.png)
By Juliet Martinez
When a chicken is found (across the road?) in Lincoln Place, the first thing people do is ask if it belongs to Stacy Madeja. Between managing a dental office and caring for her family of five, Ms. Madeja enjoys the small flock of hens that she calls her pets and her babies.
People all over the country explored new hobbies during the pandemic. Some of them decided to raise their own food through gardening and keeping livestock — like chickens.
Ms. Madeja had wanted them for a while, but her husband finally agreed to it in 2021. So, she ordered day-old chicks.
She didn’t know anything about chicks, she said on Oct. 3, but she knew to keep them toasty — 95 degrees for the first week, then five degrees cooler each week for a month. She started with a heat lamp, but it was too much of a fire hazard. She now uses a brooder with a heated panel.
This is the kind of basic knowledge that Dempsey Schoener, general manager of Hillside Hatchery in Reinholds, Pennsylvania, wishes more first-time chick buyers had.
“We have seen a large increase in people trying this (raising chickens) thinking it's like a dog or cat,” he said during an Oct. 11 phone call. “And then they call us a week later and tell us the chicks died because of improper care.”
The hatchery has seen what Mr. Schoener called a “tremendous increase” in demand for chicks since 2019. This demand — from commercial and backyard operations — continues to grow. In spite of increasing their breeding stock by almost a fifth, they are sold out until June of next year, he said.
Back in Lincoln Place, Ms. Madeja pointed out the Grandpa Feeders that keep rodents out of the chickens’ feed, and the playhouse she got off of Facebook Marketplace where her younger chickens roost.
She has spent the last three years learning everything she can about chickens.
“I went to the library and had the librarian give me, like, every book that she could get a hold of,” she said. She left with 13 books, but said the learning continues. Veterinarians do not always know a lot about chickens, so she studies everything she can about their diseases and how to deal with problems that arise.
During last summer’s heat wave, she lost three hens in spite of her constant efforts to keep them cool. She got up early every morning to hose down the modified shed where they roost, filled up a kiddie pool for them to wade in and kept containers of water all around the yard. She put sunflower seeds into the water to encourage them to drink. But the heat took a toll. When their combs became limp and pale, she submerged them in a bucket water to cool them down; 10 minutes later, their combs would be plump and red again.
The intensive care she gave her hens during the heat wave was in addition to their daily maintenance. She cleans the coop bedding with a cat litter scooper and checks their food and water, topping it off if necessary.
Oh yes, and she collects the eggs.
Collecting the eggs gets her “so pumped and stoked for the day,” she said. An avid gardener, she often follows egg collection with a visit to her fenced fruit and vegetable plot, where she gets onions and peppers for an omelet.
Mr. Schoener attributes part of the popularity of raising hobby chickens to pandemic supply chain shortages and the way avian influenza has affected the poultry industry.
“A lot of people are becoming wary of grocery stores,” he said. “A lot of customers I’ve talked to said they wanted a more secure source for food.”
Having “a pet that feeds you,” as Ms. Madeja said, is high on her list of reasons to love having chickens, but it’s not the only one. Taking care of them and being around them helps her unwind.
“If I have a bad day, it's so calming and relaxing just to go out there and clean up chicken poop. And then I'll sit out here and just watch them,” she said.
Comments