National chicken rental business brings birds to VT backyards

Yahoo

26-02-2025

GREENSBORO, Vt. (ABC22 FOX44) – Laura Hill loves chickens, but never imagined she'd be renting them to strangers.
Five years ago, Hill's 14-year-old son Warren connected with the owner of 'Rent the Chicken,' a growing national program dedicated to the rental chicken business. Hill says her son fell in love with the idea of running his own business, which now supplies chickens across Northeast Vermont to over two dozen renters. Now in college, she says, he manages the deliveries when he comes home for school breaks.
'I really like chickens and agriculture, it's just part of our life and so it's fun to just share it with other people,' said Hill.
With about 70 chickens currently on the property, Hill says she is preparing for an influx of web orders in the next month. Renters, who can choose between adopting two to four chickens for the summer, also receive a portable chicken coop, feed, water and food dishes and instructions on how to care for the birds.
Hill says, while her backyard flock has not been affected by the growing number of avian flu cases this season, she will be reminding renters to take precautions, which includes changing shoes and keeping the birds close to home.
'You could pick up something from another farm or property and bring it into your flock,' she said.
Natalie, Hill's teenage daughter, says while she helps out with the chickens, she prefers the company of her cows which she enters in contests across New England. Her lack of chicken love, she says, comes from her big brother's insistence that she's better at chasing down the feistier fowl.
'He says it's because I can run faster, but I think it's more that he doesn't want to,' she said with a laugh.
The chickens will be delivered to their part-time owners starting in May and will come back to Hill's care in October. But if owners fall in with their chickens, she says, they always have the option to permanently adopt their feathered friends.
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