retailer Supply of tractors hopes to capitalize on how much people have come to value their chickens. While they often turn to raising chickens as a way to live more sustainably and have a guaranteed source of fresh eggs for breakfast, people have fallen in love with them.
“Chickens are truly the new third pet,” Hal Lawton, CEO of Tractor Supply. said CNBC 25th of April. “The vast majority of our customer base falls into this category and thinks of them as pets – they name them, they care for them as such, and it has been a great new source of growth for us over the last five years. years or so.”
According to him, among the company’s 34 million customers participating in the loyalty program, one in five has chickens.
The chickens themselves cost $3-$4 each, but once a client starts building a flock, they need coops, heaters, feeders and waterers. The average flock size for clients is 14 birds, although nearly 30% of the company’s chicken-raising clients have 20 or more birds.
“America’s new pet is the chicken,” CFO Curt Barton said in a statement to Luck.
The company sold 11 million chickens last year, more than double the number it sold 10 years ago. In 2022, the company launched the Impeckables brand for poultry enthusiasts. Branded products include chicken toys such as xylophone, tambourineAnd fruit treats mixed with mealworms — and they were “all the rage this year,” said Nicole Logan, senior vice president of general merchandising for Tractor Supply.
The company also expanded itschicken days” events. What was once a six-week project with live birds in the store that families could take on a Saturday walk has now become a project. eight month event with tufts of fluffy chickens on display in stores under heating lamps with food and water. The company aims to be a one-stop shop for anyone who wants to bring chickens home and start a backyard flock.
Study on attitudes towards chickens in 2024 found that 13% of US households currently own 85 million backyard chickens, an average of five per owner. A survey of 2,000 chicken caregivers for the study found that nearly 90% were women. Among the 20% who reported that they cared for chickens with health problems or other problems, such as special needs or disabilities, flock owners said they used chicken wheelchairs, walkers or a hammock to support birds with broken backs. About 82% of owners said they hire a chicken sitter when they go away for the weekend, and 12% said they let their chickens come into the house whenever they want.
However, this leads to one of the only disadvantages of chickens – their toilet habits. “If you’re sitting on the couch watching TV with your chickens, you’re going to get screwed,” Cristante said. She runs an Etsy store Chicken clothes by Sue, where she sells colorful, hand-sewn chicken diapers and takes custom orders. She supplies chicken fashion to clients in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and nearly every state in the United States, she said. For one English client who included a pet chicken in her wedding reception, Cristante made a dress with a white satin harness, a small veil and tiny pearls, and a burgundy bow at the back, just like the groom’s. “It was a very interesting project,” she said. In New York, a client asked for a Halloween costume, and Cristante sent him vampire costumes with removable capes and bat wings.
“Chicks — if you’ve never been around them and don’t know — have their own personalities, and some of them are quite affectionate and smart,” Cristante said. She described one popular breed of fluffy chickens, known as silkies, as being “like huge cotton balls.” They are very docile, easy to care for and honestly make very good pets.”
Trish See, 53, a filmmaker from the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, started with a half-dozen chickens and a coop in Williams-Sonoma. The flock grew after the chickens “exceeded all expectations of how much fun they were to keep as pets,” she said. “Everyone has different temperaments and characters. They will know their names and call you.” Xi, who has directed films such as Pitch Perfect 3 And Playersalso does video content with her chicksincluding dances and music videos.
“I’m so attached to our dogs, and they really are like man’s best friend for a reason, because they love people,” See said. “But with chickens, you have to earn their trust because you’re a big creature that can eat them.” Her family now has 11 chickens and a rooster named Brian.
At first, Si thought she was imagining something when she realized that all the chickens made the same sound when they saw her. But after researching this, she learned that chickens have names for many things in their lives. After being away from the set for three months, she returned home late in the evening, after the chickens had already gone to bed. Just before midnight, she crept up to the chicken coop to see them on the roost and whispered, “Hello, chickens.” The three woke up and clucked sleepily at the sound that is their “chicken name” for Xi.
C’s favorite, Ruby, sadly passed away last summer. The bird lived a long life with Xi. One day, after cloacal prolapse, a common problem in female birds, Ruby let C hold her for a few hours while her husband carefully “reinstalled” the organ with his hands. After this, Ruby lived for another three years. “This is something they will allow you to do if they just trust you,” she said. A jeweler friend recreates Ruby’s foot in sterling silver, inlaid with onyx stones; Xi plans to wear it around her neck in honor of Ruby.
Part of what’s driving the chicken boom is a general lack of affordability for millennials and Gen Z in urban areas, Tractor Supply’s Lawton said. One of the few areas where these demographic cohorts can afford to buy homes is in suburban, suburban and rural areas of the country. USDA Economic Research Service found that migration to rural areas has increased sharply 45 times between 2020 and 2022 compared to the pre-pandemic period.
“We believe that the sense of community created in our markets and, perhaps more importantly, the ability to obtain a piece of property at a reasonable price, has ensured that the rural migration trend will continue for some time. Lawton said during the company’s earnings call last week.
Once there, millennials and Gen Z are looking to live cleaner lives by growing fruits and vegetables and raising chickens, Logan says. According to her, the Poultry category is a path to a more sustainable lifestyle. Additionally, this population is willing to spend more on organic ingredients. Ten years ago, organic chicken feed accounted for 1% of the company’s sales in the poultry feed market; it now exceeds 10%, she added.
“Every day I wake up thinking, ‘How can I get more people interested in this?’ says Logan.