They take eating local to heart

PITTSBORO -- Correction: A photo caption named the wrong person as the owner of Pittsboro Feed, a Chatham County feed store. The store is owned by Christine Miller and her husband.

Laurel Petrich bought four chicks from a local feed store a couple of years ago so she could teach her 3-year-old granddaughter, Emma Leigh, where eggs come from.

"I thought she might enjoy going out and getting the eggs with me, which she does," Petrich said. "She likes to lift up the roof of the chicken houses where you can see the nests and say, 'Oh yes, oh yes! Eggs, eggs, eggs!' "

Today Petrich has about 50 hens on her five acres -- some laying eggs for her table, some she sells whole and some rare birds she breeds.

More people are raising backyard hens. Most want eggs from naturally fed, free-range chickens for their tables.

Like Petrich, many buy their chicks from local feed stores or order them through the mail, said Karen McAdams, livestock agent for Orange and Durham counties with the N.C. Cooperative Extension.

"I do get more calls on home poultry flocks more than I used to," she said.

Most people buy chicks in the spring and summer, because they're easier to raise and keep warm this time of year. After five to seven months, they're ready to lay eggs.

Christine Miller, who owns Pittsboro Feed at 1103 East St. with her husband David, carries egg-laying chicks from March through the first week of June. Most of her customers who buy the chicks aren't farmers but want to raise them in their backyards.

Miller's store sells about 3,000 chickens throughout the spring. She sells them for $2.75 a piece and offers five or six varieties. Among those she keeps in stock are ameraucanas, Rhode Island reds and isa browns.

"These will give you an egg a day or an egg every other day. At 3 years old, they slow down their laying," Miller said. "Other than that, they're pretty easy to take care of. It just requires a heat lamp, feed and water."

Ameraucanas lay green, blue or pink eggs, and are usually the most popular chickens, she said. Others give white, brown or dark brown eggs. People tend to come in her store looking for the ameraucana, she said, but end up buying other varieties, too.

Customers, she said, "just like the looks of the flocks in their yard ... the different colored feathers." "Some people get really into the personalities of their farm animals, too."

Petrich's chickens remind her of growing up in Illinois and of her grandmother taking her out to collect newly laid eggs.

There are other perks.

Since Petrick is the one raising them, she knows they're free-range and that she's feeding them what she thinks they should be fed.

She can also tell the difference between eating free-range eggs and those that aren't.

"I had eaten eggs at a restaurant once with friends, and they were so bland," she said. "I was so disappointed because free-range eggs taste really good."

"It makes a nice little hobby," she said about raising hens. "Or a big hobby if you get carried away like I did."