In this episode of Behind The Hustle, host Brad (head of content at The Hustle) interviews longtime writer Caroline Dohack about the surge in backyard chicken keeping that emerged during the COVID‑19 pandemic. Caroline explains how a Facebook post about panic‑buying chicks led her to discover a booming niche market where sales of baby chicks and chicken products have jumped by hundreds of percent. She warns prospective chicken owners that the venture is not immediately profitable: chicks need time to mature, they undergo molting, and they stop laying in winter, making break‑even a challenge. Despite the financial hurdles, she extols the superior taste and nutrition of fresh eggs, the joy of watching chickens’ personalities, and the social capital gained by sharing eggs with neighbors. Caroline shares colorful anecdotes about naming her flock after 90s hip‑hop and R&B artists, and recounts a pecking‑order conflict that resulted in a chicken pecking a hole in another’s neck. To prevent cannibalism, she describes humane “penless peepers” – blinders that limit forward vision without beak clipping. The conversation blends market insight, practical care tips, and personal storytelling, inviting listeners to explore the chicken‑raising business and to read Caroline’s full Sunday story.
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Hopefully you have done your research. Hopefully you know what you're in for. If you don't know what you're in for, my friend will eat your chickens.
Hey everyone, I'm Brad. I'm the head of content at The Hustle. I'm joined tonight by Carolyn Dohack, one of our longest serving and most entertaining writers who does a lot of work for the daily. And this week she's got a Sunday story for us. Welcome to the show, Caroline.
Thanks for having me, Brad.
You bet. So we've written about people who are baking their own bread, and we've written about people who are doing a lot more gardening, and lots of do-it-yourself trends. And this week Caroline has a story about chicken rearing. And I wonder, Caroline, you're in the Missouri area, what did— where did you find the chicken story for us?
Sure, so I'm a I have been a chicken wrangler in the past, not at the moment, but I was just scrolling Facebook one day and a friend who lives out of town had posted that anyone who had panic-bought chickens and found them overwhelming was welcome to donate them to her. However, people needed to know that she already had a full flock of laying hens and any chickens that they donated, she was going to slaughter and eat them. Eee!
So that's how you stumble upon the story. You realize this is— that there's panic buying happening.
Yeah, I hadn't heard of that, and I mean, urban hens have been popular for a while, and so I looked into it, and yeah, this has been a thing.
Turns out it is a thing now, and there's a whole economy around it, and so What is the business of raising chickens look like, both for the consumer and for the businesses, as much as you know at this point?
If you are in the business of selling baby chicks or chicken products, this is a great time for you. You are seeing, compared with last year, your sales have increased hundreds of percentages. It's awesome. If you are someone who has panic purchased chickens, hopefully you have done your research. Hopefully you know what you're in for. If you don't know what you're in for, my friend will eat your chickens. Um, but the thing is, you're not going to break even on your investment. And you're not going to have a steady stream of eggs, not for a while, because your chicks will have to mature. But also they go through awkward molting phases and they don't lay in the winter.
But you do get these amazing eggs, like fresh-laid eggs, and you have these chickens running around your backyard. So is it worth the hassle? I mean, obviously you're going to explore this a little bit in the story, but it doesn't make a lot of money for you, but you get these nice eggs.
I mean, personally, I think so. The eggs are far superior to what you would get at the store. The yolks are orange. They just, they just stand up in the pan. There's some research on the omega-whatever levels that shows that they're more nutritious. The chickens are fun, you know, you look out your window and you see these little triangles and they're moving around and they have personalities and they're very bitchy and that's really fun. And your neighbors will like you a lot more, I have found. I was concerned when I first got into it that they would not, but they like it. And if you share with them, you become very popular.
Exactly, you share some eggs. You've had some, it sounds like some entertaining battles in your yard with chickens. Tell us about like your favorite story about one of your chickens and what some of the names are. Oh, sure.
So my husband is an early '90s hip-hop aficionado, and so a lot of our chickens have hip-hop or R&B-inspired names. And we got our first batch, we got 6 of them, and Lil' Kim died of unnatural causes. We're not sure what. LP was killed by a raccoon, which was very messy. So we got two new ones to replace them, Mary J. Blige and Pharrell. And it was the girl who was on the, like, just the very lowest point in the pecking order. She was very insecure. And she started pecking the new girls like in the neck. And she actually pecked a hole in Mary J. Belige's neck. And the thing is, you don't want that because if they get a taste for one another's flesh, they will cannibalize. It's very gross. So your choices there are you can clip their beaks, which I'm not into. You can kill the chicken, which I'm not into. Or you can get these things called penless peepers. So they're blinders, but they look like Kanye West sunglasses, right? And they, they fit into the nostrils on the top of the beak. It's completely humane. And they keep the chicken from seeing straight ahead so she can't attack, but she can still see well enough that she can peck and scratch and bite. So Salt and Peppa had to wear these for a while while they got used to Pharrell and Mary J. Blige. And it took a little while and they got over it, but that was, that was a thing for a while.
That's fantastic. I can't wait to read your story. There's so much more to hear about the chicken business, how you raise them, how lovely they can be, and then also there are some very troubling things which you will talk about in the story. I'm not going to let I'll let you tell everyone now, but make sure you open the email on Sunday. You will love Caroline Dohack's first Sunday story, and thanks for tuning in, everyone.
