POTOMAC, Md. — The phenomenon of renting a backyard chicken coop with fresh eggs daily is sweeping the country as more families search for fresher and healthier foods.

With fewer than 100 privately owned "rent-a-chicken" business concepts currently around the country, one couple hatched their own business and are looking to expand across the country and purchase more land to meet that demand.

Tyler Phillips, 27, and girlfriend Diana Samata, 25, plucked their Rent a Coop business from an idea his mother gave him many months ago. With more than an acre of land behind his parents’ home, Phillips began building his own chicken coops, all handmade with specialized wood and materials to meet his own special eco-friendly technology standards.

Soon, he was sharing his chickens with his parent’s assortment of animals they raise for their traveling petting farm zoo business. Situated in a suburban neighborhood with million-dollar homes tucked around them – and located between the CIA headquarters in northern Virginia and the White House just 15 miles east – Phillips’ business is set to embark on expansion, looking to buy 2-3 acres of farmland within the next year.

He is hoping to nest his business not too far west. He recently inked a distribution deal with a New Jersey farming business and is now searching for other opportunities in the Mid-Atlantic region and elsewhere.

One of Phillips’ happy clients, Barbara Cleary, a suburban housewife in Silver Springs, Md., and a fourth-year customer, has made her annual coop rentals a family affair for her husband and two boys, ages 3 an 5.

"The boys really like the hens, especially my older son," she said. "He carries the chickens around with him all the time and he likes to play with them on the sliding board, letting the chicken slide down alone. It’s really funny to see how the chickens react. They’re really interactive.

"It’s a perfect way to have a pet," she explained. "You get to try them out. The boys learn how to play with them and feed them and it’s educational. It’s the perfect novelty."

Chuckling, she added she’s named the two rented hens Shake and Bake.

About the recent Midwest outbreak of the avian influenza strain H5N2, Phillips is not concerned at the moment, saying his chickens don’t interact outside of their own urban habitat. Jen Tompkins, co-founder of Rent The Chicken of Pittsburgh, Pa., has a similar reasoning.

Tompkins’ business operates in several states, but she’s not concerned because her rented hens are kept in a controlled family environment and are not exposed to chickens outside of her guarded flocks.

Earlier this month the USDA reported a backyard poultry flock (not in rented coops) near Fort Wayne, Ind. – that included a combination of 77 ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys – had been infected with the avian influenza strain H5N8. The USDA said this strain is different from the more potent H5N2 strain that has killed more than 30 million chickens in 13 Midwest states. Bird flu is carried in free-flying waterfowl.

The fears of a chicken flu outbreak affecting homegrown flocks or rented chickens, however, has sent shock waves and fear among thousands of members on the community forum of the website www.backyardchickens.com

As of May 19, a scan of the comments in the site’s virtual chat room revealed users nationwide are alarmed and raising questions from "How do I tell if my chickens have the flu?" to "What can I do to protect my chickens?"

One member said he lost his backyard chicken flock to the flu, writing, "I’ve given up. I’m never raising chickens again!"

Another sent photos of how he built extra high fencing around his yard and covered the yard with a wire mesh to prevent flu-carrying birds from infecting his chickens.

Within the past few months, more than 130,000 queries have been posted in the chat room referencing "bird flu." (The forum has 200,000-plus members who scan daily for comments and news covering hundreds of subjects about chickens.)