Prudence and Poverty Part TWO

the sham of prepping and homesteading

The problem with trying to have a Farmers Market in the Boonies is that no one has any money and they aren’t gonna buy your dewey cute tear drop yellow tomatoes for $12/lb because they need one tomato slice for their baloney sandwich and Walmart sells those for 50cents and also toilet paper, which is the real money maker.

Only bougie leading edge health crusaders were interested in my soy free, pasture raised heritage hen eggs back in 2010 for $6 and today I figure there’s more buyers but eggs are $12 and the farm still isn’t breaking even. Feed prices have also gone up. Even pasture raised, kitchen scrap, bug scarfing hens need scratch occasionally. Or I’ll say in my 5 years of raising 50 layers and 25 meat birds, they sort of demanded food like dogs if they were free roaming and hungry. Nothing is sadder than a skinny chicken. And remember to cover net that garden. If they run out of bugs over here they’ll look for num nums over there.

*The larger chicken tractors are key. I made some that were easy to pull around alone for chicks but once they’re full grown they’ll clear an area in an hour and you’ll need a large tractor and likely need to tow it. I think if you could make a design with pvc pipe and screen it would be ideal. But that sounds like something I’d make and the wind would take it on down the highway. I needed a Plan B for everything. It’s why I can’t relax. Even now. thankfully there are hundreds of YouTubers with helpful advice

One day I found 11 of my hens in my neighbor’s garage eating their dog’s food. It’s all fun and games until Mr. Ackworth comes outside barefoot to hit the beer fridge and steps in chicken poop. Which will be everywhere. You’ll need to give the Acworths free eggs to keep the peace. Forever. Also, speaking of peace, chickens are LOUD. Not just roosters, hens. Every time they lay an egg, see a hawk, get pecked by a sister hen, find a cricket, fight over a watermelon rind in the compost…there will be high pitched cackling. With a lot of birds it will be constant and repetitive. I kept my hens in a coop down in the woods and even in a concrete block house 2000 feet away it drove me a little batty. I’m hyper sensitive and have hearing like a fruit bat though. Also sometimes when they’re yelling, there is a coyote stalking or a hawk sitting inside their nesting boxes or a snake crawling up the wall. Brady dog seemed to know the difference between egg cackling and hawk cackling. I panicked at all of it. It’s that one time you close the coop door too late (and there’s a raccoon inside) that you wake up to find dead bloody birds thrown everywhere. You’ll feel like a failure in chicken parenting. Nature is cruel. ‘Coons kill for sport. Keep feeding them on your deck with apple slices and filming it for TikTok though, you’ll probably be fine.

Chickens are a lot of work. I suppose 5 hens for your own eggs and to scratch around the garden could be cute. But it’s still work that you’ll not get paid for. Just call it a hobby. I can still hear the cigarette addled cackle of the local woman who backed out of my driveway laughing about my $6 eggs. Honey they’re 99cents at Quality Foods, you’re nuts! After 5 years of having too many eggs, not enough eggs, fabulous eggs, not so great eggs, molting hens, in fighting, rooster territory wars, 1000s of quiche recipes and more, I developed an egg allergy. Life is so funny.

I gave away the layers, all the egg cartons and taught myself how to cull the meat birds in a humane way that left me brain dead and sad for 2 days. This would be the end of my Chicken Years. Sometimes after doing your best it still makes no sense. Don’t go down with the Titanic.

To dispatch the birds, I made a killing cone to hang in a tree, to hold them upside down and calmly let them fall asleep before slitting their throats and draining the blood into a bucket which will draw not only flies but yellow jackets. Winter culling, less bugs but slow drain. Dunk the body in boiling water which you’ll have to keep outside on a propane tank, spin them in a “feather spinner”, eviscerate, pull out the organs, save organs for dog food, keep the feet, toss the heads to the dogs and then wonder why sometimes the dogs look at the hens they’re supposed to protect differently in the future. Be careful not to cut the gallbladder and spill bile all over the meat. Try to keep them whole and look pretty for sale or storage. When cooled, cryovac in plastic and store in chest freezer. You’ll need a friend to help and this isn’t always an easy sell. Thankfully I lived near a Mexican carniceria and could get someone like a seasoned meat handling dude to help me. This is another fee to factor into your overhead. Enjoy your $50 dollar chicken dinner. Thankfully it will be nutrient dense delicious meat that you’ll eat for a few days.

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The Cornish X birds that are sold by hatcheries will get lesions and tumors if you keep them alive for more than 12 weeks. They’ll grow like a Frankenbird (genetically mod) which is great for battery hen houses and grocery chains to sell a $7 rotisserie bird. But know this, no matter what their diet, grass and fresh berries, corn, lard, water whatever—-they’ll get giant. They’re bred to get giant. You eat that. Everyone in the US who eats any sort of chicken eats that. I don’t care if it’s hormone free, antibiotic free, vegan feed—dry roasted, fried, boiled, skin off, whatever…they will grow like monsters because that’s what they’re bred for. Do the math. You' are what you eat.

