Our chickens are not stupid, and once they had passed the chick stage they began to ask about the larger world. They were especially interested to know where their feed and scratch came from. Not too long after we had explained the concept of money and exchange to them they had a meeting.
"That feed costs money" they said, "we don't want to be a burden to you. Besides, we've heard some strange rumors...".
They were looking at me in a searching way.
"Nonsense", I said, and tried to change the subject.
"But
all the other chickens sell their eggs" they insisted. "We'd
feel a lot more secure if you let us pay for our food. We'd feel better
if we were partners.
(continued)
 |
Chicken
Feed:
"chicken feed" may be slang for low wages, but chickens
are voracious liitle devils who can pack it away. To be scientific
you need to develop the right feed and cost ratios. We range our
birds as much as possible but we can't make winter into spring,
The cost of keeping two dozen birds up and running is not huge but
it is larger than you might first suspect. |
That was the start of Happy Chicken, driving around with cartons of eggs. The " egg route" stated growing, and word of mouth made the rounds. It is really great when people tell us how much they like our eggs, and out here we don't just compete with the store-bought kind.
If you haven't tried real free-range eggs you're in for a treat (the legal definition of what can be called "free-range is very close to being a legally sanctioned lie), If you haven't eaten a Happy Chicken egg you have missed out one of life's simple and honest pleasures.
"Don't worry, eat happy"