Locally Laid

Amundsen, Lucie B. Locally Laid: How We Built a Plucky, Industry-Changing Egg Farm - From Scratch. New York: Avery. 2016. Print.

First Sentences:

At dusk, hens seek their coop. So reliable is this, there's even a saying, an adage: Chickens come home to roost.

It's hardwired. But our first shipment of nine hundred mature birds, just purchased from a commercial operation, stands on the field staring. They tilt and turn their heads to better align us with their side-placed eyes, as though awaiting instructions.

These hens are out of sync with sunset because until today, they have NEVER SEEN THE SUN. While I've worried about many things going wrong with our unlikely egg startup, CHICKENS not knowing HOW TO BE CHICKENS was not one of them.

Description:

Looking for a feel-good, laughs-on-every-page story of two happy-go-lucky young marrieds trying to start a business that far exceeds their expectations and abilities? Chock full of silly "Green Acres" situations that everyone laughs and also learns from?

Well, Lucie B. Amundsen's Locally Laid: How We Built a Plucky, Industry-Changing Egg Farm - From Scratch, is not the book for you. What it is is a rocky, inspirational, and creative true life story of one man's dream and twisting pathways to create a new method of raising healthier chickens for better eggs...all without having any previous knowledge of chickens or agriculture.

Sure, the story has its moments of funny situations, of unexpected happenings, and of make-shift solutions. But make no mistake, when Jason Amundsen convinces his wife, Lucie, that they should start a chicken ranch to sell eggs, she is definitely not a fan and only reluctantly offers support. Having already made several moves to follow Jason's dreams, Lucie and their two children are finally comfortably settled in Duluth, Minnesota in their converted rectory house (church parishioners can use their bathroom on Sundays).

After he is laid off from his job (with benefits), at Jason's urging they rent a farm in tiny Wrenshall, MN and commute from Duluth to tackle their mountain of daily chores from dawn to long past dark. Jason's brilliant idea is to raise free-range chickens that eat natural feed and bugs outdoors, penned in by rotating fences that open new sections of pasture regularly, a technique never used before. Of course, this process proves much more difficult and costly than raising hens in controlled spaces indoors with fixed heat, light, and roosting areas. But while Jason is doggedly persistent, Lucie remains highly skeptical and worried about finances and family. 

I am not a risk taker by nature, and there's a case to be made that I'm just a plain weenie. In the section of my heart reserved for stout entrepreneurism sits a shirking pinto bean or maybe an eraser head.

Their adventure begins when 2,000 mature hens are delivered which have never seen sunlight before, have no idea about how to eat from the ground, and have no interest in returning to a roost each evening. They have to be herded into their shelter each evening, individually hand-lifted onto their roosting perches, then driven out each morning to their allocated areas for feeding and frolicking. Every day. For two weeks until the hens get the idea themselves. And herding hens, like the boxer Rocky found out, is a tricky task. While it seems funny to read about, this problem multiplied by 2,000 could signal the real end to their dream on day one.

When anyone starts a new venture there's always a certain amount of claiming a title and growing into it, but with one's own farm, the learning is less curved and more a vertical endeavor. One day you're a guy standing in a field, the next you're the caretaker of hundreds of needy critters.

Soon we read of sanitation rules, bird peckings, prolapse egg deliveries, questionable breeders, marketing strategies, and their new brand name, "Locally Laid" which proves both inspirational and controversial in the community. Then there is the process of finding buyers for the thousands of eggs produced daily, each of which had to be carefully gathered, washed, inspected, weighed, sorted and boxed by hand (i.e., by Jason and family)

It's enough to make an efficiency consultant drink bourbon straight out of my work boot.

But survive they do, even when things seem hopeless and Lucie is ready to throw in the towel. Jason improvises clever techniques to conquer each obstacle to bring the eggs to market, a journey full of his (and her) commitment, perseverance, and general make-it-work philosophy.

It's a surprisingly moving, humorous, and well-written story of two people struggling to make a dream possible. Who could not root for them? Certainly not me, although I, like Lucie, thought they should have given up many times over. They are made of sterner stuff than I. 

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

MacDonald, Betty. The Egg and I

True mis-adventures of a young couple taking on a run-down farm in the 1930s to raise chickens and a family. Lighter in tone than Locally Laid, this story still shows the incredible difficulty of making an egg farm work while trying to raise a family and preserve a marriage. Delightful.