Now that we own a feed store, we have lots and lots and lots of chicken feed.

Problem: we no longer own any chickens!
We got rid of our last few chickens over a year ago, after repeated predator attacks.
We went from about 20 birds to 5 in a couple of weeks, and I quickly gave the rest of the flock away before the mysterious nocturnal marauder returned. My guess is that it was a bobcat. Somehow, it kept pulling birds under the wire fencing.
We were so busy with other things – gardening and the nursery in particular – that we didn’t have time to turn our chicken coop into a predator-proof enclosure.
If I could live like Florida Bullfrog and raise free-range survival chickens, I would. We love the idea. Yet our lives revolve round gardening and our plant nursery. Free-range chickens would wreak havoc on both if they free-ranged.
But now we have a warehouse full of feed. And grains that regularly spill. This means we could affordably feed a flock of birds.
This morning I had a thought.
Why not put a chicken coop and run right at the store?
They’d live their best lives now!

All the faded vegetable transplants, food scraps from employees, spilled grains… they’d have it all.
Plus, kids would enjoy watching them. And we’d get basically free eggs.
As a bonus, the town should be much less prone to predators.
Anyhow, that’s the big idea for this week. We have lots of feed, a good bit of waste, and nothing to feed it to.
Chickens could solve it all!
Also, if you’re in the area and have chickens, we have a wide range of affordable chicken feed at the store, from non-GMO to organic to conventional.
