The call to IT was strange. A Cochin rooster had accidentally changed the password of a cash register and someone needed to go and unlock it.
“We had to explain the situation: a chicken changed the password, we don't know what it is and he's not going to give it up,” said Sue Cristante, the furry bird's owner. She had brought her chickens to work and dressed them as bumblebees to help advertise that shoppers 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, lends his expertise to customers who are building their own flocks. Before the pandemic, the company probably sold one chicken coop a year. “We can't keep them in stock now,” she said. “Chickens have really caught on.”
In the US, the $30 billion retailer Tractor supply He hopes to capitalize on how much people have come to treasure their chickens. While they often turn to raising chickens as a way to live a more sustainable lifestyle and get a guaranteed source of fresh eggs for breakfast, people have fallen in love with them.
“Chickens are really the new third pet that exists” Tractor supply Hal Lawton, CEO said CNBC On April 25. “The vast majority of our customer base is involved in the category and they consider them pets – they name them, they care for them that way and it has been a great new source of growth for us over the last five years. years more or less.”
Among the company's 34 million customers who participate in its loyalty program, one in five owns chickens, he added.
Chicks cost about $3 to $4 each, but once a customer starts building a flock, they need chicken coops, heaters, feeders and waterers. The average customer flock size is 14 birds, although nearly 30% of the company's customers who raise chickens have 20 birds or more.
“In the United States, the new pet is the chicken,” Chief Financial Officer Kurt Barton said in a statement to Fortune.
Last year, the company sold 11 million chicks, more than double the number 10 years ago. In 2022, the company launched a brand, Impeckables, to cater to poultry hobbyists. Branded items include chicken toys such as a xylophone, tambourineand fruity delights mixed with mealworms, and have been “all the rage this year,” said Nicole Logan, senior vice president of general merchandising for Tractor Supply.
The company has also expanded its “chick days” events. What used to be a six-week project with live birds in the store for families to enjoy on a Saturday outing is now a eight month event with clusters of fluffy chicks on display in warehouses under heat lamps with food and water. The company aims to be a one-stop shop for anyone who wants to take chickens home and start a flock in their backyard.
A 2024 study on attitudes toward chickens found that 13% of American households currently own a total of 85 million backyard chickens, with an average of five per owner. A survey of 2,000 chicken keepers as part of the study found that almost 90% were women. Among the 20% who reported caring for chickens with health or other problems, such as special needs or disabilities, flock owners said they had used chicken wheelchairs, walkers, or a hammock to hold birds with broken backs. . About 82% of homeowners 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.
This, however, introduces one of the only drawbacks of chickens: their bathing habits. “If you're sitting on the couch watching TV with your chickens, they're definitely going to poop on you,” Cristante said. she runs a Etsy trade, Sue's Chicken Apparel, where she sells colorful, hand-sewn chicken diapers and accepts custom orders. He has sent fashionable chicken clothing to customers in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and almost every state in the U.S., she said. For a client in England who included a pet chicken in her wedding party, Cristante made a dress with a white satin harness, a small veil and small pearls, with a burgundy bow in the back to match the groomsmen. . “It was a very interesting project,” she said. In New York City, a customer asked for a Halloween costume and Cristante sent him vampire suits with detachable capes and bat wings.
“Chickens, if you've never been around them and don't know, have their own personalities and some of them are quite affectionate and intelligent,” Cristante said. He described a popular breed of fluffy chickens known as silkies, “like huge balls of cotton. “They are very docile and easy to care for and, honestly, they make very good house pets.”
Trish Sie, 53, a film director from the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, started with a half-dozen chicks and a chicken coop of Williams-Sonoma. The flock grew after the chickens “exceeded all expectations of how much fun they are to have as pets,” she said. “Everyone has different temperaments and personalities. They learn their names and they will name you.” Sie, who directed films like perfect pitch 3 and Playersalso does video content with your chickensincluding dance and music videos.
“I'm very close to our dogs, and they really are like man's best friend for a reason: They love people,” Sie said. “But with chickens, you have to earn their trust because you're something big that can eat them.” Currently, her family has 11 chickens plus a rooster named Brian.
At first, Sie thought she was imagining things when she realized that all the chickens made the same sound when they saw her. But after researching it, she discovered that chickens have names for various things in their lives. After being away for three months on a film set, she returned home late at night, when the chickens had already gone to bed. Just before midnight, she crept up to the chicken coop to see them in the coop and whispered, “Hello, chickens.” Three woke up and drowsily clucked the sound that is the “chicken name” for Sie.
Sie's favorite Ruby sadly passed away last summer. The bird had a long life with Sie. Once, after suffering cloacal prolapse, a common problem in females, Ruby let Sie hold her for several hours while her husband gently “re-adjusted” the organ with her hands. Ruby lived another three years after that. “Those are the things they'll let you do when they just trust you,” she said. A jeweler friend is recreating Ruby's foot in sterling silver inlaid with onyx stones; Sie plans to wear the piece around her neck in Ruby's honor.
According to Tractor Supply's Lawton, part of what's underpinning the chicken boom is the general lack of affordability for Millennials and Generation Z in urban areas. One of the only areas Those demographic cohorts that can afford to purchase homes are found in exurban, suburban, and rural areas. from the country. The Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture. found that migration to rural areas increased by a factor of 45 between 2020 and 2022, compared to before the pandemic.
“We believe that the sense of community found in our markets, and perhaps more importantly, the ability to secure property at a reasonable price, has ensured that the rural migration trend is here to stay for the time being. Lawton said during the company's earnings conference call last week.
Once there, Millennials and Z generations are looking to live cleaner lives, growing fruits and vegetables and raising chickens, Logan said. The poultry category is a gateway to a more sustainable lifestyle, he said. Plus, that demographic is willing to spend more on organic ingredients. A decade ago, organic chicken feed represented 1% of the company's poultry feed sales; now it is more than 10%, he added.
“I wake up every day thinking, 'How can I get more people interested in this?'” Logan said.