I think that it’s important to take control of your egg business. Raise the price of your eggs. YOU state how many dozen a customer may have, not the customer. They want 12 dozen, you say “No, you may have 3 dozen, because that is what I have available”. You do NOT allow a customer to tell you your business. You keep the number of chickens that is suitable for YOUR operation. You produce the number of eggs that you produce, and it will vary throughout the year. You sell what you don’t need yourself. We all know that true farm fresh eggs, with true free run chickens, who eat real food, produce superior eggs. They are worth more than store bought eggs. If someone doesn’t want to pay for this, then they can go buy eggs at the store.
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Yeah I’m typically pretty good about “business” but it just kind of slowly snowballed with her being a “friend” etc and now it has gotten out of hand and it’s harder to rein back in, ugh.
Set some rules! She can have her 3 dozen at 5.00 a dozen. Cost have gone up. If she doesn’t want them, list on Facebook, egg ladies by me are getting 6-7.00 a dozen.
And I decided to get in on this chicken thing. Babies arrive at the feed store at the end of Feb.
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Oddly enough none of my FB friends ever want eggs when I post, it’s odd. And I don’t want to post in sale groups or marketplace because FB will accuse me of selling live animals, plus driving to meet new people is kind of iffy. Not sure what exactly I’m going to do this summer. I ordered 5 Leghorn pullets for March 10th, I might keep them all and get rid of the Sapphire Gems, not sure yet. I’d like nice even cartons of green/white/brown.
Wait is she upselling? Giving away? I’m confused!
Don’t give away the gems (or give to me 
)
She’s selling them to her boyfriend and sister for the same she’s paying me. If she wanted to broker deals for others she should have asked me and paid me what I’d charge them, not her special rate.
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Dropping-in to announce we have a third hen laying as of today, our black & white Silverudd Isbar (the very chatty “Cookie”)… so we are adding GREEN eggs to our growing collection of white and light brown 
It came as a surprise because I wasn’t expecting any of the remaining young hens would start laying over the winter. The RIR and Leghorn have been super-reliable, each giving us an egg a day throughout the colder months (which, again, was unexpected).
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Woo-hoo!!!
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I would just take away her special price.
Unless you just want to sell more eggs and don’t care about the lower price.
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A true “friend” does not take advantage of the relationship in this way.
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Yes, I learned too late that it was a horrible idea to befriend this person, but now I’m a little stuck. I could shuttle her if it got too bad but life is easier to keep her happy, for now.
As long as you have a clear internal definition of what “gets too bad” means to you. None of our business what that is, of course. Just resolve to yourself that you don’t need some clearly egregious event to decide to take a stand. You have that option at any time. And in most cases, if the simple act of raising your price is going to lead to a big blowup, you are better off without a friend who keeps you walking on eggshells.
But, honestly, the stakes are so low here. They’re just eggs, you’re getting paid for them, it’s not like you’ll go broke because of what she’s doing. So I totally get your instinct to just let it ride. Don’t take this as judgment, just as one of your other friends saying Giirrrrlll, you deserve better.
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That’s it exactly. It’s irritating and a bit insulting, but ultimately is not that big of a deal, I don’t need the money that bad. It’s just rude.
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She can be “happy” with a higher price per dozen.
Explain this is not Prime Laying Season & price may return to lower when laying is plentiful again.
I routinely gave away dozens (1 at a time, since I’m down to 3 hens) & friends were fine hearing the giveaways are on Hold until I have surplus again.
Sounds like this party needs to get unfriended 
Keep her as a customer, but no more perks.
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So since baby chicks are coming soon, any good chicken websites or items that are must haves?
We start the coop next weekend, I want to have everything ready when the babies arrive. I’m planning on getting 8 chicks and hopefully only 1 rooster.
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Hmmm, must-haves?
