Backyard Chickens: Floridians Start Raising Hens to Combat Rising Egg Prices

Katie Whalen’s backyard in the Florida city of Port St Lucie is testament to her journey towards a life of self-sufficiency. She grows mangoes, avocados, starfruit, jackfruit and coconuts. She is cultivating a tropical tree spinach known as chaya.

What she really wants, however, is a chicken coop and hens to provide eggs that are becoming increasingly unaffordable in stores. As bird flu worsens across the US and commercial suppliers struggle to keep up with demand, the keeping of fowl and production of eggs in home environments, has surged in popularity, and Whalen is keen to join the revolution.

Nationwide, an estimated 84 million chickens are kept privately, broadly similar to the numbers of cats and dogs kept as pets.

“[It’s] the news reports of bird flu, the scarcity of eggs, the high cost, really,” she said. “I’ve been wanting for a while to get chickens because I’m into gardening and the whole permaculture stuff that I’m learning about. And obviously chickens are very beneficial in that system.”