All across Utah, farm stores like IFA Country Store are seeing an increase in demand for baby chickens.
People are looking for more sustainable ways to provide food for their families during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they’re turning to chicken farming.
Whittney Young is a manager at the IFA in Riverton, and she says on a normal day, the cages are full.
But over the last few weeks, she says 1,000 chicks can sell out in a day or even half a day, when it normally takes a week to sell that many.
Young says people are worrying that they’ll have to be more self sufficient, with grocery stores running out of food as people stock up to quarantine.
She adds, however, that while this is a good way to get and keep eggs at your house, it’s a lot of work and can be expensive.
"To kind of get started with chicks, you’ll have to have a heat lamp, a heat bowl and a place to put them in, with feed and water, and that takes about eight weeks before you can put them outside," Young said.
It generally takes 16 to 20 weeks for the chickens to produce any eggs and can cost hundreds of dollars to get started.
And before you get started, you'll also want to with check with your city to see if the ordinances allow for chicken farming.
