News from Peggy

(November 22, 2009)
Total egg production for the past week is 80 eggs. This does not count the two cracked ones we had to feed to the compost. We are currently up to 16 a day, with two blue ones today. We are trying to make sure each family gets at least one blue egg in a carton. Egg size is becoming more uniform, though there is an occasional gigantic one, which will have a double yolk. So the return by family for the week would be 16 eggs. So far people have been taking what they need, but we should probably have some sense of the group on what distrbution system makes sense. There are several issues involved. If we go back and look at the history of the co-op, we will see that at least one member of each family, and usually more, has contributed a good share of labor time toward the building of the coop and the care of the chickens. We have put in lots of time, labor and a fair amount of money to get us up and rolling. But everyone did a part of it and we have 26 very happy and healthy responsibilities now. The eggs are each worth about $10 at this point, but over time the economics will blance out. It isn't why we did it in the first place. We are building community and developing a model for one kind of neighborhood project to address the needs of a resilient community.


Each person went into it with their own agenda and needs, of course. So the co-op needs to keep communications open and frequent if we are to meet everyone's needs. We agreed on a few things at our one meeting, which we should either stick to or change. Please correct me if I got any of this wrong. We agreed we would share the messy jobs like cleaning out the coop. We agreed Jeanne and Peggy would have primary daily care responsibilities, but be able to call on others when they can't be here. We agreed to share the purchase of food and bedding. That's about all we decided. The rest has been worked out as we go along. We put out a call when a need arises and someone answers it. When there has been work to do related to the coop, most of you have showed up to do it. We are ready for winter with the girls (and Pete, who seems to want to stay around). So this is a survey, since we don't seem to be able to actually get together very often. Please share your thoughts on the following: If you reply to all, then we can all see where we stand. In a little over five months we have come a long way. Others are watching us with interest. So it is a good time to polish it up a bit.


1. What do you think would be a fair distribution system for our group?


2. How many eggs do you think your family will want in a week, once production has leveled off to a fairly regular amount?


3. Are you willing to clean the coop once a month? Twice a month during winter when they are in more?


4. When is a good time or day for you to do the cleaning? We want to make sure we save it for you.


5. How many dozen eggs do you think Jeanne and Peg should keep in their fridge at any given time for pick up? Should we be looking for a small fridge for the pole barn?


6. How many should there be in reserve before we call our "Friends of the Co-op" list and sell them. This is similar to question 5.


7. Do you have friends or relatives you want on the "Friends list" and will you be responsible for calling them if you know it is their turn for extra eggs?


8. Does $2.50 sound like a fair price for the extras, and do you agree the money should go toward food?


9. Are you willing or able to contribute toward food and bedding material? Sales of extra eggs will cover some of it, but the current cost is about $25 a month.


10. Do you have a digital camera you could come take pictures of the coop and chickens with for the blog? Or do you know how to teach me to scan my pictures into my computer and add them to the blog?


That's all I can come up with for now. Hope all will share ideas and other concerns.


Submitted by Peggy,
egg manager, chicken herder, poop scooper, and news reporter