An egg incubator Gessler uses to hatch chicks. (Devan Ridgway/WTIU News)
Nikki Gessler considers the 13-acre plot she and her husband own near Gosport a homesteader’s dream.
Every day is a busy one and involves feeding cows, goats, ducks, chickens, dogs, a cat and pigs, including a little piglet named Guappo.
“I get up early, and I milk my goat,” Gessler said on a warm Monday morning while standing among her flock. “I have a piglet that I'm taking care of, too, because he had some trouble with his litter mates. So, I milk the goat, take the milk to him, give him his milk, feed the dog and cat, then the rest.”
They also have a garden and beehives. With all these different food sources, they been able to live off what they grow in their yard.
Gessler was raised on a farm similar to this one in northwestern Indiana. Her family primarily reared chickens when she was growing up.
“Pretty much my whole life my grandparents had chickens, and then our property was right next to theirs, so we had chickens,” she said. “We probably had 100, 200 chickens between us. Why did we have that many? I don't remember.”
The Gessler’s have heard about the soaring egg prices, but it hasn’t directly affected them thank to their flock of about 30 egg laying hens. The average price of a dozen of eggs hit $5.42 last month.
“We haven't bought eggs since we moved here,” she said. “And in fact, right now — even it being early March, which is the hungry times — if the grocery stores closed, we'd be fine.”
Gessler said that with a little research and some area to put them, anyone can take on their own flock.
“Learn it all,” she said. “There's not much to learn, they're pretty easy. They're kind of the cats of the livestock. They can take care of themselves pretty well.”
Her biggest challenge in raising chickens has been dealing with predators. Across three separate instances, a neighborhood dog killed nearly 20 of her chickens when they first started out.
Read more: Hoosiers split on proposed bobcat trapping season
Darrin Karcher, a poultry specialist with the Purdue Extension, said raising chickens affords other benefits as well, like the peace of mind of knowing exactly where your food is coming from.
“You may have kids, and so this gives them a pet beyond a cat and a dog that they can interact with; they have some responsibilities for caring for those birds, collecting those egg,” he said. “So, there are some other things like that that can be a benefit that we can't quantify from an economic perspective.”
But getting to the point the Gessler’s are now with their flock takes time and money. You have to invest money to build a coop, purchase chickens and buy feed. It’s a lot of upfront costs and will take a while for egg production to offset that investment.
“It's very feasible,” he said. “It is going to take some work. It's not something you can just go out buy some birds and tomorrow you have eggs in the house.”
Then you need to consider local laws and ordinances. In Bloomington, anyone who wants to own chickens within the city limits needs a permit from the city’s Animal Care and Control Department.
Under law, owners must provide a shelter for the chickens and some sort of enclosure to keep them on the property. People also can’t have more than five birds.
There are also laws to consider at the state level if you want to sell your eggs.
“You would need to contact the Indiana State Egg Board and ask them about what is the appropriate license that you would need to secure,” he said. “It is not required, but I would strongly encourage you to reach out to the Board of Animal Health through their website and register your premise.”
The biggest question though, is about bird flu. The thing driving up the price of eggs, is also something that could affect your new flock.
Karcher said it’s a real risk to consider before going all in.
“Small flock producers as well are being impacted,” he said. “In fact, if you look at some of the numbers, I could argue that the small flock producers are probably impacted as much, if not a little bit more.”
In fact, bird flu has made buying chicks a challenge. This time of the year, you can usually find them at a variety of farm supply and hardware stores.
But Bloomington Hardware sold out of its first batch of chicks within a week, and now the store is waiting for its next shipment to arrive.
Karcher said there are delays getting chicks to the market because some hatcheries exist in bird flu containment zones and require extra testing before they can be sold.
“We've had some hatcheries that have just made the decision at this point that they are going to wait until the Containment Zone has been lifted,” he said.
Since 2022, over seven million birds in 18 Indiana counties have been lost to bird flu. That number includes both commercial and hobby flocks.
But for those ready to take on chickens themselves, Gessler said they’ll find a fulfilling hobby.
“If something happened to her,” she said while holding a favorite hen, “it would be like putting my dog down. Every day I come out here and check on them and make sure they're all right, give them what they need, my day revolves around them. So, I really do care about them.”
Read more: The financial and mental toll of bird flu outbreaks
