What’s in an Egg? A Snowy Brook Farm Cost Analayis

July 25, 2026July 26, 2026

(Discards Climate Scientist jacket. Puts on Ag Scientist Halloween costume)

Over the last five years, retail egg prices in the United States have been remarkably volatile. Unlike the recent oil price surge, which can be traced directly to the decision to randomly launch a $124,500,000,000 war in the Middle East, egg prices are rarely the result of any one individual’s actions. Instead, they reflect a complex interplay of supply, demand, and the biological realities of egg production.

The primary driver of recent price spikes has been highly pathogenic avian influenza (the dreaded “bird flu”). Major outbreaks in 2022 and again in 2024 led to the loss of millions of laying hens, sharply reducing the nation’s egg supply and sending prices soaring. In response to these shortages, egg producers begin raising replacement flocks. However, chickens don’t start laying overnight. New flocks typically take around nine months from hatch to reach peak egg production. By the time those hens are producing, bird flu outbreaks have often subsided and the original shortage has eased. At the same time, consumers who cut back on egg purchases during periods of exceptionally high prices may have shifted some of their buying habits. The combination of recovering production and softer demand can create a temporary surplus of eggs, causing prices to fall. As prices decline, demand gradually rebounds, excess supply is absorbed, and the market moves back toward equilibrium. While many factors can subtly influence egg prices, the dramatic swings of the past several years can largely be explained by the classic economics of supply and demand.

And maybe a little bit of blatant corruption.

Now, let’s take a look at the previous graph again, but this time adding Snowy Brook Farm’s egg prices to the plot.

Two obvious differences should jump out between Snowy Brook Farm eggs and generic retail eggs. The first and most obvious difference is that our farm egg prices are waaaaay too expensive. We’ll get to that in a moment. But the other, more subtle difference is that Snowy Brook Farm’s egg prices are stable over time, increasing at the generic rate of inflation. This is because, while retail eggs are all in a market competing with each other, Snowy Brook Farm is largely competing against itself. You’re not buying our eggs because they’re cheaper than the competition, but rather because our buttnuggets come from happy chickens such as the one in this picture.

Your patronage to support happy chickens frees us from worrying about market supply and demand economics, and we thank you for that. Because of this, the sole driver of our egg prices is the cost of producing the egg itself. So for the sake of transparency, this post is dedicated to answer the question: “What goes into the cost of producing an egg at Snowy Brook Farm?“

Above is the annual breakdown to manage 250 laying hens at Snowy Brook Farm. It’s quite thorough, perhaps unnecessarily so, as 3/4ths of the costs can be traced to one category: Food! Yes, in order to make food, chickens must first eat food! Science has yet to figure out a solution to this conundrum. Because of this, our egg prices are tied almost entirely to the price of feed. As feed prices increase — perhaps due to an unnecessary trade war with our largest grain partner, or increases to the cost of diesel due to a $124,500,000,000 skirmish to reopen a fuel supply route that was already open — our egg prices have to increase to match the increased feed costs.

So we’ve got our input costs for 250 laying hens. The next question is “How many eggs do 250 chickens produce per year”? A pure-production breed can produce an average of 320 eggs per year. That’s basically an egg 6 out of every 7 days, with no Christmas vacation! Ouch. At Snowy Brook Farm, we respect a healthy work/life balance for our poultry. Our colorful egg assortment comes from a cast of creatures that may not be the most efficient at their job, but put a whole lotta love into each egg they produce. As such, the average chicken here produces only 192 eggs per year. So using that number:

250 laying hens x 192 eggs per year = 48,000 eggs/yr

That’s the target egg count. Now let’s add in some caveats that could reduce the egg count:

Chickens like to find unique ways to die. While we may start with 250 laying hens, you should assume 15% will die.
Chickens like to destroy their eggs. Sometimes there’s a dot on them that they must impulsively peck at. Other times their eggs get crushed under the weight of 5 chickens fighting for their favorite nest box. Assume a 10% loss rate.
Even when successfully collected, eggs can be brittle. They can contain floating dots in them. Only eggs that pass quality control make it to our cartons. Remove another 5%

48,000*.85*.90*.95=29,500 quality eggs/year or 2,460 dozens of eggs/year

At an average price of $5/dozen, this comes out to a maximum possible revenue of 2,460 dozens *$5/dozen = $12,300/year of revenue. Deploy the moneytub!

