'Chick Day' frenzy hits Renfrow Hardware
Chicks sold out quickly last week, but more are on the way and will be sold through April
The following article appeared in the March 16, 2024, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with smart and original local news for Charlotte. We offer free and paid subscription plans. More info here.
Urban homesteaders line up early to beat the chicken sellout at Matthews hardware store
by Amber Veverka
Tallulah and her dad were taking no chances.
On Thursday morning, long before the 8 a.m. opening time, they were waiting on their folding chairs in front of Renfrow Hardware in downtown Matthews. Behind them, a line stretched down the sidewalk.
“Chick Day” at Renfrow Hardware is a day of hope and big dreams for urban homesteaders around Charlotte, who arrive early to secure their chicken breeds of choice. The chicks sell out early.
It’s a tradition at the old-time hardware store, interrupted only last year when hatcheries ran short of chicks due to bird flu. Those in line include the newly converted, who leave Renfrow with heat lamps, bedding and plenty of advice, as well as the more experienced farming faithful, like Tallulah Chopas, age 10.
Tallulah and her family have 26 chickens — all named — in their Matthews yard. Tallulah sells the extra eggs, complete with chicken pictures on each carton.
What was the young entrepreneur looking for on Chick Day? “Personality and egg production,” Tallulah said. Specifically, Ameraucanas (they have “fun faces and lay green eggs”) and Black Stars (“they have a fun name”).
“We want to foster the opportunity for our daughter and son to live off the land and take care of animals,” said her dad, Joshua Chopas. He and his wife, Debbie, homeschool Tallulah and her brother, Titus, 6, and use their chicken-keeping to work in lessons in biology, anatomy and environmental science.
Joshua Chopas with his daughter, Tallulah, who sells eggs from their flock in cartons adorned with chicken pictures. That’s Carolina Panthers punter Johnny Hekker in the green hoodie, also a chicken-keeper. (Amber Veverka photo.)
RIP, Batman
Behind the Chopases waited Carolina Panthers punter Johnny Hekker. When Hekker and his wife, Makayla, bought their south Charlotte house last year, it came with an unusual feature: a chicken flock.
Question: Is keeping chickens like playing football? Hekker: “I would definitely say being a specialist is similar to raising chicks and chickens. It’s mostly watching, but the contributions you do get to make help everyone else be happy.”
The Hekkers had an especially beloved black chicken named Batman, and soon learned what Renfrow Hardware owner David Blackley often says: Everything eats chicken.
“Batman got hawked!” said Hekker. “We miss her every day.”
When Ruth Harris, Blackley’s sister and part of the Renfrow crew, unlocked the front doors at 8, Hekker and all the others trooped in. They wove past the garden seed displays and the pot-bellied stove, following the sound of peeping. The first of some 1,200 or so female chicks Renfrow will order this spring snuggled together inside their warm brooders, looking like living pompoms.
Three-chick minimum
The chicks cost $6 each, and there’s a three-chick minimum. “They’re flocking creatures,” Blackley said. “If you get one, it’ll peep itself to death. If you have two, one will dominate the other. If you have three, it just works.” But most folks Thursday wanted many more than three.
Cathryn Cicetti and her three kids bought a dozen. “I’ve wanted to do this for about 13 years,” Cicetti said. She said her coop was all set up — an important first step. While chicks stay in a warm, protected spot under a brooder lamp until they feather out, when they move outside, they need a coop sheathed in hardware cloth — metal screening with small holes — or something similar, to keep them safe from predators (see tips below).
Of course, there’s the little matter of keeping the chicken owners safe from rogue chickens. Remi Mace, 6, watched as mom Missy Mace and sister Nora, 10, received their family’s chicks. He didn’t seem especially eager to peer into the box. “He got pecked last night by our chicken Ruthie,” Missy said. “We call her ‘Ruthie the Ruthless.’”
More chicks are on their way
Blackley and Harris were joined in the chicken-order filling by Matthew Williams, Blackley’s son-in-law and the newest addition to the family business. “This is my first chicken run. It’s great!” he said. Williams and his wife, Pressly, have 22 birds of their own but have their eyes on more.
Some flock to Chick Day for the chance to raise birds humanely. The American Humane Society reports that the average commercially raised battery-cage hen lives her whole short life confined to a space the size of a sheet of paper.
For Missy Mace, the allure is sharing the fruits of her hens’ labor. “My love language is giving away eggs,” she said.
Fifteen minutes after the store opened, the brooders were emptying. Renfrow will continue to get new chicks through the end of April. Backyard chicken-keeping may be on-trend, but Blackley said the store has sold chicks since the turn of the century. Renfrow’s “Chickens 101” classes have sold out. Every spring brings more newbies, along with people whose families have always kept poultry. “She grew up getting chickens from us,” Blackley said, gesturing at one woman in line.
The peeping grew quieter as the customers took their boxes to the cash register. Tallulah and her dad headed home, rewarded for their first-in-line efforts with their Black Stars, Ameraucanas and two bonus Barred Rocks.
Since chickens are flocking animals, Renfrow Hardware has a three-chick minimum to keep them happy. (Amber Veverka photo.)
Tips for keeping chicks
It’s a girls’ club. A hen lays (infertile) eggs without the help of a rooster. Inside Charlotte, you can keep chickens (see the particulars here, under section 3-102), so long as they don’t annoy neighbors. Roosters usually crow at all hours.
Clean water is crucial. Hens need a balanced diet to be healthy but are not especially picky about food. However, a chicken will die of thirst rather than drink filthy water.
Ask me how I know. Chickens attract hawks, owls and raccoons. Hens need to roost in a secure coop at night. And don’t make the mistake of this writer, whose long-ago chicken ownership began with a coop fashioned from a dog kennel. The large holes allow a raccoon’s paw to slip through and snag a sleeping hen.
It’s easier than you think. Chicken-keeping is actually pretty simple. “They’re less work than a dog,” says David Blackley, Renfrow Hardware owner.
Amber Veverka is a freelance writer in Charlotte. She can be reached at askbackyard@gmail.com.
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