If you’re starting from nothing, I can tell you what I would suggest to avoid, off the top of my head. They sell chick waterers and feeders that are round bases with a separate little jug that goes on top - the water one is totally fine and useful, and you can use a mason jar if you have them (usually the bases and tops are sold separately). These round 2 part chick feeders though are absolute JUNK, in my opinion. The top is useless as it doesn’t hold any of the feed up in it really, and you have to dump the entire thing out to open it and refill, just no good whatsoever. Also the chicks can just fling all the feed out. You want to prevent them from having their food in their poop. I’m a big fan of the trough-style feeders, you can get smaller/shorter ones for them as new chicks and then bigger/heftier ones for once they get a little bigger. The troughs make it so that they can’t fling the feed out onto the floor, which is their grandest desire in life. If you want to get one of the round hanging feeders, they can have the same issue with them flinging the feed out - there are some that have extra-deep lips, those are the better ones but they need to be a little bigger before they can eat out of them.
For watering when they get bigger you want to avoid the Harris Farms Easy Fill Drinkers. These are amazing when they work because you just take the lid off the large open top and dump water in. The problem is they very rarely work properly and there is a lot of screwing around to keep them working properly if you get one that actually does, I can no longer justify the foolishness. What happens when they don’t work is you get 5 gallons of water all over the ground or floor. Not good.
I like the octagon-shaped Little Giant waterers, they come in a 2 or 3 gallon and a 5 gallon, they have a red base that snaps on and off and a smaller lid on top. They’re a bit of a pain to clean and you have to be pretty decent at pouring to fill them, but they’re the middle of the road between the stupid Easy Fills and the ones that you have to flip upside down every time. There is another brand that looks similar to the Little Giant ones that has a more rounded body, these have bad reviews of leaking and being hard to get open, don’t get those.
Also don’t bother with the little buckets with the nipples on the bottom for chicks, they leak. Horizontal nipples work well for chickens (not ducks though) but they have to be a few weeks old to be strong enough to use them and many feel like they don’t drink as much, that’s up to you. I have tried them and have gone back to heated 2 gallon buckets in the winter and regular drinkers the rest of the year.
There is a lot of crap out there telling people to use DE or First Saturday Lime in the coop on the floor, do not. You can use the special lime, but it’s really just overly-expensive lime is all. They advertise that these things kill mites and lice and internal parasites and all kinds of wonderful things - they don’t. Sweet PDZ is great if you want to use something - it doesn’t do anything for pests either but it does make it smell nicer.
For bedding, I like regular old pine shavings. Hay gets manky and straw can harbor mites. That’s personal preference. I use fine shavings in my nestboxes too. You’ll want to build your coop so that the nests are low/on the floor, but it’s a good idea to block them off until your chicks are over 16 weeks old so that they don’t learn to sleep in them. The cleaner you keep your nests, the cleaner your eggs will be. If you make them 12"x12" you can pick up unpopular-colored carpet tiles off of WalMart’s website for really cheap, like $8 a box sometimes, I like to put those in the bottom of the nests so that there’s a cushion because they scratch the shavings (or straw or hay) around and if the eggs hit the hard wood they often will crack.
There isn’t a whole lot of equipment necessary for chickens really. Feed scoops, feeders, waterers, bedding, that’s gonna be most of it. I strongly advise getting some permethrin Poultry Dust and keeping some under the nest bedding and in the floor bedding, wild birds bring lice and mites around. Also check their butts frequently especially in the spring and dust them if they have anything moving.
Make sure you have as much ventilation as possible in the coop, way up high. You don’t want a draft on them but in the winter keeping them dry is the most important part of keeping them warm. Also try not to keep their water inside the coop in the winter if at all possible as it adds humidity too.
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I just did a bit of an edit of that novel, having seen a couple typos and hadn’t completely fleshed out some of the thoughts lol.
Didn’t mention what type of coop. Do people keep chickens without a coop? Our would roost in the tall bushes if we let them, but it doesn’t seem warm enough in winter.
I get Little Tykes play houses, used, off Craiglist for my chickens. Wire up the windows, add a few roosts, instant coop.
Now that I’m getting geese, I’ll have a little village in my side yard. Playhouse for the chickens, playhouse for the geese. Maybe I need to add ducks…
She said start the coop, so I assumed she meant they’re building one.
Some people do keep them without a coop but you really need to be somewhere without predators for that, I wouldn’t have any left within a week if I tried that here.
The little village sounds cute!
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I’m building a chicken compound that is hopefully predator proof.
My husband has already given me the crazy eyes when he learned we will be digging a 18” trench around coop to bury wire.
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