Quail_Antwerp: Words from the Barnyard...

[Quail_Antwerp]

Farmfresh, thank you! That is all good advice! I will talk to my DH about extra egg storage!

I cannot keep up with my local egg market now. The local feedstore buys all the fresh eggs I can collect, and then I have neighbors that buy from me as well. Everyone pays $1.50 a dozen.

 

[Beekissed]

Man, Aly girl, I have seriously underestimated your entrepreneural mind!!!!! WHAT a great idea!!!


Hmmmmmmmm.......I wonder.......... NAH! Wouldn't work here....surrounded by commercial growers whose families cannot raise their own chickens if they work in the chicken houses.

I have real trouble selling my eggs around here to the locals, even for the low price of $2 a dozen. I heard one of the gals I sell to telling someone that others thought it was too high a price......but then, these folks can get eggs by the case~for free!~at the local commercial laying operations.

So, I have branched out to advertising and will be posting some signs on bulletin boards.....until tourist season picks up and I get my fridge out in the garage, I can't really sell to capacity here.

 

[Farmfresh]

Remember ... our free ranging, sunshine basking, bug and grass eating eggs are FAR and AWAY better than those commercial eggs. You just have to educate your public and then RAISE those prices. People WILL pay more for the eggs that we raise. Around these parts grass fed, sunshine filled, free range eggs like ours are going for close to $4.00 a dozen at the local health food stores!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Man, Aly girl, I have seriously underestimated your entrepreneural mind!!!!! WHAT a great idea!!!

Bee, I am not that entrepreneural, really I'm not. I just needed something that would generate some income for us, that would still allow me to be here and care for my family. This was the best solution for us at this time. I also did some research last fall and winter and found which breed of chickens the locals mostly want. Rhode Island Reds won out! The feedstore owner has been telling EVERYONE that I am the chicken lady! (Guess my title does fit LOL)

DH and I were talking about building a root cellar this year. We really need one. I figure I will be doing most of the work of digging it out. DH will try to help, I know he will, but he really doesn't need to be doing that. I was scared enough when he was chasing down that calf! He hates sitting still and if I'm out there shovel in hand digging out for a cellar, he's going to be up my backside I just know it.

A local lady called yesterday asking if I had goats for sale and/or silkies. I told her yes. We got to talking, and I mean really talking! Before I knew it, we were swapping family histories and talking like old friends! I told her we have 5 kids, she told me she has 7! We just really got into conversing and I told her how DH and I are working our tails off to be as SS on our own small acerage and she was completely understanding!! She then asked if I had rabbits and I told her no. She does have rabbits and asked if I would be interested in a breeding trio! I told her I would be happy to trade her the silkies for the rabbits...so we agreed! She's coming to pick out her silkies Tuesday, and maybe buy mom's pygmy goats (yes with mom's permission!) She said she'll choose 3 really nice rabbits for me.

She asked if we played Yueger (sp?) I told her we used to, but that we don't have any friends locally here to us, so we don't normally get to play cards, etc or have company. She was quite shocked and said, "Well, we have to change that!" She wants us to come for dinner and have all the kids meet and play cards!!!!

I am telling you, God has His hands on my family this week!

ETA: I think God's hand is ALWAYS on us, but He's been especially good to us this week!

 

[Beekissed]

FF...once again you are thinking about normal people in normal towns!

These are backwoods, redneck folks who wouldn't even give business to a health foods store~which is why there are none in this area...except for 50 miles away!!!

When I tell these people~ who are holding a cig and make no secret about the prevalent attitudes that alcoholism is not a disease but a way of life and part of their culture~that these eggs are better for their health....they look at me with that deer-in-the-headlights stare. Would a culture that supports so many CAFOs, that provide most of the jobs around here, give a ##$@***&!!! about their health? That is what that stare means.....translation into hillbilly: Have you lost your f****** mind???

I am not dealing with people from this planet, Farm. I can try to educate, but even that is a dirty word around here!

People who care about their health....who really care about trying to manage their own health...are slim to none. Me being the "slim" and the rest of the populace being the "none". These folks will take a pill if they are "ailin" but will not practice preventative health at all....see no sense in it.....cannot be persuaded to do it...feel that everyone gets sick and it just comes with age or is just bad luck! If you don't get sick, you are just "darn lucky" and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that you have tried to eat healthy and exercise.

Our farmer's market consist of a fat old guy who sets up on weekends at the gas station and sells produce he has bought wholesale from commercial growers and trucked in with a refridgerated truck.

The next town over(27 miles) has a farmer's market...which I discovered is in one crowded room in the basement of the community building and consists of six tables of scanty, wilted produce that I would toss to the chickens at my place...no eggs, no apples, no honey, no real produce. Just a few people trying to sell what they won't eat, some baked goods, and some very high priced maple syrup! The tables of produce may have 10 wilted ears of corn, some cull potatoes, or some wrinkled tomatoes....about a dozen.

Which is why I sell to tourists....people who actually feel that travel is enlightenment and not just to stay near "the hospital they sent my boy to when he rolled his truck(drunk)". Get the picture?

 

[Beekissed]

Aly, my message box is doing that weird thingy about not letting me access my PMs right now.....I'll try again later. Nifty says he has no idea why this is, says it may be my computer. I ask you this, if it weren't the site, would the page that it sends me to actually have a tab that says "Go Back" and a statement: You don't have access to this page. ?

I can't imagine my computer is that compatible with this site that it creates(on its own) an actual page for this anomaly, can you?

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

ROTFL!!!!!! OH my Bee, I have no clue???? Ask me about chickens, I might be able to answer...ask me about computers and websites?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Sometimes the problem could be your internet. That's about all I know??

All it said was you are like the five millionth person to tell me to write a book

 

[OkieJonesClan]

Bee, when does the tourist season start there? I suppose in the summer when school is out. We are sandwiched between a place like where you live and a suberb with lots of "healthy" transplants from California.

 

[Beekissed]

Tourist season officially starts in March with the Maple Festivals and such, we get quite a few trout fishermen before then but they don't stop to buy healthy foods....actually, I think its a prerequisite to eat greasy spoon for those kinds of trips!

If I lived closer to the ski slopes in the next county, I would have an outlet for them. No B&Bs around here, no rental chalets....just Thompson's Motel~where the room doors still have wooden screen doors on the outside, as there is no AC!

 

[Farmfresh]

That is too bad that you have such a low demand for a quality product. I know how hard it is to try to educate some people. We have a guy that comes into the store I work at part time. Last time he was in he was complaining about the cost of feeding his market cattle and was planning on taking them to market as feeders instead of growing them out this year. In addition he was griping about the low price he would probably receive at auction.

Stupid me. I tried to talk to him about grass finishing the cattle. He has plenty of pasture, but he looked at me like I had snails crawling out of my ears! Then I even mentioned that I might be interested in buying one of the yearlings to butcher as baby beef. He actually laughed at me. He told me and NOT politely that beef had to be fed corn or it would be completely un-eatable! He had been raising cattle for ___ years and he had never heard of such things!

So much for education. I would certainly not waist my time raising eggs for sale without a ready and profitable market. I would just raise my own, eat like royalty and let the other poor stupid people eat the commercial garbage.