Americans these days can rent just about anything they want or need — pets, bridesmaids, caskets and even paparazzi.
Jenn and Phil Tompkins, preferring to be called Homestead Jenn and Homestead Phil, raise much of their own food on their homestead near Freeport in South Buffalo, Armstrong County, and they know where the rest comes from. Thinking that others might also want to know that, they came up with the idea In 2013 to rent chickens to people and ultimately decided it was something they wanted to do.
They now own and operate Rent The Chicken with 40 affiliate farms in 23 states and parts of Canada.
“People want to have food sources closer to their table and can easily ask someone how to grow a tomato plant,” said Mrs. Tompkins, 39. “By the same token, people always know someone with a dog or cat, but few people know someone with a chicken.”
Chickens spend their day eating bugs and scratching at the grass and dust for things important to chickens, including worms, with plenty of clucks, pecks and flightless wing flaps along the way. But most important to Rent The Chicken, hens lay eggs almost daily during summer months and people enjoy eating them.
The hens are rented beginning in April because they are less productive during the winter months when there is less sunlight. And they don’t need roosters to lay unfertilized eggs.
Rent The Chicken already has gone full roost, with the Tompkins or affiliates appearing regularly on “Coop Dreams,” a reality show on Direct TV (channel 286) and the Dish Network (channel 194). The second season launched Friday with episodes at 8:30 a.m. each Friday,
Eggs offer the consumptive but not spiritual appeal. Proud hens strut their befeathered stuff while revealing poultry personality. They provide companionship, while educating adults and children alike that food doesn’t originate at grocery stores. The also offer backyard charm, humor and intrigue while creating a becalming atmosphere, chicken renters say.
“It’s been a very positive thing and it goes without saying how good the eggs are,” said Cindy Haigh, 34, a Churchill resident who rents two chickens, Mrs. Feather and Charlotte.
Raising chickens might be something people have entertained but never pursued. Rent The Chicken makes it easy.
For $400, you get two hens — four hens for $600 — along with a Tompkins-designed chicken coop that protects the hens from dogs, coyotes, raccoons and other predators but is easily moved spot to spot to prevent killing the grass while providing the chickens with fresh space to forage.
Rent The Chicken also provides chicken feed, bowls and a book on how best to raise chickens. To top it off, renters get a bag of brand-name Chubby Mealworms — potato chips of sorts for chickens.
Renters also have their choice of breeds. Rhode Island Reds — think “Little Red Hen” — are standard egg producers. Local sports fans can opt for a black and gold pair, including a black Australorp and buff Orphington. Easter eggers produce bluish green eggs.
And there’s late-breaking news, Mrs. Tompkins said. “In the future we may offer an exotic chicken rental package — an exotic breed yet to be disclosed, but you heard it first in the Post-Gazette.”
Renters get to name their hens, and Anna and Elsa from “Frozen” and Laverne and Shirley from the television sitcom are favorites.
Typically, two hens produce eight to 12 eggs a week, with four producing up to two dozen. After the rental period ends in November, the Tompkins or affiliates in other areas pick up the hens, coops and supplies. “If renters decide to chicken out, we’ll pick them up, no questions asked,” Mrs. Tompkins said.
There’s always the option to adopt the hens and purchase the supplies.
Other programs include Hatch The Chicken, which includes an incubator and seven fertilized eggs so renters can watch chicks hatch, with the Tompkins retrieving them weeks later. They also offer Hatch The Quail.
Ericka Rademacher, a 39-year-old single mother of three from Ross, started with Hatch The Chicken in April and her children enjoyed watching all seven chicks hatch on Easter Day, with tears flowing when the Tompkins arrived to take the chicks back to their homestead.
That’s when Ms. Rademacher told her kids to look outside to see a coop and four hens, eventually named Miss Hen, Gigi, Duck and Sunshine. The children and their dog now interact freely with the chickens in their fenced-in backyard.
“They are friendly and have personalities and lay an egg every day like clockwork,” Ms. Rademacher said, noting her 6-year-old son is learning responsibility by feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs. “They are birds and not extremely smart, but they are so much fun.
“I always wanted to be a kid momma and a dog momma but chicken momma never crossed my mind,” she said. “I do feel closer to my food, and the chickens are just so cute.”
Ms. Haigh got special permission through Churchill Borough to keep two chickens for her son Dorian, 8, a Make-A-Wish child who has a connective-tissue disorder known as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome with a highly functional level of autism.
When their hens were delivered, he showed a surprising level of expression as he watched an egg being laid then picked it up to show his mother. “It’s another way to watch him interact with other beings,” Ms. Haigh said. “He just enjoys it so much, as do I.”
Her big decision now is whether to keep the chickens or allow them to return in November to Armstrong County. An advocate of recycling, composting and raising one’s own food, Ms. Haigh said she enjoys what the chickens have brought to her home beyond fresh eggs.
“The calmness of it and sense of reward and accomplishment is hard to explain but all are interwoven,” she said. “This has been a very positive experience. We’ve become very attached to them and them to us.”
For more information: RentTheChicken.com.
David Templeton: dtempleton@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1578.
First Published: July 5, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
