Happy 2020 Ya'll!
This month launches a brand new decade - a new Roaring 20's - and I'm excited to see what it brings. Here at the farm we're finally moved into the new farmhouse, getting our new garden ready for this spring, and getting the animals situated in our new woods. There's still SO MUCH to do to get whip this property into shape but we're attacking each project with gusto!
This month launches a brand new decade - a new Roaring 20's - and I'm excited to see what it brings. Here at the farm we're finally moved into the new farmhouse, getting our new garden ready for this spring, and getting the animals situated in our new woods. There's still SO MUCH to do to get whip this property into shape but we're attacking each project with gusto!
Our newest New Year change is how we're structuring our hatchery sales. Previously, each January we would evaluate our breeders, do some math to determine our estimated seasonal throughput for each breed, then post an order form on the website with the total number we expected to hatch between April and September. Our customers would make their reservations online and I would send an them an email when they were next in the queue for their babies, then we'd schedule a pick up date and time.
The main stumbling block with this process is that, based on a first-come-first-served model, it could take a few months for some customers to come to the top of the queue for the breeds they'd reserved and often they would get tired of waiting so I would be greeted with silence when I notified them that their babies were ready to be picked up. I would, of course, give them a week to get back to me before moving to the next customer in the queue. And it went on like this until the ducklings were really big and no longer day olds. It was an amazing amount of time lost, both in our administrative burden and on the customers end... someone out there was really, really waiting for their babies and I had to sort through all the non-committed folks to find them. In this world of Amazon Prime nobody wants to wait for their stuff but Mother Nature has her own timeline!
The main stumbling block with this process is that, based on a first-come-first-served model, it could take a few months for some customers to come to the top of the queue for the breeds they'd reserved and often they would get tired of waiting so I would be greeted with silence when I notified them that their babies were ready to be picked up. I would, of course, give them a week to get back to me before moving to the next customer in the queue. And it went on like this until the ducklings were really big and no longer day olds. It was an amazing amount of time lost, both in our administrative burden and on the customers end... someone out there was really, really waiting for their babies and I had to sort through all the non-committed folks to find them. In this world of Amazon Prime nobody wants to wait for their stuff but Mother Nature has her own timeline!
I decided to switch hatchling reservation over to our meat reservation model... for over a decade we have been wildly successful with our meat sales because folks reserved their meat, I harvested it, and they could pick it up less than a month from the time of initial reservation. So I decided to re-rack all farm sales to a once monthly market where I would make all-of-the-things available on one day for folks to come to the farm and pick up the products they'd reserved. Those type of market day sales didn't cause me the same kinds of prolonged stress or the insane administrative burden that the hatchling reservations were causing... and customers were ultimately happier on the meat side of the house so why not?
So we're launching a new system which I expect to make it so much easier for everyone to get exactly what they need from us without me staying up until midnight after working my 9 to 5 in the city all day, then doing farm chores all evening, then to double-check reports and lists, and email invoices, and try to schedule customer pick-ups... and on and on. This way, everyone knows what to expect and if you can't make it on that 3rd weekend you can try again next month. And if folks are no-shows (which is sooooo frequent) I can sell those hatchlings to other customer at the market rather than letting the babies hang out in the brooder for an untold amount of time. Even though I will now have to post a newsletter once a month instead of once in a while this is still going to be a time saver.
If you want to know what we'll have available each month you can check back here on the blog or you can sign up for our newsletter to be notified via email.
So we're launching a new system which I expect to make it so much easier for everyone to get exactly what they need from us without me staying up until midnight after working my 9 to 5 in the city all day, then doing farm chores all evening, then to double-check reports and lists, and email invoices, and try to schedule customer pick-ups... and on and on. This way, everyone knows what to expect and if you can't make it on that 3rd weekend you can try again next month. And if folks are no-shows (which is sooooo frequent) I can sell those hatchlings to other customer at the market rather than letting the babies hang out in the brooder for an untold amount of time. Even though I will now have to post a newsletter once a month instead of once in a while this is still going to be a time saver.
If you want to know what we'll have available each month you can check back here on the blog or you can sign up for our newsletter to be notified via email.
I'm looking forward to trying out this new system for the New Year, I foresee joy all around!
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