Bird’s the word: Friends’ podcast celebrates love of chickens in Harford

Every Tuesday, two middle-aged women meet in Joppa to record a weekly podcast in which they discuss the loves of their lives. Their passions are always the same: They chat about chickens.

For an hour, Chrisie DiCarlo and Holly Callahan-Kasmala expound on the pleasures of raising poultry as pets. The show, called “Coffee with the Chicken Ladies,” is a casual celebration of backyard biddies and their place in the world, from homestead egg-layers to cuddly cluckers.

“Hug your chickens every day, and kiss them, too,” DiCarlo says in her sign-off each week. Both ladies have mother hens of their own: DiCarlo, 50, has nearly 30 chickens on her family’s 3-acre homestead in Joppa; Callahan-Kasmala, also 50, cares for almost 40 of them on her farm in Millers (northern Baltimore County). They pet them. They squeeze them.

“Chickens follow you around, all the time,” DiCarlo said. “They want to be with you; they want to be on you. Some like to land on my head.”

Their podcast, which began in 2020, has produced nearly 200 episodes, each highlighting a different breed of chicken — some with feathered feet, others with extra toes. The hosts tackle an eclectic mix of subjects. Here, one learns ways to foil chicken predators and how to care for sick chicks. Listeners discover how to make savory omelets and where to buy chicken-print underwear. Discussions range from using chickens as therapy animals to dealing with “bully” hens (answer: separate them from the flock until a new pecking order takes hold).

For those 60 minutes, the bird is the word.

“If it’s a topic tied to chickens, then it’s on our plate,” Callahan-Kasmala said. “When we started the show four years ago, people said, ‘You can’t talk about chickens every week.’ We said, ‘Just watch.’ ”

Clearly, the podcast has an audience. Today, nearly 13% of U.S. households keep backyard chickens, a 5% jump since 2018, according to the American Pet Products Association. The pandemic seems to have triggered the spike, as folks strove to be self-sufficient by producing their own eggs.

The podcast that began amid that surge was a no-brainer for two longtime chicken-loving friends. DiCarlo is a retired veterinary technician; her co-host is a historian whose poultry research helps drive the show. The women grew up together, in Essex, and never lost touch.

“We’ve been talking on the phone together since we were 10,” DiCarlo said of their banter. “Last year, we drove to Boston, 17 hours round trip, and never once turned on the radio.”

Before COVID-19, she said, “We would get together for coffee and talk forever, about life. Then the pandemic hit, and we noticed [a run on] chicken coops. We realized there was a crazy chicken boom on, and that we both have credentials to educate people, so why not put our wisdom out there to help them, and make it fun?”

Their chemistry is apparent as they settle in to tape the podcast in the basement studio of DiCarlo’s home. The room is filled with vintage chicken-related keepsakes, from ceramics to glassware to paintings.

Each show begins with a rooster’s hearty crow. That’s the sound of Ricardo Montalban, a 15-pound Jersey Giant, now deceased.

“We’ve immortalized him in the podcast,” DiCarlo said.

To date, the show has followers in 131 countries (“That’s people, though some might also be listening with their chickens,” Callahan-Kasmala said) and has received nearly 250 reviews on Apple. They comb the world — England, Africa and New Zealand — seeking experts for fowl talk. They boast seven national sponsors, all hawking chicken-related products. The hosts themselves peddle T-shirts, tank tops and mugs bearing the podcast’s logo, a pastoral watercolor of the two of them sitting blissfully outside, in Adirondack chairs, surrounded by hens and a wooden coop.

Increasingly, they’ve appeared at conferences and county fairs, from Iowa to Alabama. Why do the chicken ladies cross the road? To share their know-how on pets that peck.

Most of the show’s audience, like chickens, is female.

“Women and poultry have a long history together,” Callahan-Kasmala said. “Through World War II, women were responsible for farm animal care.”

Not all who tune in own hens; some are mulling the prospect. More than one has offered, “I don’t have chickens but I love listening because you make me happy.”

Each episode offers recipes that use eggs (NOT chickens), such as souffles, muffins and stuffing. Another favorite topic: breeds that lay off-colored eggs (blue, green and pink) — though, truth be told, all fresh eggs taste the same.

But it’s when the hosts share tales of their own flocks that the podcast takes off. Both women name their chickens; Agatha Christie, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Frances Hodgson Burnett scratch for grubs in Callahan-Kasmala’s backyard.

“They are fast and careful hunters,” she said. “I have hens that will jump and snatch a moth from the air faster than you can blink.”

Pshaw, said DiCarlo.

“I have chickens that have eaten a snake, a mouse and a frog.”

Among her favorites was a hen named Gertie, “one of the most charismatic chickens I’ve ever had. Gertie was very alpha and wanted to be around people, or she’d give a pterodactyl scream like nothing you’ve ever heard.

“I used to take her to Independent Brewing, in Bel Air, where she’d sit outside with us, in her stroller, while my husband and I had a beer. It’s personalities like hers that get you sucked into chicken keeping.”

For Callahan-Kasmala, the “light-bulb moment” came early in her hen-raising pursuit.

“I wondered why nobody ever told me how amazing these little featherballs are,” she said. “They’re funny, smart and affectionate. I never knew that a hen would get in your lap and go to sleep, or make little crying sounds.

“Research has shown that a chicken’s brain is like a little computer chip, and that [the animal] has about the same mental capacity as a 7-year-old child. It can recognize more than 100 faces, and has complex social bonds.”

Off their temperament, it’s hard not to personify chickens, DiCarlo said. Consider Cornelia, one in her brood who has shown a willingness to share a meal with her owner.

“Given food, she calls me to come and share it with her,” she said. “Cornelia makes a high-pitched ‘to-to-to’ sound, called tidbitting, which means, ‘Hey, there’s some good stuff over here.’ ”

The treats being black soldier fly grubs, DiCarlo declines. But the podcast audience eats up such stuff.

“Listeners tell us it’s more relaxing to watch their chickens than TV,” she said. “It’s a de-stresser for us to see them dig, or eat, and they never stop moving. It’s a very calming thing to watch, like [pet] fish.”

Both women devoutly bury their hens in the yard when they die. And while they’ve not addressed that subject on air, it’s in the offing.

“We haven’t yet done a podcast on grief,” DiCarlo said. “But if people reach out to us, we’re there for them.”