Around roughly the third take of this shot, the CEO has informed me that revenue ≠ profit and that I need to subtract off the input costs. So let’s do that I suppose…

$12,300 revenue/yr – $10,300 expenses/yr = $2,000 profit/yr

Okay, it’s $2,000. Not incredible, but that’s nothing to sneeze at either. That’s like a solid month premium of an unsubsidized US healthcare family plan! Since I intend to quit my day job to become a full-time egg producer, let’s calculate my hourly pay.

To do that, we’re going to need the time it takes to care for 250 chickens, and to grab, wash, quality control, and pack 131 eggs every day.

Chicken care: 90 minutes per day
Egg washing: 25 minutes per day
Quality control (candling + packing): 45 minutes per day

90+25+45 = 160 minutes/day = 58,400 minutes/year = 970 hours/year

So at $2,000 profit/year working 970 hours/year, that equates to

$2000/970 = $2.06 per hour of labor, or about $1.50/hr after subtracting taxpayer expenses to bomb bridges and power plants. That may not sound like a lot of money, but it’s enough to cover streaming services while I spend 13 hours a month washing eggs!

So what’s the takeaway message here? “Oh, woe is Zach, farmhand to the CEO?” Not quite. Zach has the greatest sidegig in the world, working with chickens and ducks to produce a product that makes other people happy, and he wouldn’t trade it for ten times the profit margins. Instead, I’d like to refocus your attention back to this familiar plot and its solid green line:

You can see that there was a brief and unusual period in 2025 when eggs from Snowy Brook Farm were actually less expensive than retail eggs. It was a strange moment, and eggs at our farmstand were flying off the shelves. However, as retail egg prices returned to normal in 2026, traffic at the farmstand slowed considerably as many customers understandably went back to buying eggs at Walmart. There’s nothing wrong with looking for the best deal, especially when many households are feeling the pressure of a tight budget. That said, it’s important to recognize that small farms operate under a very different set of economics. Our input costs don’t fall simply because wholesale egg prices do. Whether grocery store eggs cost $5 a dozen or $0.50 a dozen, the costs of raising healthy, well-cared-for hens remain relatively constant.

For hobby farms like Snowy Brook Farm to effectively serve their communities, we rely on the support of our neighbors through both the high-price years and the low-price years. So if you’re in a position where buying local fits your budget, and you enjoy fresh eggs or other farm products, know that your purchase means far more than a single sale. It helps ensure that small local farms will still be here the next time you stop by, and we’re always grateful for your support 🙂

Here Comes the Sun Dodododo doo

April 11, 2026April 11, 2026

For the seven of you who follow Life in the Coop religiously, you may have noticed the steady electrification of our residence, including our furnace, water heater, stove, dryer, and even our car. Some of these changes were for long-term economic benefits, others for better quality of life, and I can’t deny a small part of the change may have come from my inner climate scientist feeling a tinge of spite at an industry that lobbied away my career. Regardless, whatever the reason, we had become one of those homes: an all-electric household

As I paged through the Treehugger’s Guidebook to Proper Virtue Signaling, it became apparent that one final step remained to solidify our status as filthy New York liberals: Solar panels! Solar production was something I had looked into for years, as New York has an incredibly friendly solar policy called “net metering”. For twenty years, any production produced by your panels produces a credit which can be used at any time to cancel out equivalent electric usage at full price. This effectively allows you to size your system to match your annual usage, overproducing in the summer when solar is highest and electric usage is lowest, and use the excess credits in the winter to give you a near $0 electric bill.

With net metering, a state tax credit of $5,000, and a federal tax credit of 30% of costs, solar panels in New York should be a no brainer… except for one key problem. Thanks to an abundance of hydroelectric energy production, western New York has one of the cheaper electric rates in the nation at $0.13/kWh. Folks, I’m opening an excel spreadsheet, so if you had any plans on avoiding math today, this is your last opportunity to flee.

