The backyard chicken hobby expanded sharply during the pandemic years and has not contracted since. The American Pet Products Association reported that pet ownership reached a record 70% of US households in 2021, with small livestock, including backyard chickens, representing a significant share of that growth. Against that backdrop, the emergence of Shark Tank chicken feeders as a national product story on Season 16 Episode 13 in March 2025 made sense. 

This is because chicken feeders had never been on television before, but because the product that appeared solved a problem the newly expanded community of backyard keepers had been living with since their first flock arrived.

What gap did the backyard poultry market have before 2021?

Open-tray feeders had dominated the backyard poultry market for decades. They were inexpensive and familiar, but they didn’t contain grain, deter pests, or reduce the daily refilling burden for a hobbyist keeper managing a small flock alongside a busy schedule. The category had an obvious gap: a sealed, port-based feeding solution accessible in both price and installation difficulty to a new keeper who had never managed a flock before. That gap persisted because no one in the category had prioritized solving it with the material quality and design specificity it required.

How did a prototype built in a Massachusetts coop reach a national stage?

Pet and Pen, by Riverbend Resources, entered the market in 2021 with the Poultry Pro Feeder positioned specifically around that gap. Founder Erik Diedrichsen built the prototype to solve a daily problem in his own coop, refined the port dimensions through direct observation of his own flock, and iterated through the design until the waste and pest problems in his run disappeared. The product that came out of that process worked because someone who lived with the failure mode designed it.

Manufacturing contacts from his trade show exhibit design business accelerated the transition from prototype to production. The patented design moved into commercial production within roughly a year of the founding decision in 2020. First Place in Innovation at SuperZoo and strong early retail adoption established the brand’s credibility before the Shark Tank appearance brought it to a network television audience of millions.

Who did the country watch pitch on the Shark Tank stage?

The Shark Tank Season 16 pitch was as much a personal story as a product presentation. Erik Diedrichsen, a US military veteran who traded city life in Boston for a rural Massachusetts homestead and found himself designing better chicken feeders as a result, represented the kind of founder story that national audiences respond to: a practical person who solved a real problem through direct experience rather than market research. The sincerity of his origin story and the measurable performance of the products he brought to the stage combined to create an episode that resonated across the homesteading community long after the air date.

What happened to the brand after the episode aired?

National visibility from the Shark Tank appearance accelerated both direct-to-consumer sales and retail distribution. Pet and Pen products are now available at Tractor Supply, Lowe’s, Bomgaars, Atwoods, and regional farm supply retailers across the United States. The brand’s satisfaction guarantee covers every product in the lineup, giving customers who discover the brand through the episode a risk-free way to confirm the feeder and waterer deliver what the pitch promised.

Visit the Poultry Pro Feeder page to see the exact product the national television audience saw, and explore the full lineup to see how the feeder and waterer pair together as a complete coop system.

From a Massachusetts Homestead to Every Major Farm Supply Chain

Pet and Pen, by Riverbend Resources, grew out of a real daily problem in a real backyard coop and has stayed true to that origin through trade show recognition, retail expansion, and a Shark Tank appearance that brought the brand to a national audience. The Riverbend Resources team answers product questions directly, and the published waterer guide covers the water side of the brand story in comparable depth.