ok, this is something I've been thinking about for a couple of years, and has really been on my mind the past few weeks with Christmas coming up, the recession, and hearing how other people are trying to sorta move back to being self sufficiant.
First a little background; I own an auction and for the past 20 plus years my wife, our crew at the auction and myself have raised money for a toy drive for local kids from families who were low income, parents out of work, etc.. We give a sack of toys (Around 8 - 10 toys in each sack) to each child who applies. We give out the toys on the Sunday afternoon before Christmas each year at our auction barn. We have helped from a low of only around 30 kids the first year or two up to almost 1,000 children last year. (996 if I remember right) All our help is donated by our crew and customers, all the money is donated by our customers, crew, sellers and a few (Very few sadley) local businesses. We hold a bake sale / auction / singing each year and all that money goes into the pot also. So I'm not just a dreamer with no experiance at helping others.
What I'm wanting to do is to give a family a small flock of chickens to get them started. Totally free of charge. Just come to the farm and pick out say 6 hens, or 5 hens and a rooster. I want them to promise to do the same thing to help someone else once they get their flock established. Or maybe promise to give away X amount of eggs the first year. I'm hopeing it might catch on and others would be willing to do the same thing.
Now I am a dreamer of sorts I guess, don't claim to be real smart and I know I've made alot of dumb mistakes in my life. But I do truely want to see chickens become more accepted and I do want to help others. If I can figure out a way to do it as far as where to find people who would want chickens, how to spread the word and get others to help, etc.. I'm prepaired right now to start the ball rolling with helping at least four families myself. I've got around 100 4 - 6 month old chickens right now that I know I'm not going to keep for breeding. I planned to butcher them, but I'll give some of them away if I can get this going.
Anyway, I have a great amount of respect for the collective wisdom of our BYC family, so ya'll help me figure this out. Give me your ideas, suggestions, heck even critisize it - I've got pretty thick skin.
First a little background; I own an auction and for the past 20 plus years my wife, our crew at the auction and myself have raised money for a toy drive for local kids from families who were low income, parents out of work, etc.. We give a sack of toys (Around 8 - 10 toys in each sack) to each child who applies. We give out the toys on the Sunday afternoon before Christmas each year at our auction barn. We have helped from a low of only around 30 kids the first year or two up to almost 1,000 children last year. (996 if I remember right) All our help is donated by our crew and customers, all the money is donated by our customers, crew, sellers and a few (Very few sadley) local businesses. We hold a bake sale / auction / singing each year and all that money goes into the pot also. So I'm not just a dreamer with no experiance at helping others.
What I'm wanting to do is to give a family a small flock of chickens to get them started. Totally free of charge. Just come to the farm and pick out say 6 hens, or 5 hens and a rooster. I want them to promise to do the same thing to help someone else once they get their flock established. Or maybe promise to give away X amount of eggs the first year. I'm hopeing it might catch on and others would be willing to do the same thing.
Now I am a dreamer of sorts I guess, don't claim to be real smart and I know I've made alot of dumb mistakes in my life. But I do truely want to see chickens become more accepted and I do want to help others. If I can figure out a way to do it as far as where to find people who would want chickens, how to spread the word and get others to help, etc.. I'm prepaired right now to start the ball rolling with helping at least four families myself. I've got around 100 4 - 6 month old chickens right now that I know I'm not going to keep for breeding. I planned to butcher them, but I'll give some of them away if I can get this going.
Anyway, I have a great amount of respect for the collective wisdom of our BYC family, so ya'll help me figure this out. Give me your ideas, suggestions, heck even critisize it - I've got pretty thick skin.