What brings customers to Philly’s live poultry stores

The sounds of clucks and tiny eyes looking through metal cages are part of the Italian Market background, as some stores sell live poultry.

Citywide, chickens, ducks, quails, and other animals are kept alive until purchase, only leaving the store when becoming someone’s food source.

Struggling to understand the dynamics of the live poultry business, a reader asked Curious Philly, The Inquirer’s forum for questions about the city and region: Who is buying these live chickens, where do they come from, and where are they slaughtered?

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture oversees what is called the live bird marketing system, a structure that involves farms, distributors, and stores.

About 500,000 birds weekly are sent to live poultry stores across Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, according to an article published in the Delaware Journal of Public Health in 2021.

Statewide there are 17 live bird markets, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. Most are in the Philly area, but there is no state registry of the markets.

In the city, the health department licenses and inspects these facilities. The birds are subjected to the same regulations to curb the transmission of avian influenza as all poultry producers in Pennsylvania, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture said.

As the public health journal noted, live poultry markets are more common in areas like Philadelphia with significant and growing immigrant populations.

Alex Lemus, 29, and Juan Amador work at one of South Philadelphia’s live poultry stores. They weren’t authorized to speak for their workplace, but said they put effort into making the chickens feel as comfortable as they can.

“We take good care of them; we give them corn, and they grow up free-range,” said Lemus, who has been working in the live poultry industry for seven years.

The birds sell fast, he said, pointing to 16 long metal cages, each with at least 10 chickens and ducks inside. “At least 80 people per day come to buy, mostly Asian and Latino, and that is not counting the holidays,” Amador said.

Among quacks and clucks, longtime customer Nu Aing walked into the store. Stepping over a lone feeder and some light brown liquid residue on the floor, she selected six chickens.

As one worker swept the floor, another weighed the chosen chickens and placed them into a box for Amador to take to the back room. The chickens clucked loudly.

Aing drove an hour and a half from the suburbs because, she said, the chickens here are tender and better for recreating her family’s Vietnamese cuisine.

“Meat is better than the grocery store for soup, but they are good in anything,” Aing said. Around the Vietnamese New Year, “a lot of people are here; the line is long.”

In the back room, the chickens were killed and their bodies plucked and placed in white plastic bags, at Aing’s request.

“It is killed inside in 30 seconds,” Lemus said. “This part of the job was horrible when I started, but you get used to it over time.”

Within 20 minutes, the store is packed with at least 15 people waiting for their orders.

Guatemalan native Carlos Baten, 42, sent pictures of the birds to his family to help him pick the best option. He asked for his chicken to be cut into pieces for a chicken and vegetable soup that would feed three people.

“The freshness of the meat is unmatched,” Baten said. “They just feel like they are healthier and fed with fewer chemicals.”

The idea of eating a healthier type of meat also brought Guatemalan native Mayra González, 35, to the store with her 2-year-old daughter. But as soon as González placed her order, she fled to wait outside.

“I don’t like the scent inside, it smells like chicken feed,” González said. But the meat is “way better than the one at the grocery store,” she said.

To her, live poultry meat feels “silky,” and can feed more people for less. The cost of each chicken depends on the weight, but two chickens are enough to feed 11 people, González said.

“I feel bad for them, but since you can’t see when they are sacrificed, it’s the same as when you buy them at the grocery store,” González said.