More learning opportunities...
1. Be flexible with your business plan. Our entire business plan revolved around selling at the Moscow Farmers Market. With the COVID-19 taking over in the early spring, the start of the Market was delayed and completely reorganized to allow for social distancing and we were drowning in eggs! Doing a delivery route was Back up Plan #3 but it became our main selling strategy. The bonus is that Mark LOVES doing the egg delivery! It allows him to have a more active role in the business. Having an online storefront was not even ON the business plan and now we have one! In fact, I was terrified at the idea of a website to sell eggs but we HAD to put one together to be a part of the Motor-In Moscow Farmers Market and now I love it! Also, we are getting everything lined up so that we can sell the duck eggs at an actual storefront, the Moscow Food Co-op! AND we provide eggs to a local farmer for her farm stand! Grateful for new opportunities that turned out to be successful for the egg business!
2. The shade shelter doubles as a snow shelter too! We always knew it would be good for the girls to have shade but didn't realize that it really is a necessity if we want them to encourage them to be out on pasture. Therefore, when we do get the actual coops built, we are going to have to put together some of these little shade/snow shelters in the paddocks. There are more trees where the coops are located but some of them are still small so they don't provide a lot of shade immediately.
3. Everything likes to eat chicken. We already knew this and that is one reason we have the livestock guardian dogs. They do a great job of keeping the coyotes away but they couldn't get to the west side of the barn where a raccoon entered and killed 3 chickens a few weeks ago. SO, we have learned new skills of trapping and working with game cameras. Last year, I did catch an ermine (weasel) in a small trap. This year, we had to buy some big traps to try and catch a raccoon (more unexpected expenses!). Grateful we continue to learn new skills and keep the girls safe!
4. Breaking news...this just happened this past weekend...make sure to check items that are ordered and sent to the farm. Last May, we ordered a fodder system. This is a way to grow greens in the winter for the girls. It has been busy around here this fall and the fodder system got shoved to the bottom of the To Do list. Henry promised to help me put it together this past weekend. I opened the "Instructions" and realized that we got the wrong system! In fact, the fodder system we received costs $1000 less than the one I had ordered! (Yes, you read that correctly...this is a VERY expensive system...only the best for our girls). I know you are probably wondering why I didn't notice that this was totally the wrong system when it came. Well, it came in many many boxes so we just unloaded it all and took it down to the garden porch. AND the packing slip says the correct item on it! So, I assumed that we had the correct system...ugh...will be making a call tomorrow...here is a sneak peek pic of the fodder system we are supposed to be getting...look at all those greens!
Lastly, not really a lesson learned, but if you get eggs from ReMARKable Eggs, you might be an egg snob and that's okay! It is so great to have loyal customers! Grateful for our egg delivery customers! We feel so bad that the raccoon is getting so many of our chickens and we can't fulfill all our egg orders right now.
~Have an eggcellent day!
Denise
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