It just occurred to me that I hadn’t said word one about the most productive critters of my little homestead. My hens. First, just a general observation from a farm newbie…. that saying, “Madder than a wet hen”?? I don’t get it. My girls are out there when it rains, soaking wet, scratching and pecking away. Until it turns into the downpour and then they are smart enough to head for cover. The “madder than”? Nope, they just shake off the rain. So much for traditional wisdom.
Anyway, right now I have 2 small flocks. For the most part they are well-behaved. They return to their roosts at night, so they are collect-able if I needed to do so, unlike my rabbits. Though when I first put the second flock in the back field I had housed them in the shed that was close to the fence line. That gave them the idea to fly over the fence and land in doggie country. Ended up with more than a few dead chickens. I have one English Shepherd that has decided they are to be dispatched like the other small vermin she takes care of for me. More my fault than anything, as I haven’t really trained her as to what is to be left alone and what is to be tracked down and killed. Since then, I’ve had a new mobile chicken coop built for me and the girls (and boys) have been moved further away from the fence and no more explorers have ventured where they shouldn’t. The photo below is before it was delivered and before the white tarp roof was attached so you can see inside.
Chicken Coop before Tarp Roof Attached
For those of you in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, the guys that built my coop are in Cottage Grove, and delivered to me in Lebanon a really nice coop. Their blog site is http://urbanfarmconcepts.blogspot.com/ What I like the most is that it is large enough for a reasonable number of chickens. Most coops you find house only 5-10 chickens. Too small for me. I also like that these guys would customize the coop. They added the second row of nest boxes, left the wire or wood floor off (I’m lazy, don’t want to scoop any more poop than I have to).
So the girls are happy with the new home and are producing almost as much as the flock up front, just a smaller egg as they are younger. The flock in the front field are producing Large, Extra Large, Jumbo, and BEYOND!! Whew, I think I’d be very sore if I put out the size eggs these hens are. I’ve had to order cartons for duck and turkey eggs, as the normal chicken egg cartons won’t hold the Jumbos. Can’t wait til they arrive.
I’ve had my friends who built the chicken coop also build a nice “run in” shed by the driveway, hooked up a small refrigerator and have fresh eggs ready and waiting for my customers to buy whatever size or amount they want. I figured one of the biggest drawbacks to buying farm fresh anything is finding the farmer at home when you drive by. And calling to make an appointment to pick up a dozen eggs would be very annoying if I were the customer. So this way, whether I’m out in some field working or off the farm working, people are able to get their eggs.
Egg Station for YUMMY SOY FREE EGGS
I did have to switch to a locked cash box due to some pathetic moron stealing the egg money. Some people are just slime-balls. But so far it seems to be working fine. I also figured out a way to ship the eggs. Strange but true. It took a lot of smashed eggs on my kitchen floor to figure out how best to cushion them, but the system I’m using seems to be working just fine now. I also added a “shipping calculator” to my website which is in the right hand column of each page on this site, so people can see how much shipping (and packaging)costs add to the price BEFORE they decide to buy. So far I’ve sold to Colorado, New Jersey, Delaware and California.
Some day soon I hope to actually break even financially. I think I have about 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,001 more eggs to sell to get there. LOL!!
So awesome that you trust your customers. I saw your posts on the paleohacks forum. While I’d normally think – oh no, what shameless self-promotion – well, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for. And it sounds like you deserve a little shameless self-promotion from what you write.
Normally, I don’t go crashing other people’s forums but in my usual, periodic web search for new info on the soy controversy, I happened on your group and couldn’t resist responding to 2 of your members very specific inquiry on where to find eggs. Glad you didn’t mind!
So awesome that you trust your customers. I saw your posts on the paleohacks forum. While I’d normally think – oh no, what shameless self-promotion – well, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for. And it sounds like you deserve a little shameless self-promotion from what you write.
Normally, I don’t go crashing other people’s forums but in my usual, periodic web search for new info on the soy controversy, I happened on your group and couldn’t resist responding to 2 of your members very specific inquiry on where to find eggs. Glad you didn’t mind!