There's a lot of hungry people in the world. We have a plan to feed them. Step one is eggs.
With your help, and the support of the Central Texas Food Bank, we'll expand our humane pasture-raised chicken farm, and give one half the eggs to the Front Steps Kitchen at the ARCH Shelter in downtown Austin, TX. The other half will be sold to support the farm.
We're starting on three/fourth acres with utilities, two ponds, and a dozen beehives (big thanks to Erika at Texas Beeworks!) but we'll grow bigger, and we have the potential to expand up to three acres (and 1000 chickens) on the land we are on now.
To cover chickens, supplies, refrigeration, delivery, vet care fund, and start up costs for the first year, we calculate we need to crowdfund $37,600. Once we begin production, operating costs will be substantially lower, and the farm will generate revenue to sustain itself.
Our starting 3/4 acre can comfortably support up to 291 pasture-raised chickens, giving them each 108sqft of grazing space. Ideally, that's 1,455 eggs per week. HALF of which would go to the hungry. Over a year that's 3,152 dozen, (or 37,830 eggs!), for the hungry of Austin, TX!
The other 37,830 pasture-raised eggs will go to market at about $5/dozen to support the farm and create cash donations for Central Texas Food Bank. (That's about $14,186.25 for farm expenses and $1,576.25 for CTFB over a year!)
If you help us beat our goal, we'll go bigger. At maximum output we could have almost 6000 free-range hens on 3 acres. We think that's crowding them a little, and hard on the land. So, we'd cap it at 1000 pasture-raised. That's potentially 5000 eggs a week, or 260,000 eggs a year!
We wont slaughter our chickens, and as we rotate their pasture we'll plant forage and garden crops in their wake. That's Step Two of our plan. In addition to half our eggs, and ten percent of our egg sales, Ten percent of our gardens produce, and sales, will go to the Central Texas Food Bank or ARCH Shelter! (With weather being much more of a factor for plants, we can't make any promises there. Our main focus is eggs.)
We'll increase our hen population slowly, maybe 50 at a time, to allow the hens to adapt to their environment and establish social structure. As of 4/6/2019 we have 70 “used” chickens that needed a good home, 10 new chicks, 5 ducklings, and 2 goslings. (Yes, we’ll post baby bird pics!) We’ll also continue to re-home birds that need a nest with the help of Callahan’s Feed Store, as we expand.
Some people ask, "How do you think you're going to run a chicken farm so cheap?". Well, the Front Steps Kitchen at ARCH and the Central Texas Food Bank will be helping with delivery, and providing us with food waste and kitchen scraps to feed our chickens.This will greatly reduce their need for grain, (in addition to being pasture-raised) and reduce our costs. Any food scraps unsuitable for chickens (hard roots, poultry products, etc) will be fed to crickets, meal worms, soldier flies, or compost worms, which will later be fed to the chickens. This helps the community by diverting landfill waste, helps us by cutting costs and making healthy chickens, and helps CTFB and ARCH Front Steps by helping us help them feed hungry people!
Why are we doing this? We don't think of Bat Country Farms as starting a business but as starting a partnership with our community. We see a lot of homeless and hungry people in Austin, TX and we're not going to ignore them. This is a backyard endeavor we hope will grow. In the long run, we hope to replicate the food scraps program with pigs and rabbits for meat, and goats for dairy. Right now though, we're just asking for your help with the egg farm.
If you're thinking to yourself, I could do that. Good. Do it. Godspeed! We hope people will copy us. More farms means less hunger. In the meantime, please donate to our GoFundMe, and if you're interested in volunteering when we need a hand, please check out our facebook and give us a shout. Ditto if you would like to give us food scraps!
C.B. and Tiffany Breaux
Bat Country Farms
(A Very Important) PS: Through our partnership with Texas Beeworks we also provide a haven for domestic and wild bees and preserve an area for native plants and wildflowers. The ponds on our farm function as wetlands and serve as a haven for local and migratory birds like Ruby Crested Finches, Blue Mockingbirds, a variety of ducks, cranes, Blue Herons, and also Spiny Softshell Turtles and Muskrats. We'll preserve space for these important animals and use nothing that would endanger their home. We follow the green and IPPM protocols set by Austin, TX, and we've been working with Environmental Compliance Specialists from the city to learn how to best preserve these wetlands.
Who the heck are we anyway?
C.B. Breaux is currently the Wholesale Manager for another organic farm here in Austin, TX. He has worked in, for, or managed a variety of greenhouses, farms, and organic grocers starting back in 2005. Before that he learned how to garden with Grandma and not to rub your eyes when you plant pepper seeds. The chicken-shaped egg basket in some of the pictures was originally hers. Tiffany Breaux is a student of Real Estate and has a background in Business Management, Office Administration, and getting her hands dirty in the yard. They've been raising chickens together off and on since 2012. They've been plotting how to save the world for a couple of years now, but only at a semi-professional level.
