My lease is clear: no farm animals including chickens except on land zoned for agriculture.

My city council voted to allow max 6 chickens, no roosters in town.

A few trends have come together:

1. Younger folks want to know where their food comes from -their backyard.

2. Current egg shortages and prices.

3. Work from home / new hobbies / trendy / green

Along comes an entreprenuer with RentTheChicken.com.

For $495 (Indiana price for a 6 month lease) they will deliver 2 laying hens, set up a hutch and fenced area, 100 pounds of chicken feed. Expect 8-14 eggs per week.

Any takers?

I can only imagine the lease agreement..

I ran the math on it, assuming an average 11 eggs per week was the total... not the number laid per bird.

11 eggs * 26 weeks = 286 eggs. $495 / 286 eggs = $1.73 per egg... not per dozen. Even if the 11 eggs is per bird, that's still $0.86 per egg or $10.38 per dozen. About double the cost of store bought eggs.

We're not factoring in the labor to care for the chickens and harvest/wash the eggs.

Sounds about right for the average Gen Z mindset: find the most expensive way to do something (Grubhub, Uber Eats) and then demand it as a human right.

Since the chickens are rented, will there be a security deposit?

This is actually a Pa based business - not that far from me, that also sells marketing rights in specific areas. So if you are looking to add some ahhhhhhhh chicken scratch to your bottom line you could.

Sid and others: I think some of you are missing the point of this. It isn't about saving money over store-bought eggs. The site itself pushes it as something for kids to do instead of playing Xbox. 4-H has been doing this sort of thing for youth for years and isn't available anywhere.

I feel like some of you should be all over this idea. Usually everyone here is talking about how kids today don't do outdoor things and sit around on their phones all day. Now some company comes out with something to help kids raise chickens and you complain about "Gen Z mindset" instead??

John.... relax. It's a joke. The comment about needing a security deposit was the intended giveaway "punch line" / "this is a haha moment." I guess I need to be more obvious and bracket everything in (joke) (/end joke) tags... or we seriously (not joking) need a sarcasm font on this forum.

Now, joking aside (I am being 100% serious starting now to the end of the post)... I'm not opposed to the idea as you present it. However, there was nothing in Brad's post to indicate this was in any way being advocated as an alterative to kids playing X-box. It does specifically say people wanted it for "fresh" eggs and to avoid supply chain issues. Context matters, and there was zero such context until you brought it up. I analyzed it based on the provided context. But thank you for bringing up another context. All I'd ask is keep in mind that I'm not responsible to add every conceivable context to a post: I'm free to react / comment on the original post, as is, where is.

If someone wants to rent chickens for kids and/or adult activity and possibly to acquire backyard fresh eggs, then go for it.

Why did the chicken roll in the mud

and then cross the road twice ?

She was a dirty double crosser.

Hey, I like chickens, especially the happy contented sounds of hens. But I don't like mucking out after them, protecting them from predators, finding someone to care for them so I can go away. So no hens here, and like Brad(20,000), it would depend on the zoning, HOA, etc.

RB(TN)- Why did the chicken cross the playground?

My granddaughter just turned 2. When she puts on her little farm boots and grabs my hand, I know it's time to feed the chickens and collect eggs.

Crazy people. If you want to go the route that it's to get the kids off the couch then every spring in every tractor supply or other farm store have chicks and ducklings for a couple dollars each, much more effective learning than buying a full grown chicken. My guess is that it' targeting people who don't want to feel guilty for getting rid of them in 6 months when the kids get bored or worse that they would kill and eat them. 4H is more about learning things other than farm life, it's also learning about commitment, humbleness by getting your hands dirty, and the realities of farm life and death. Having someone come set it all up for you and come take it away in 6 months doesn't really compare.

My former neighbor (rather lazy) went through a series of fads. Husband, wife and kid. They were always stand offish until they needed something. We live in a rural area so not too many people on our road.

They never maintained their back yard UNTIL they put the place up on the market. I saw them cleaning up the yard one day and thought to myself, they've GOT to be selling! Sure enough.

They went through some fads. chicken raising (lasted about a year). Bee keeping (lasted again about a year)

The new neighbor came by and wondered why there were so many bees at her hummingbird feeders (LOL).

I do plan to have a chicken coop myself this Spring due to semi retirement. I won't be using "rent a chicken" I will be looking for ads of previously enjoyed (clean) coops when others get tired of having chickens.

Glad to hear that it's just a light issue and not bad food.

2 laying hens--- they usually run $20-$25 each for a 12-week pullet. Hens start laying at 18-22 weeks (depending on light). Laying hens run between that and $35/ea.

50 lbs of layer feed runs about $20-$25/bag.

The chicken coop and enclosure is what really gets unpredictably pricey, depending on size/materials/etc. For chickens, you want about 4 sq ft of coop space per bird, and 8 sq ft of run space per bird. I have relatives who do pastured poultry; they use AlumiCoops. A 5x6 AlumiCoop runs a little shy of $2k. The local feed stores will sell commercial coops/enclosures for about $250-$1000. With the price of materials the way it is--- you probably would have difficulty doing a DIY build much more economically these days.

I was at the post office super-early yesterday morning, and someone had ordered mail-order chicks. Peep peep peep peep peep!

It was adorable. :)

Everyone I know gets their chicks from a place about 50 miles away.

www.cacklehatchery.com

The trouble that I see with it is many tenants can't even take care of a dog or a tomato plant and I don't trust them to take care of chickens.

Sid: I know the security deposit part was a joke, of course. I was referring to talking about how it wasn't a good deal based on the math per egg and the talk about the "average Gen Z mindset: find the most expensive way to do something (Grubhub, Uber Eats) and then demand it as a human right."

That didn't seem like part of the "joke" so much...

And, yes, I know that Brad's post didn't include any of the ACTUAL reason to do this besides trying to get cheaper eggs. That's why I actually went to the site and looked into it. It's fairly normal for people to post things here without most of the facts -- so I tend to look into them before I reply.