The Funny Farm: I’d Like Some Chicken Milk, Please

Over years of scrolling through thousands of posts in online chicken groups I’ve seen my fair share of odd posts. You know, the ones that betray folks lack of knowledge about poultry anatomy, physiology and reproduction, but this one takes the cake. I’ve seen the question posted more than once so it appears that there’s a few folks out there confused about how hens feed their chicks. If you’re one of them, here’s the explanation.

This one comes from Hayes Family Farms, a micro raw dairy and livestock farm consisting of 110 acres, in the hills of the Appalachian Mountains.

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We thought long and hard before posting this. At first we thought it was a joke, but after speaking to the person asking, they were truly serious.

We did take the time to educate them and then we all had a good laugh. We asked for their permission to write about it.

So what happened?

This morning, we had an elderly woman and her 40-something year old daughter and two granddaughters park at our gate. We don’t open to the public until 1 PM when we milk and do chores and are all on the farm.

The dogs were barking so I walked out of the coop to see what was going on. I noticed these four and walked over to them.

Turns out they had just moved to the area and were new followers, looking for raw milk.

I opened the gate and we walked over to our farm-store and explained how our cowherd shares worked. We went over pricing, how we milk the cows, clean them, etc.

And then they asked, “Where’s the chicken milk?” They only saw we had cows’ milk in the store.

“The what?” I asked.

“The chicken milk”, they said again. They thought they’re all allergic to cows’ milk and were advised to try chicken milk instead.

It took me a moment as I truly thought they were joking, but they weren’t. They seriously thought chickens could be milked.

They explained to me how chickens produced milk only after hatching eggs and that’s how they fed their chicks.

In that moment, I realized they weren’t joking and obviously had been steered wrong; and who knows why?

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So, I said, “You know what, follow me”.

We walked over to the chickens. We have a few momma hens with little’s. I had them just watch as momma pecked and cackled at her bunch and the chicks, too, would peck at what she was instructing them to eat.

I then picked up momma, flipped her over, and showed them, chickens don’t have teats aka nipples. I picked up a few more hens, flipped them over, and again showed them, “See, no teats”.

I don’t know if they were in shock or what but they almost looked like a kid who had their favorite toy taken away because they were really hoping to buy chicken milk. I apologized to them, for whomever it was that steered them wrong, that it sounded like satire and they perhaps took it as fact.

We stood there a second and they burst out laughing. That ‘OMG how could they have ever believed such a thing?’ They whole-heartedly thanked me and wanted to pay me for the mini-lesson which I, of course, did not accept.  I’m just glad I was able to convince them that chickens were in fact not milked and did not produce milk for their young.

They bought some things from the store and I sent them off with a free sample of our milk to try.

To say the least, as a farmer, I know chickens aren’t milked, but there are folks who do and though we all laughed in the end, so many people, it seems just don’t know the basics of farm animals.  We should always try and educate, even in a bizarre situation like the one I just experienced.

Picture of the momma who patiently got handled by all four to show chickens, in fact, do not have teats.

The ladies ended up signing up with us, loved our milk, and the patience, I showed and time I took to teach them.

I’m just glad that they believed me, and saw with their own eyes, that chickens, in fact have no teats.

Oh the trials and tribulations of farming.

I would have never imagined this scenario nor would I have ever guessed in a million years that I’d be asked for chicken milk. I’m still cracking up.

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Many thanks to Hayes Valley Farms for sharing their story and photo, used with permission.