At a northern Maine so-called inn, there’s the constant chirping of fresh fluffy chicks, the territorial honking geese and crowing roosters as a Merrill man’s flock of cold-hardy chickens, guinea fowl, quail, and geese continues to grow.
The Side Chick Inn, a small, independent Aroostook County poultry operation in Merrill across the street from Oakfield, got started late last year by two local guys, who couldn’t find a consistent source of hardy, practical stock suited to northern Maine’s often brutal winters. The farm is not an inn for people, but for birds that are hand-raised.
Rather than settle, Jon Hunt and Rick Roddy, began hand raising their beloved birds by first incubator hatching inside their homes before transitioning outside into the farm yard and small handcrafted log cabin barns that are now for sale to others.
“They are all so healthy. Hatch day – we’re so excited,” Hunt said, while cradling a small yellow house goose. “The people we sell to are mostly homesteaders or for backyard flocks. They are going to have kids, neighbors; so you want your birds to be friendly and able to be handled.”
Backyard flocks began sprouting up during the COVID-19 pandemic and when egg prices topped $10 a dozen in 2024, residential flocks continued to spread. And last year, after Maine passed a law allowing chickens on private residential property even in locations previously prohibited, interest boomed, according to experts. Because of this, the Side Chick Inn grew from a handful of birds late last year to 18 species, 24 breeds and nearly 300 birds.
Hunt’s wife, Kirsten, passed away two years ago. Along with his daughter Addison,15, two dogs, Molly and Willow and 17 parrots, Hunt then moved back to Maine from Salt Lake City. Son Ethan Hunt, 28, moved to Maine ahead of them and now lives on one side of their Merrill home.
A Maine native, Hunt was born in Arundel. He moved his family to Salt Lake City in 2015 to work at the Kennecott Mine, he said.
Because of Kirsten’s love of birds, Jon Hunt and Addison decided to get a few chickens after returning to Maine and the rest is history. A woman in Benedicta, who had been raising cold hardy Siberian Blues for 50 years to perfect the line, offered him her birds, he said.
Bred for Maine winters they have very small head combs and waddles and almost no feathers on their feet, making it almost impossible for them to get frostbite — and they can survive in an unheated coop, he said.
“Because of the way they are built, they are a smaller hen but lay a full size egg,” Hunt said. “They use less feed for the same egg output. They produce about 320 eggs a year. She raised all her roosters to be people friendly. They don’t attack and can be picked up. They don’t bite or scratch.”
Hunt explained that when chicks are sold in larger farm stores they are generally from out of state and as soon as they are hatched are thrown into a box and shipped in airplanes and trucks in cold and heat. Many do not survive because they have been exposed to so much during such a fragile time.
For Hunt and Roddy, the Side Chick Inn birds generally survive because they are hand-raised.
Last week Hunt had about 50 newly hatched chicks in warmed tubs that he transitions step- by-step into the yard to teach them how to regulate their body temperature, he said, adding that Roddy also has about 40 or 50 chicks at a time.
Late last year, in addition to the hens and roosters, he had one pair of geese that quickly turned into 17 full size when he adopted 15 more. And because they mate for life, they have all been given king and queen names like Victoria and Albert, Henry and his couple of wives. A pair of black and white Chinese geese are called Yin and Yang.
“They have so much personality,” Hunt said. “They act as flock guardians for chickens because even a coyote really won’t mess with a goose. And these dogs would die for the birds, but they are terrified of the geese. The geese are good watchdogs, they are loud. Let you know when something is around.”
Just this past week the geese have been hatching and they are selling quickly, he said.
In addition to continuing to perfect the cold hardy line, they are building more log cabin barns to better separate the birds. They are adding a horse to the farm and Hunt is getting certified to test his own birds for various infections to ship eggs nationwide, he said.
“That opens things up a lot,” he added. “Although I can verify none of them are sick because I live in the house with them.”
