There's a run on live chickens at the farms of Sun Valley Produce and Hartley Harvest as people look to become more self-sufficient during the coronavirus.
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Third generation chicken breeder Michael Mole from Hartley Harvest "officially sold out of chickens" on Friday morning after receiving about 20 messages for bulk buys of laying hens. His farmer wife Denise also had triple the weekly orders for vegetables - from 100 to 300 orders - and has been "run ragged" since Tuesday.
"Usually we don't deliver Wednesdays, but we've had to, due to the surge and people calling off the hook about Coles and Woolies not delivering for the time being. Then about two days ago we had about 20 messages about laying hens."
Mr Mole said they had sold close to 100 laying hens this week.
"We now have no more sellable stock, and we won't have chicks until mid April."
It's a problem also encountered by Jason Hollier at Sun Valley produce who let customers know all his hens had sold over the weekend - 200 chickens, or about three weeks worth of supply, gone in two days. He got another supply of 50 hens on Monday and that sold out in four hours, despite him putting a four hen limit on each buyer.
"I don't have a single chook to sell, our breeding stock is left and that's it. It's just gone nuts," he told the Gazette.
Mr Hollier said he had been at pains to explain to new chicken owners that they might be waiting three or four weeks to get eggs from some of the chickens.
We let them know these chooks don't lay toilet paper - they are not golden chooks
"And we let them know these chooks don't lay toilet paper - they are not golden chooks," he said with a laugh.
"I guess it's people wanting to have chooks for some sort of food security - they figure they'll get some chooks and they'll have fresh eggs.
"I didn't see it coming at all, the supermarkets are going nuts. I didn't think it would get us. It was all of a sudden. We put extra staff on to cope with it."
Mr Hollier said they had not had a run on chicken coops, just on the chickens and "all the supplies that go with them".
"Some people have already got chooks and are getting a few extras, some people are starting from scratch."
"People wanted to buy 20 and I said no, the phone has been going non-stop." He said some of the customers had come from out of the area.
Most of Mr Hollier's hen supply comes from Bond Enterprises in Queensland's Lockyer Valley where the wholesaler has experienced a 30 per cent spike in sales of egg layers since the weekend.
"Maybe a good thing will come out of it and people with have their own chooks, grow their own veggies and be a bit more self sufficient if something like this ever happens again. They won't have to rely on the supermarket so much, it could be a silver lining once this thing's over."
Mr Hollier said they still had plenty of pet food and supplies and more chickens arriving from April 2.
Mr Mole from Hartley said they "were all happy that people are going pesticide free veg and fruit, as well as local, after the chaos of drought, fires then floods."
