Soaring egg costs are driving a backyard chicken surge
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
One way to deal with an egg shortage: Hatch your own.
Why it matters: When egg prices skyrocket, more people in the U.S. consider getting — and even renting — backyard chickens, but keeping a flock of your own has long been popular in Portland.
By the numbers: 11 million U.S. households have backyard chickens and 8 million U.S. households consider their chickens pets, making chickens one of the most popular pets in the country, according to the latest data from the American Pet Products Association.
- That's way more than had backyard chickens in 2018 (5.8 million), per APPA data.
State of play: 2025 is already shaping up to be a big year for backyard chickens (as was 2020), according to Jenn Tompkins, co-owner of backyard chickens company Rent The Chicken.
- She's taking reservations now across the country for rentals to start in April or May, including in the Portland area.
- "People truly want to know where their food's coming from [and] they're not trusting that the grocery store is going to have what they need," Tompkins tells Axios.
Zoom in: Portlanders can get themselves a full six-month setup — a coop, feeder, 120 pounds of feed and two egg-laying hens — for $575.
- A "deluxe" four-hen setup will run you $775, with promises of between 16 and 28 eggs a week.
Reality check: Tove Danovich — the Portland-based author of "Under the Henfluence," which chronicles her own journey raising backyard chickens — writes that the actual cost of setting up a backyard flock is likely much higher.
- In a recent post, Danovich notes that, because chickens are social animals, having any fewer than three birds is not advisable.
- To make a coop that keeps predators and rats at bay, most people will spend upwards of $1,000.
- It's also worth noting that most cities have rules about how many chickens you can keep — Portland allows a maximum flock size of four birds, unless you have a large lot (which allows two additional chickens), and roosters are not allowed.
What she's saying: Danovich said that to make backyard chickens a cost-effective alternative to buying eggs, you'd need a minimum of 50 to 100 birds, keeping some eggs and selling off the excess.
- "If you live in a city or don't want chickens to become a part-time job, this is not going to be you," she wrote.
Editor's note: This story was corrected to reflect that 8 million of the households with backyard chickens (not all 11 million) consider them pets, making the chicken one of the most popular pets (not the third most popular pet) in the U.S.