Tractor Supply 'chicken swap' moving from Delmont to Export

For about a decade, animal enthusiasts have gathered the first Sunday of the month at Tractor Supply in Delmont for the chicken swap.

The agriculture chain has held the swaps at locations across the country for years. But when the coronavirus pandemic hit, they slowly began dwindling.

“Since covid hit, all the Tractor Supply stores in Pennsylvania quit their animal swaps,” said Gail Wilt, co-owner at Down the Mountain Minis in Fallentimber, Cambria County, where she raises miniature donkeys, pigs and cows, among other livestock.

The Plum native has attended the Delmont swap since it began. Next month, it will move to Export Community Park.

“It’s absolutely perfect,” said Jessica Hall, owner of Chicks on 66 and one of the organizers for the Delmont swap.

The monthly swap is only for livestock — puppies and kittens need not apply. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of variety.

“You never know what’s going to be there,” Wilt said. “Sometimes there are emu babies, or a skunk baby. It’s called a chicken swap, but it’s evolved into people bringing all kinds of animals.”

Courtesy of Gail Wilt

Two of Gail Wilt’s miniature donkeys from Down the Mountain Minis in Fallentimber, Pa. Wilt, a Plum native, raises several species of miniature livestock.

Hall discovered the chicken swap when she moved to Greensburg two years ago.

“Once you get started, you kind of get obsessed with finding out about all the different kinds of chickens,” she said. “That’s how I found the chicken swap, and I was just endlessly interested in all the animals and the different people who were there.”

A local church that had been renting the borough’s park pavilion on Sunday mornings will be heading indoors as the weather cools, so the monthly swap date will remain the same.

Wilt tries to keep a steady monthly schedule of swaps, so that customers who purchased an animal and had questions would know where to find her.

“We have a lot of repeat customers and referrals,” she said. “And if an animal needs its booster shot in a month, they know where we’ll be.”

The next swap will be 8 a.m. to noon Nov. 1 at Export Community Park, located at 6000 Community Park Road, the gravel drive that runs parallel to Turtle Creek from the borough parking lot off of Lincoln Avenue.