Healthy Mountains

We ordered (and received) our fourth and final batch of chicks from a different hatchery.  Townline has been very good to us, but they ran out of chicks available for the time frame I was hoping for.  Fortunately, we'd done some  homework and new that another hatchery, Mt. Healthy Hatchery in Mt. Healthy, OH was just what we were looking for.  As I said, Townline has done very well for us and I like working with a Michigan based company, but it's never good to have just one supplier of anything.  So when I heard that Townline was going to have to delay the order, I called up Mt. Healthy.  There's no time like the present to give them a try!

The breed we're buying is slightly different, but I doubt any of us will be able to tell.  It's the standard meat bird.  It's good to try something new.  If they work out well, I'm sure we'll have need to use them again. So we'll trust that the healthy mountains produce healthy chicks and keep growing them as God blesses. 

Why Didn't the Chicken Cross the Road?

I got a call from the hatchery last week.  No chicks. It seems the turkey poults that I ordered weren't going to make it.  So, instead of sending just the chickens (thus incurring double the shipping) they wanted to send them all this week.  It's a double edged sword: I was excited about them coming, but as they were now going to be conspicuously absent I took the time to double check all my preparations and make sure I was not missing anything.  Plus I got to enjoy the holiday weekend without worrying about feeding or watering anything (other than the kids).  Thank God for the blessing of unexpected free time. 

I called again this afternoon.  They are processing about 400 orders today.  I really had no idea they did that many orders.  Apparently the turkeys are taking longer to hatch than expected.  He told me a bit about their procedures.  They do a lot of shuffling to meet demand based on what hatches, how many hatch, and what the orders are.  They have to sex the bird (determine if it is male or female - glad I don't have that job) and then segregate them.  They also have some special processing for some (like de-beaking) or no processing at all (like ours).  If they have a week where some batches don't seem to be hatching well (like ours last week), then "we have a little bit of chaos."

Hmmm...I can't remember every having just a little bit of chaos.

So on we wait and listen (for the phone) to see if we'll have chicks tomorrow or not.  I'll keep you posted.

A Handshake and a Promise

In a previous post I indicated that we had ordered the chicks and poults (baby turkeys) from the hatchery.  I like doing business with them.  I call up to place my order and talk to a real, live person.  In this country.  Only a few hours drive from my home.  And I ask questions.  And they answer because they are real, live experts on the subject of hatching.  Then they send me a bill.

I like doing business this way.  They send me an old fashioned sheet of paper.  They trust that I will send them a check.  I trust that they will have the birds ready.  There is no on-line tracking system, no exchange of Social Security numbers.  We talk, and we do business.  I have a feeling that if we were closer we'd shake hands too.  I like that.

It turns out that the old fashioned sheet of paper they sent showed that the wrong order was placed.  I was over-ordered by 5 chickens. 

Now, as a consumer, I could get angry.  I could demand better accountability from the hatchery and wonder why they don't have a better ordering system.  Why can't I log into a computer and type out my order, have it verified, and then submit?  That's the way most of us have been trained.  Demand perfection and accept no less.

Instead, I called.  I talked to a very nice lady who changed my order and sent me another old fashioned sheet of paper.  All fixed.

It's not that they don't use technology.  I know they do.  The fact that you are reading this post on-line proves that I do too.  But what I like is that we haven't lost that human contact.  That somehow, at some level, we are involved in each others lives. This is as it should be.  

I was in a discussion at my day job not too long ago.  It's a highly automated environment.  There are still some things, though, that happen off the radar of the company.  Not bad things, but simply things that were not anticipated.  Computer systems don't like things that aren't anticipated.  When asked how those things are accomplished, I said, "Through a handshake and a promise."  The group I was speaking too laughed.  "No, really..." they wanted to know, "..how do they track these things."

It seems too much for people to believe that you can shake hands on a thing and trust it will get done.  Oh sure, maybe at first there is a lack of trust.  But over time people learn about one another until there is a trust.  It still happens.  Each time you go to a farmers market and pick your produce, you are letting the farmers know you trust them.  They're not heavily regulated, not necessarily certified, and not audited.  But you trust them.  When you buy at the store (and we all do) who are you trusting?  The farmers?  The Pickers?  The inspectors?  The transportation company?  The store personnel?  There are too many unknown people in that list.  Too many people who I will never know or see.

I'd rather look a man in the face, talk to him, and decide if I like his character.  Then I'll shake  his hand.  This is business as it should be.

The Orders are In!

After getting all my records straight and doing a little planning (and re-planning), I finally submitted an order, today, to the hatchery.  We use Townline Hatchery for those who don't know.  It's a family owned poultry farm in Zeeland, MI.  They have a wide range of poultry to choose from including heritage breeds.

So why did we choose to use this hatchery?  Well, primarily because it's a Michigan based organization.  They are large so they have they have the scalability to allow us to grow as God sees fit.  They also provide jobs to people in Michigan.  Because we're not too far away, shipping costs are lower and the birds go through less trauma than they would on a longer trek.

They also do not vaccinate or medicate the birds when they hatch.  We were warned by some friends that some places spray all their chicks with salmonella to build up their immune systems.  You have to be careful, though, because YOU must wear rubber when handling them to keep from getting the salmonella yourself.  That's not us.  Leave the birds alone.  We'll trust God for the rest.

The first batch is scheduled to arrive on May 26th!  There are few things as exciting as going to pick up the chicks at the Post Office.  The birds are chirping away and they sound so happy and excited.  It's their first field trip you know.  And then when you see those little downy balls of fluff squirming and vying for the best position to get out of the box first....well, it doesn't get much better than that.

One lesson we learned last year was not counting your chickens...okay...well, you know what I mean.  You can order the chicks for whatever day you like, but that doesn't mean they'll come that specif day.  They may, or they may be delayed because of a whole host of reasons.  So flexibility is rule one when dealing with living things.

In our work-a-day world, we live according to calendars, schedules, and constant communication.  I admit that I was a little put out when the chicks didn't arrive on time last year.  I had taken the day off from my other job and it was a wasted day.  But then I began to realize that maybe I was the problem.  The hatchery had good reasons for the delay.  But more than that, did I really think that the birthing process could be completely scheduled?  After 5 kids you'd think I'd know better.  We learned, though, that much of the farming process is about waiting, watching, preparing, and then acting when it's the right time.

Hmmm....not a bad recipe for life.