Here is a calculation for an initial quote I received in 2024. At $0.13 per kWh, break-even on the solar panels was 17 years! Though I wanted so badly to generate our own energy to be a self-sustaining home and farmstead, it was clear at the time the only path to justify this would be to raise our egg prices to $20 a dozen. There was heavy internal debate among Snowy Brook shareholders, but ultimately our love for our customer base won out, and we abandoned solar plans for the time being.

The year 2024 came and went, with hours of sunshine wasted on the grass in our yard. Things looked grim. And then… a miracle! AI! The advent of AI solved all problems, just as all those out-of-touch CEOs said would happen. That’s right! With the rise of AI datacenters and a massive uptick in energy consumption, electric rates across America spiked and suddenly Western NY energy prices went from $0.13/kWh to $0.23/kWh. Isn’t that great?! Let’s get the spreadsheet out and apply these new rates!

Behold! With electricity nearly twice as expensive, our breakeven point moved from 17 years to 8 years, with substantial gains in years 9-20. Thanks to the power of AI, the situation went from “we’ll be broke if we install solar” to “we’ll be broke if we install solar but we’ll be broker if we don’t!”. The justification for solar was finally in place, and in Summer 2025 we took the plunge.

We ended up getting a 16.12 kW ground mount array installed, with estimated annual production of about 20,000 kWh a year. I’m going to withhold details on the company we used and the lack of competency of the initial install, as they’ve been very responsive in fixing their mistakes, so we’ll let that shake out for a year before making final judgments and recommendations, eh? But what’s important is that the system is up and active. Which is good, because it’s sunny right now! Let’s take a peek at the live performance data in the app.

Oooooo graphs. There was heavy cloud cover in the morning as a front pushed through the region, but it’s clear skies behind it and the panels are currently producing 14.1 kW at midday. By the end of today we should end up producing ~100 kWh, which is equivalent to our home and farm energy usage for 2-3 days. This surplus is expected and by design; from April-September, the days are long and the weather is nice, which is useful to balance out the remaining 6 months which look something like this

It turns out it snows quite a bit at Snowy Brook Farm ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But much like chopping wood for a fireplace, taking 10 minutes in the morning to brush snow off the panels produces enough energy to cover all of our heating for a day, so there’s a sense of catharsis with each stroke of the brush as I fight the Unwinnable Battle against a warm Great Lake.

But that’s enough about Snowy Brook Farm’s energy consumption and generation. What about you, fellow reader? With skyrocketing energy costs, are solar panels right for you? As a climate scientist, I am obligated to say yes here, if not to save the polar bears, then at least to protect our local skiing industry. However, as a financial matter, the truth is that the answer is much less black-and-white for most folks. Savings will be dependent on your electric usage and your electric costs. New York’s net metering policies also require you to size your system relative to your existing usage, so taking full advantage of the benefits of solar requires your household to have already converted to electric, rather than installing solar first and then switching out your HVAC/car/whatever for electric and end up with an undersized system. Leases and loans in the solar industry can be quite predatory as well, and so having the upfront capital to cover the system costs is almost always required to come out ahead financially. And finally, the 30% federal tax rebate for solar has been eliminated by the current administration, in a world where energy costs of all kinds are escalating rapidly. So given all that, whether solar is a smart financial decision can only be determined on a case-by-case basis. But quotes are always free! So if you’re the type of person that likes shoveling snow off your driveway and thinks “gee, I’d love to apply this same motion but at a 20 degree tilt”, it can’t hurt to call up a regional, certified company and find out the practically of solar for your home. Just remember that they’re there to make a sale, so as always, do you own maths! (or just download my spreadsheet)

SQUAB

January 30, 2026January 31, 2026

For folks who frequently have picked up eggs and other goodies from us this winter, this sign which hangs above our doorbell is self-explanatory. But for those who have yet to make a recent trip to the farm, allow me to shed light on this cryptic sign and tell you the origin story of our newest member of the family, SQUAB.

Sometime in the Fall while Amy was doing the laps around her coops, she heard the cries of a very distressed… thing… on the ground of our blue barn.

Always looking for ways to subvert the Th̶r̶e̶e̶ Four Cat Doctrine, Amy took it upon herself to “rescue” the poor Thing from the ground and re-home it in our outdoor quail pen. For twenty days and twenty nights she would spoonfeed the Thing until it reached level 16 and achieved Stage 1 Evolution

Amy called this thing Squab, which means “baby pigeon” in IWentToVetSchool language. Squab really liked people, much more so than his quail compatriots, and would scream for your attention anytime you were within 40 meters of its pen, as well as any time you weren’t within 40 meters of its pen. It was a spoiled brat, still asking to be spoonfed despite showing every capability to exist in avian society. But at some point Amy had to go away for the weekend, and Squab and I had a sitdown on the harsh realities of the dog-eat-squab world that we live in. Deciding he was up for the challenge (and with a little help from the moonstone snuck into his feed), Squab evolved into his final stage form

We called it “SQUAB” which is Zachspeak for “I really like shouting this name”.

After multiple sessions on the Arm Dropper (use your imagination), SQUAB had finally learned HM02 and was ready to find independence in a new home. However, with the ability of flight achieved, the world suddenly became much larger than the 10’x5′ pen he was accustomed to, and our SQUAB was no Leif Erikson. To prevent him from being overwhelemed, I would place SQUAB on my shoulder when going out to collect eggs, and slowly but surely he was introduced to the 9 acre universe he resides in. With various barn-like structures scattered throughout and low interest rates, SQUAB had a number of great options to pick from. Would he move into dilapidated Red Barn and hang out with our feral chickens in the rafters? Maybe he’s more of a duck at heart and would stay in the Duck Aviary with his merping cousins? Or perhaps he’d pick the very large Blue Barn where his biological parents reside.

Or maybe he’d just sneak into the semi-heated garage every evening at 3:30 pm during final egg collection and spend his nights pooping on Eevee the Equinox…

Sigh…

Yet, despite his impish nature (+Def, -SpA), we do enjoy our SQUAB, and his presence has been a pillar of comfort these last few cold months. Unfortunately, his presence seems to have been less than comforting for unsuspecting visitors, for you see… in SQUABs numerous voyages to explore the world on our shoulders, he’s come to view humans as a sort of vehicle to ride upon, consent be damned.

Should you visit the farm in the future and hear the flutter of dark wings approach from behind, be at peace. It is not the angel of death; it is SQUAB, and he would just like you to walk him to the duck hut for some poultry feed.

Car Shopping!

August 31, 2025January 21, 2026Leave a comment

Heading into college in 2010, both Amy and I were fortunate enough to have parents that could provide us a means of transportation. Amy was gifted a 2010 Diesel Volkswagon Jetta (currently available to buy for a loving owner!) and I had been given a 2009 Subaru Impreza. My experience with cars was not a particularly positive one. The Subaru rattled, creaked, and broke in ways I did not know a car could on an annual basis, until it eventually gave up and decided to explode in a Tractor Supply. Even in death it managed to cause trouble, as the parking lot it stayed at overnight was robbed that evening, resulting in a morning visit from the sheriff with us as possible suspects. Yeah… In the end, we donated the husk of a car to public radio in exchange for a yearlong PBS membership. We absolutely won that trade.

Fortunately, Amy’s Jetta was much more reliable, accompanying us throughout life from State College to Downingtown to Exton to East Concord without so much as a coil whine. Unfortunately, a FWD diesel sedan serving as the only car in a household that lives on a freezing cold plateau that got 225 inches of snow last year felt somewhat limiting at times. There comes a point where you’re sitting in some stranger’s driveway waiting for your fuel to ungel that you find yourself thinking “maybe we don’t need to live like this”. Also the radio didn’t work. And so the one-sided decision was made to do neither of us had done in our 33 years on this mortal plane: purchase a car

Like all major purchasing decisions in this household, I was assigned the leadership role in car hunting, due to my tendency to obsessively research topics for months until I’m comfortable enough to blog about it. Unfortunately, living with my Subaru for 11 years, I had no working knowledge of cars other than they’re loud, they explode, and are sometimes involved in larceny. After forming a focus group panel with members of the family, some baseline criteria emerged for our car purchase:

It had to be an SUV such that it was roomy enough to transport goods to and from the farmers market. (requested by Amy)
It could not be a truck because Zach would crash that in a week at best. (requested by Zach)
It had to be a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) so that any picky climate scientists in the household wouldn’t complain about VOCs on their trip to the grocery store once a month. (requested by anonymous)

After 6 months of research, one clear winner emerged that fit all of our criteria: The RAV4 Plug-in. Yeah, RAV4… real original. I bet you were expecting something much more interesting from the guy who wrote a 3 part series on heat pumps. The reality is that the RAV4 Plug-in was the perfect car for our needs:

Incredibly roomy interior with lots of storage for farmers markets
Not a truck
Toyota has the most reliable hybrids on the market, with 50 miles of battery-only range per charge.

So with that said, I present to you the newest member of our family, Ravioli the RAV!

Okay we did not get a RAV4. While we were set on going that route, the reality is that the RAV4 Plug-in is a $50,000 car with a $5,000 interior, and the only way we’d ever spend $50,000 on a car is if we were selling eggs for $50 a dozen. With the current administration set to end the EV tax credit on September 30th, I did some sleuthing to see if going full EV was actually practical in the year 2025, both in terms of convenience and affordability. And in doing so, I felt like I stumbled upon some bizarre loophole that’s been missed by the public. So let’s talk about the AWD Chevy Equinox EV.

The AWD Equinox EV is a 5,000 lbs behemoth with 310 HP, nearly double its gas counterpart. It’s equipped with heated seats and a steering wheel, a 360 camera, and all the basic tech and safety features you’d expect in 2025. The interior is quiet, thanks in large part due to the electric engine. And all of this at the cost of $40,000 – federal tax credit – state tax credit – promotional discounts – dealer desperation wait did we just walk out the door with this for $25,000 new? Literally half the price of the RAV4 Plug-in we were originally considering, for a much nicer vehicle. And it’s purple(ish)! But all of these benefits come at the price of being all-electric. Can Snowy Brook Farm survive without a gas vehicle? It turns out it’s not only easy, it’s actually fun!

There is a general misconception among the public that owning an EV requires special, expensive equipment. Personally, we charge our car with a 120V outlet. Yes, the thing you plug your laptop into. MATH ALERT! With 120V at 12 amps and a 60% charge efficiency, this outlet is equivalent to 21 kwh of energy per day. The Equinox EV averages 3.4 miles/kWh. Thus, a daily charge with a 120V outlet equates to ~70 miles a day. Thinking of driving more than 70 miles on a day? That’s okay too, because you’re not starting from empty. The car has an 89 kWh battery, which means at any given time you have as much as 89*3.4 = 303 miles of range. If you use 150 miles one day and 40 miles the next three day, you’re still fully charged averaged over 4 days! Unless you’re driving 100 miles a day every day, you may never need anything other than a normal outlet to fuel your car.

Depending on where you live, there may actually be free Level 2 charging stations (think, dryer plug) in your community as well. There are days where Amy and I will go to the park to play tennis, plug in at the park’s charging station, and come back sweaty with a free 30 miles of charge. We essentially got paid to play tennis (I’m practically Djokovic). Vet appointment? Free charging station in the community parking lot next door. Library? Charging station. Hospital? Yup, free charging station. And for the one or two times a year in which we do need to travel over 300 miles in one sitting, there are plenty of fast chargers along highway routes that will give your car 200 miles in 30 minutes. And 30 minutes isn’t an inconvenience; it’s an excuse to get Chinese food.

This is not to say an EV is the right choice for everyone. Someone who frequently travels 300+ miles a month is not going to want to eat that much Chinese food waiting for their car to charge. Renters without access to an outlet to charge their car should also stay away. But for the majority of commuters… the current reality is that until the tax credit goes away on September 30th, you can get a new car with the performance and responsiveness of a sports vehicle for the price of a 5 year old used RAV4.

It also produces no VOCs/smog and has a substantially smaller carbon footprint, but who cares about that part.

And so, without further ado, I present our first ever car purchase, and hopefully our last one for the next 15 years. Say hello to Eevee the Purple(ish) Equinox EV

Hobbies

March 22, 2025March 23, 2025

When people visit the farm and see our 1000 chicken (and Goose) operation, they oftentimes come to the conclusion that chicken farming is our full-time operation. However, it turns out that selling eggs for $0.25 profit per dozen is only enough revenue to cover the costs of hosting a blog. As such, in addition to our farmwork, both Amy and Zach have 40 hour a week hobbies that they leverage to buy more food for chickens. Interested to hear more? Of course you’re not! