Taking the Plunge

See this empty field? Lovely, isn't it.

Now, imagine it filled with several small, roaming pyramidal houses made of chicken wire and plastic piping, roofed with cheerful blue tarps, and filled with happy, protected chickens.

Still lovely, right?

This is my new, expansion-into-the-big-time, chicken sales-queen of 2012, adventure! For the past couple of summers, I have raised small batches of chickens for myself, and sold some to friends and family. Everyone loves the taste of homegrown, naturally raised chicken, and I've long thought, man, I would love to expand this to help other people buy good, happy chicken, too...well, maybe when I get the farm someday soon.

And then I had a brainwave a couple weeks ago. I drive all over the place, on all these wonderful back roads, and I see all these old pastures just laying about. Once they housed cattle or a horse or two, but now they are too small to hay and too small to plow up and plant in corn or beans. So instead of renting them out, they are left to languish and grow luxurious crops of goldenrod and black caps. As I kept passing them, I was thinking it would be nice to put them to use again. But what use? Hmmm...hey. How about chickens??

Brilliant! A few conversations later, some word-of-mouth pre-sales numbering around 100 birds, handshake agreements to rent a fallow pasture, and I'm in business. Long Live The Chicken Lady! To date, I've confirmed the use of one field, and have another two pending. I am thinking I can put at least three portable, movable houses in each field. And since each house can house up to 50 birds (they are big houses, folks), that's a heck of a lot of chicken. Wahooo! I may become a chicken mogul yet, even without a farm to call my own at the moment. Minimal rent, sales of pasture-raised chicken, happy customers, support for local chicken processors, and a fun summer adventure of making the rounds to check on the livestock in Lucille Laverne. All this to look forward to, and it's only February. Imagine what the rest of pre-Spring will bring.

Hopefully, lots of orders for chicken!