making money

You can make money, but a lot of it is seasonal and you have to be ready to REALLY work at it. I hatch and sell chicks, and just keeping up with their feed, water, and brooder messes is a job in and of itself!

I have to be up at 4 a.m. On days that I sell chicks to get them all ready and prepared. My car is disgusting from it, no matter how tidy I try to be, poop escapes, water spills, feed scatters.

I have to set up before the buyers get there, both of the flea markets I sell at you have to be there by 8 or earlier, I try for 6 to get a decent spot. Then I have to put up my shelter, my signs, put together my pen, then talk to people about coming back around because, well, it is still too cold for the chicks! Once it warms up a bit or I manage to run a light from my car (which drains the battery yay!) I put down my gallon waterer, spread some feed, then carefully unpack the chicks into the pen. And INSTANTLY put up my big signs asking not to touch, just to look, because every child in the place wants to grab a chick and squeeze its guts out. Be ready to have to say the same things over and over again, and trying not to sound bored the fiftieth time you have said some chick wisdom.

Some days I can sell a ton and come home content (but never chickless, so I have to unpack, feed, water, clean, etcetera. Then I get to relax AFTER I have tended all the adults in their pens.) Some days you sell nothing or close to nothing. I have business cards my local feed stores carry for me. (After a year of being a faithful customer and chatting them up to convince them of it.) but they only give them out to people who want chicks after they are done with their Chick Days, so that is a gap from February to April.

I work Craigslist, keeping my selling advertisements up and refreshed. I have flyers I put up everywhere I can. Spring and Summer, if you have good chicks and good customer service, I can make enough to pay for their feed and put some money in the bank. Fall comes, switch over to selling hatching eggs from the rarer breeds, but not a lot of them since chickens are fickle in the Fall. Come December, fire up the incubator if eggs are coming in still and rinse and repeat. Add onto that, caring for my disabled Veteran husband, raising my five year old son, taking care of the non-working animals (five dogs, three cats, a rat, the fish.)

I hope that gives you a bit of an idea about the work involved. It has been a successful venture for me, but I never get a sick day, and I am frazzled most of the time with work. (New coops! New pastures! Spraddle leg!) It helps to grow crops as well to have out for sell, and jellies and jams and oh boy does my head hurt.
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