Heritage breeds will not get as big nor be as juicy but they also didn’t start to get sick at 14 weeks. They grow slowwwww. If you can keep them alive for a year you can finish them to eat but you’ll be underwhelmed. Mostly, you’re feeding hawks and coyote. I experimented a lot with my birds. I was a chef before this farming experiment and “pastoral retirement” labor camp so was always trying to tweak their feed for maximum nutrients and flavor and egg yolk porn. Feeding marigolds and turmeric to egg layers can give an orange yolk but not necessarily a better tasting one. There are many tricks in the industry, don’t be fooled. Packaging on commercial eggs is for sure misleading. To make money on livestock you have to charge a LOT or say that they are ‘free range’ ( which is 12 sq inches of space to move around. True story. )

If you don’t know your farmer, you’re missing out. If your farmer won’t let you see the free ranging, pasture eating healthy bird/duck/lamb/cow they’re charging you for, you’ve landed a Green Washer. Keep shopping. I’ll save the story of the sorta famous recently on Joe Rogan beef farmer who blacklisted me from buying any beef from them because I asked where the meat came from because some of my packages arrived with no labels and varying levels of quality. Fork around and find out. I was privy to some angry profane office memos written about me and I imagined I’d be fitted with concrete boots soon if I dare ask about transparency.

A lot of people don’t care of course and are still eating at McDs or Five Guys (does anyone ask where their meat comes from?) or any number of fast casual joints. But if you’re selling $45/lb beef that is just from some feedlot steer? You' might be a trickster. I don’t care how many yuk yuk stories you tell with your twang and cowboy hat. It’s a scam. Make no mistake, the Chicken Mafia and the Cattle Mob is no joke. There is a LOT of money being made outside of cute family farms. Billions. Don’t mess with their livelihood.

The Govt and Big Ag will let you sell and process 1000 birds a year legally through the USDA without sinking your life savings into a processing facility (*this was the rule back when I was in the game in Georgia, def Chicken Cartel Country…rules may have changed). Even selling at $20/bird you’ll be just breaking even. You can find other jobs for $20,000/year that don’t involve you wearing muck boots and cleaning the horribly stinky coop out on a daily. In the end, you’ll find that chicken is not even interesting nor nutritious, like most delicious things. Have a plate of liver, it’s better for you and about $2/lb in the freezer at the grocer. No killing cone required.

Leave the “grow your own food” to small family farms that are already doing it. Give them your money. Give it upfront, join their CSA community supported agriculture shares, pre buy pre pay so they can plan. If everyone starts having a couple pigs in the yard like Mexico, the town hall is going to crack down on everything farmy. Many of you rent. Some in townhouses. Studios. Lofts. Buying land is out of reach for 85% of us. If you want to live on that land, you’ll need a structure. I know, I know. You’re gonna build out the garden sheds at Home Depot (that are now $20,000 instead of $5000) I did that too and it’s fine but it’s about $25,000 to DIY a shed to live in. Park the RV on paw paws land and grow some squash? You can. Let me know how your mental health fares after a while. It took me forever to sell my beautiful mountain homestead even below market value…sadly, and the reason is because folks with money don’t want to work like that and folks who think that is a nice life don’t have that kind of money. And if you’re young and have money and want to do pastoral things? Move to Tuscany, enjoy your life and buy an olive grove.

I’m bursting everyone’s balloon I know. There were farmers and health crusaders before me who said it wasn’t worth it, but I wanted to know The Why. I always want to know The Why at great expense and peril. So I’m giving you The Why here. You may be able to sidestep what I did and build a better mousetrap with your adventure. It’s fine to grow some herbs in pots or have some tomatoes on the fire escape. But moving somewhere else, and quitting your day job, so you can build some raised beds to try your hand at carrots is DELUSIONAL. I wave to you from my padded room! Try it small first. You may be just delighted that your sunny kitchen window yields lots of microgreens. Or get a Chia Pet.

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I see a lot of hopeful young folks going back to the Olden Times and that’s great. It’s nice to build your knowledge, but unless you’re living off that sweet dividend from Pharma stocks or the grandparents gave you a viable boutique dairy farm and you see an angle to sell fancy feta to tech billionaires, I want you to be realistic. Instagram scrollers be warned. The only thing that has ever made me money is selling booze to an alcoholic public. Wine, a little, but tequila and draft beer and fried food from a freezer bag will make you very wealthy (if you have a nice space and average to good service) all of these startups are expensive and labor intensive but Booze Never Loses.

I know. You want to do something important and positive vibes. Free trade Coffee and Tea Infusion maybe? But it’s tough to compete and getting a permit to open a trailer that sells brown water is impossible these days. And seriously, how can you compete with Starbucks and Dunkin? I’d open a French Press speakeasy in my living room and have a cafe lounge on the DL in my apartment building before I tried anything commercial and huge. Yea, you might get a fine or something but just say you are having a Book Club and take donations or charge a monthly fee on the DL. Perfectly legal loophole. And giving scones away with your latte for a $10 cover charge is perfectly allowable. Something to consider before you bleed to death trying to get an SBA loan to “launch” anything. Start small, act like you don’t know what you’re doing, ask forgiveness instead of permission.

If I had a chance to do it all over again with my restaurants I’d spend more to get a good ice machine for cocktails and less time on fancy chairs or cheeses. I’d make it a “private club” and charge monthly and be open for high end steaks on the weekends and hummus and cheese plates the rest of the week. If you want to print money, don’t care about people’s health, sell tortilla chips, melted white “cheeze” and salsas with margaritas that are decent. Throw a taco in there if you want or put the melted cheese on a folded flour tortilla on a panini press. Keep it simple, don’t try to be unique. Better yet, go to some cornhole town where they don’t have any place to eat. I didn’t go out to dinner for 12 years after I moved to rural Georgia. The whole town nearly plotzed when they put in a Chik fil A (where NO ONE asks about the provenance of that chicken) in the end no one will care about your crusade. This isn’t France.

TO BE CONTINUED…Thanks for reading. Proceeds from Subscriptions go to the Desert Dog Feed Fund and my Mission from Dog here with abandoned dogs in Sonora MX. For more info or to see available dogs to adopt linktr.ee/lolasdogrescue