its that time of year again....rant

so i get the ol emails again sometimes 2x a day...like every year goes something like...

yes hello, i see you raise such and such breeds, i am looking for POL lay hens for my backyard to keep a few layers, but don't have the facilities or inclination to hatch or raise chicks. NOR we DONT want ANY ROOSTERS.....p.s We won't be set up to have the hens until after the snow melts as i am still building my coop, can you please provide me with 10 hens...

ect... ect.....

o.k now i just cringe when i get these emails, as we all know the cost of raising these chicks from the time they pop outa their moms as eggs to setting them in the incubator to keeping them, feeding them heating them for 4 months to sex them, and GIVE AWAY the roosters , or eat them..... then to keep the pullets another 2 months for them to be POL for the average person to come pick up from my house if they dont ask me to deliver them for them first FOR FREE OF COURSE ......, for whammo they have nice wholesome eggs for their families breakfast from their $15 pullets !that they had no idea what it took to get them to that stage!...... as people still have it in their mind that chickens are cheap...no chicken should cost no more than $10 ....

o.k there is my rant....

May I add to your rant? The hens need to be delivered since I cannot drive/drive that far/am too busy/don't have time. I also expect this to be done for free and that you need to come right to my home which is hard to find and off 10 miles of rutted dirt road.

I also sell dogs. People are upset if i charge a fee to take them to the airport and ship them. it is a 2+ hour round trip. I am placing some of my beloved older dogs in forever homes. I had someone ask if they could have a deal if they bought two.

AGH! TripleJ, you have stepped on my rant button!

A dead roasting chicken in the grocery store is $15 or more. So why should a live, food bearing chicken be less than $20? This is, to me, the STUPIDEST thing on the planet, how little we value a hen.

If you were a tough minded meanie, and you should be to weed out the morons from the good intentioned..you would ask for a NON-REFUNDABLE DEPOSIT for each egg you set in the incubator on behalf of someone.

If they want 4 hens and you decide to set 8 eggs hoping for 4 hens, they PAY YOU for each egg. Say $5 an egg. Why should you pick up the tab of their unwnated birds? Think of it just like the environmental tax we pay on tires, batteries and juice boxes. We pay someoen else to take care of our mess, right before we purchase it. Why shouldn't someone pay you for the eggs you set, since you will be left with the leftovers they don't want to clean up?

Not only will you request an egg purchase price...you will request 50% of the sale price of the POL hens, non-refundable.

Put your foot down and set the bar high!

When someone asks me to do something outrageous/stupid or if I just don't really want to do it, I put an insane price on it. Either they will pay it and it will actually be worth my while, or they'll go elsewhere. Either way, I end up happy.

"You want 10 POL hens? Sure. That'll be $1000. If you want delivery, it'll be $2.50 per km, round trip. Plus GST, of course. And I require 50% down in a non-refundable retainer."

AUthentic, are you sure you're not my lawyer? You sound an awful lot like my lawyer.

hahahah! yea, she sounds like a lawyer .... i agree with you uno , sue, springtime oftens brings the best out of people who have no inclination whatsoever of what stuff costs, even for me to run eggs or chciks to the post office/ greyound meet people in town ect...it still sucks gas outa my truck....money doesnt grow on trees unfortunatly.....

I was the sole secretary/conveyancer/office manager/goddess-of-the-office for a lawyer for three years. True story.

Could not agree more with all of you but
I have a rather nice story.
I got fed up with all the roosters I raised
to sell for meat and no one would buy so
I put an add out free just get them out
of here costing to much in feed.
Anyway young man with family comes out
said he would take them but did not like to
take them for free as he knows how much I
put in them so he offers to return me a
few for my freezer. And I was very surprise
to get a call one day to say he was going
to come out to drop them off.

Then there was the lady that phoned me about the
ducks I had for sale. Wanted to know if I would
be hatching any ducklings as she lived in town
and wanted one for a pet to keep in the house.
After I explained how bad duck poop was she said that was ok she would put a diaper on it.

Yes, luckily there are always the good customers to keep us feeling like this is all worthwhile. But, oh boy some of the emails I get! I tell myself it is the price of having a website and being easy to contact.
This spring I've had people looking for quail and pheasants plus all kinds of chicken breeds I don't raise and have never raised. I try to refer them to places to help them find what they are looking for. Last week someone wanted to buy 1 Wyandotte Chick and 1 Cochin chick "for eggs only". I wrote them a nice long letter explaining that first of all, I wouldn't sell only 2 chicks alone. And secondly even if they bought 4 there would be no guarantee that they would get 2 female chicks. I never heard back.
Dont even get me started on point of lay pullets! Last year I was selling nice ones (but not my best ones) for $30.00. I simply won't let them go for less. If everyone started doing this people would eventually adjust to more realistic values. For less than $200 they could have 6 young hens. Big,useful hens that will earn their keep in eggs and at the end of their years of service could even be a further source of food value as good sized stewing hens. No chicks to raise or roosters to be bothered with.

How many of those people who complain about the cost of hens will happily spend $200 on any number of other items for themselves.
What can you buy for $200.00? Hmm....
How about annual flowers? Flowers that are very pretty from May to August, at which time their only value is what they might add to the compost pile. A visit to the salon to get their hair and nails done. A new pair of boots that are no longer in fashion next season. A fancy coffee machine.
I guess it is not so often a matter of not being able to afford something, just people have different priorities for their spending. makes the world go around I guess.

At first I was thinking I didn't really agree with the upset feelings. I don't deal in cheap food or food animals and usually don't get upset when someone won't pay my prices...then I remembered one time last summer when a lady said she'd rather go to nofrills than pay for our dill. So ya, sometimes it gets to me too.

Anna does more of the markets than I do though, so she gets the bigger brunt of it.

To add, it's really really hard to get prices right. I was once given some good advice for judging it:

If if no-one comes up to you and says "wow, that's such a good price", you are charging too much. If no-one comes up to you and says "that's such a rip-off, I can go to such and such and get it for cheaper" you aren't charging enough. I think a good estimate of success in pricing is to have a good 5% of people telling you both things.

Then there are the ones who show up after 3 months and expect to pay the price you were charging for day old chicks.