Every crisis, the saying goes, comes with an opportunity. Egg prices are high, as are prices of feedstuffs in general. So what's the answer?

Rent a chicken. Or, better yet, rent two chickens.

As customers face empty shelves and rapidly rising egg prices at the supermarket due to the avian flu and a lower national supply, breakfast lovers have another option - their own backyard.

Founded 12 years ago, Rent the Chicken provides customers with two egg-laying hens, a portable chicken coop, up to 200 pounds of feed, food and water dish and a book on taking care of chickens.

"Within two days of the arrival, your chickens will lay eggs ready to use!" the company promises, adding that the homegrown eggs have one-third the cholesterol, one-fourth of the saturated fat and two times more omega three fatty acids that store-bought eggs.

The company adds, "Your Rent The Chickens should lay about a dozen to two dozen eggs per week depending on your Rental Package. You will know exactly what your chickens eat!"

That wouldn't have been eggzactly what I would have thought of first, but it's a neat idea, and that's no yolk. But it's a novel idea. Homegrown eggs are delicious; real free-range chickens, as opposed to chickens who are free to range a 6x8 wire pen, produce big, beautiful eggs with rich, deep orange yolks that are wonderful in everything, from baking to omelets. Until recently we were getting just such eggs from our neighbors' twin kids, but a very Alaska thing happened — a lynx got into the coop one night and feasted on most of the laying hens. I offered to set a few traps, as my wife has been after me to get her a couple of prime winter lynx pelts, but the critter had evidently decamped for greener pastures.

Still, even a rented chicken, unlike the famous rented mule, should give satisfactory results. But there's a catch. (There's always a catch.)

Rent the Chicken co-founder Jenn Tompkins told ABC News that their phone is "ringing off the hook" as egg prices go up.

"Our online inquiries are filling up very quickly as well," Tompkins said. "We will run out of hens available for rent. If anyone is interested, please make sure to put their reservation in sooner than later."

She said that the chickens cost around $500 to rent for about six months.

Let's do the math: let's estimate that the hens are laying a dozen eggs a week, on the low end of the estimate. Egg prices, as of this writing, are a tad under $5 a dozen — let's round it to an even $5 because math is hard enough without decimals. (I'm a writer, Jim, not a mathematician.) So, six months, that's 26 weeks — 26 x 5 is $130.

Wait, what?

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So, you're paying a fancy premium for eggs from your rented chickens. And that doesn't count the time you'll end up spending cleaning up after chickens; while their... leavings are good fertilizer, they produce such leavings in prodigious quantities, making cleaning the coop a daunting task.

My advice? Find a local farmers' market, and look for someone local selling farm eggs. The eggs will be just as good — and you'll not only save some money but some time as well.

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