Chicken Tender

[Hunnied]

I think it’d be a niche market, but probably a market...may depend on size of your community and how many chicken folks are nearby.

For advertising, I’d say signs at your local feed store’s bulletin board, Craigslist, and maybe a local ad flyer if your town has one (ours is called “the Reminder”).

if you were in my neck of the woods, I’d leverage the service a couple times a year, for sure!

These are great ideas! Honestly, even just one customer would provide me with the opportunity to meet more chickens, so that’s a win for me! Hopefully word won’t get around about that, because of my customers knew I’d do it for free just to have the pleasure of meeting their flock it’d be bad for business.

Backyard chickens do so much good for my well being and mental health!

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

If you were in my state I’d have you booked for a week in August already!

 

[Hunnied]

If you were in my state I’d have you booked for a week in August already!

I should definitely get on this! Still can’t figure out how much to charge...

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

I should definitely get on this! Still can’t figure out how much to charge...

Maybe look around and see if you can find out how much people charge to come check on cats or to walk dogs? I’d think similar per day would be reasonable.

Personally speaking, if I had a service like this available, I’d consider $10/day a steal and $20/day not outside what I’d be willing to pay.

If you have a use/market for eggs, maybe have a discount if you keep the eggs?

 

[rosemarythyme]

I should definitely get on this! Still can’t figure out how much to charge...

Hard to say... in some areas people might pay a lot if you offer to take care of every little chicken thing, including supervised free range time or having to trim nails or whatever.

I'd be willing to pay like $10 for super basic stuff, as I don't need a lot - just pick up eggs, make sure the food isn't knocked over, maybe throw out a handful of sunflower seeds, eyeball that nothing seems amiss, and that's it. If you were willing to scoop poop once or twice a day, and do some limited free range time, I'd pay more, maybe $20-30 a day or more, depending on the time investment.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

The good news is that being a niche/specialty service with limited capacity, you don’t have to compete on price.

Offer the service at what you think it’s worth, and as long as you’re busy enough, it’s ok to leave those that think you’re too expensive to the other chicken tenders in your area (even if there aren’t any).

 

[Joken]

First, I wasn’t sure where to post this, so this was my best guess. If anyone thinks it’d be more appropriate elsewhere, please let me know.

So, I was thinking about starting a small business offering my services taking care of folks’ backyard chickens while said folks travel. Think there’s a market for this, generally speaking? I don’t expect it to make me a lot of money. Heck, I doubt it’d even generate enough income to pay for the food for my own flock. I was thinking it’d mostly provide me with job satisfaction, and maybe even fulfill some of my need for the company of chickens so that I stop adding to my flock for a spell.

Any suggestions for how to research my local market for this? How to advertise? How much to charge? Think this is just a silly idea?

If the world opens up again by July, I need to go out of town for a week, and I’ve no idea who I can ask to take care of my flock while I’m gone. I’d certainly utilize such a service if it existed.

I think it's a great idea because you know what needs to be done to care for chickens. Giving the neighbor kid fifteen minutes of instruction and expecting them to care for your flock for two or three months is not realistic and worrisome at best. We have animals and like to spend 2-3 months in AZ during the winter. I have a good friend that we give beef in payment for taking care of things when we are away. We are lucky to have him.