Some Platte Valley residents raise chickens to beat rising egg costs

— From just January to February, the average nationwide retail price for a dozen Grade A eggs has jumped 19.15% from $4.95 to $5.89, according to the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. The cost is impart due to inflation and the current Bird Flu outbreak which began in February of 2022.

“The corporate food system is to blame for exacerbating the scale of outbreaks as well as the high cost of eggs,” according to a report from Food & Water Watch published this month.

The report claims that factory farms are “virus incubators,” and that the price is dictated by a monopolized handful of companies that supply a majority of the nation's eggs.

The continuous sky-rocketing price of the prominent protein source has affected the breakfast and pockets of Platte Valley Residents, except those who have their own chickens like Sophia Borg.

Borg has eight chickens that produce anywhere between eight to 12 eggs a day, she said.

“I try to make sure our friends and family are taken care of,” Borg said about people asking for eggs with rising costs, “and the rest I take to the Saratoga Feed and Grain store.”

So you want to have chickens?

Borg has had chickens off and on throughout her entire life, she said.

“About two years ago,” Borg said, “I got bamboozled by our son at a Tractor Supply. Because he was scared of them, we told him that if he could catch a chicken then we would buy all of them.”

Just like Rocky Balboa, her son caught a chicken, and Borg had eight new fine feathered egg suppliers.

To make a home for the chickens, Borg converted a dog kennel by adding a roof, floor, and chicken coop with heat lamps during the winter.

“We let them free graze for pellet feed. They get all our kitchen scraps and things like that on the daily,” she said.

Borg said there’s one thing chicken newbies don’t usually expect: predators.

“We live in Wyoming,” she said, “which means there are weasels and eagles. People forget about that kind of stuff. You always have to have a roof over your chicken coop, because they will get swept up quickly and make sure there is a floor so weasels cannot dig underneath.”

For Borg, the most difficult part of having chickens comes in the winter when their water freezes. “But that’s not a very hard problem to have,” she admits. “We just break the ice about every other day or boil some water and put it on top.”

Her favorite parts of raising chickens, she said, are “the eggs or watching all the kids play with the chickens. I do enjoy that part and I enjoy them eating out of my hand too.”

Her advice to anyone looking to own chickens would be to make sure to have all the correct equipment, ensure the birds have a warm dry place to roost and that they always have food and water.

This story was published on March 20, 2025.