If you’re a growing homestead, you’ll eventually have issues like too much product (eggs, roosters, old hens, honey, etc.), and not enough customers. There’s very little money to be made, so most of the time you’re trying to do what you love without losing too much money. So how can you find customers, save money, and avoid spending money unnecessarily? Here are 5 tips that have helped our farm.
1. Register with Google Business. Google Business helps people find you when they search for things like “farm fresh eggs near me”, “fresh produce near me”, or “chickens near me”. Your farm will also pop up on Google Maps when people are nearby. We find that most of our new business comes from someone searching with Google. We have customers that drive 50 miles or more, even though we know there are sources closer to them. But those other farms aren’t on Google, so the customer can’t find them! Here is a link to get started: https://support.google.com/business/answer/6300717. After you register, you’ll be sent a postcard to a physical address with a code to complete your registration. Enter it and you’re activated. It’s free and you don’t have to be a licensed business. You’ll even get a free website to post pictures, products, services, hours, and contact information. Don’t forget about brand management. When people find you on Google, they’ll judge your farm by what they see and read. So have a logo, tell your story, post good pictures, be clear, and spell words correctly!
2. Cultivate the International Community. People who didn’t grow up in America search for heritage chicken meat because it’s what they are used to eating. They buy chicken at the store (Cornish Cross) and say it has no taste. They have a point, since heritage chicken is 5-6 months old vs. store chicken which is less than 2 months old. Time is flavor. Process them before they’re 6 months old and they’ll still be tender and very flavorful. Because of the Cornish Cross meat chicken, most Americans aren’t used to eating heritage chicken and don’t know what chicken should really taste like. Plus, it has a different body shape (smaller breast meat) that most Americans haven’t seen. If you are hatching your own eggs for sustainability, you might wonder what you’ll do with the 50% that grow up to be roosters. There’s a market for them! The international community also wants old roosters and hens, since they make the best soups and stocks. But you won’t find young roosters and old hens in grocery stores. So, seek out the Hispanics, Indians, Muslims, and Africans in your community. Usually if you find one buyer, they’ll tell their friends and spread the word for you. By the way, they call heritage chicken “Country” or “Hard” chicken.
3. Process Your Own Chickens. If you plan on processing and selling excess heritage roosters and old hens, you’ll want to learn how to do it yourself to save money and make more when selling chicken. The investments you make in processing equipment will pay off in the long run. Public Law 90-492 allows you to process up to 1000 of your own chickens each year without USDA oversight. Further, the law allows you to sell to people visiting your farm, plus hotels, restaurants, and institutions (but not grocery stores). There are some common-sense details you’ll need to comply with, but nothing too difficult. Check out the information on our website at https://www.happywifeacres.com/chicken-processing-no/. There are videos about our equipment and process, and at the bottom is a link for more information about the law. You can also search P.L. 90-492 and your state’s agriculture department on the internet for more info.
4. Stretch Your Feed Costs by Connecting with a Local Food Pantry. Food pantries receive donations from grocery stores and restaurants. Perishable foods, like bread, fruit, and vegetables have a short shelf-life, which usually is about to expire by the time it is donated. Bread bakers, like Panera and Subway, only keep their bread for one day before donating it to pantries. Hard or unwrapped bread isn’t usually passed out by pantries, and without somewhere to give it to, it winds up in the dumpster. Fruit and vegetables might be donated by the bushel or pallet because there are a few bad ones in the batch. Pantries will pull out the good ones and trash the rest. But your chickens won’t mind! Unless you’re feeding your chickens an organic diet, they’ll love the supplemental treats. Chickens are pigs with feathers! So contact a local pantry, tell them about your farm, and ask if they would be willing to donate unused perishables to feed your animals. And when you have excess eggs or produce, make a donation back to the pantry! We find this approach stretches our feed bill by about 25%.
5. Strategic Planning. Finally, we recommend making a strategic plan for your farm. The important point is for all decision makers who operate the farm to agree on why the farm exists and what is the farm’s mission. A strategic plan will help when you have difficult decisions to make. If decisions aren’t consistent with your plan, then it’s either a bad decision, or you weren’t honest when you made the plan! And bad decisions result in wasted money. A plan will keep you focused on what’s important. Here is an article we wrote that will help get you started on a strategic plan: https://www.happywifeacres.com/strategic-farm-planning/.
There are many other things we do to help us to save money and avoid spending. Do as much as you can for yourself, like building your own cages or processing equipment. Look for ways to turn waste into money or cost avoidance, like selling composted chicken manure, or feeding garden waste to your animals. You may have techniques that work for your farm, and we’d love to hear them. But these 5 have served us well, saving us money and keeping us focused. Best wishes to every homesteader!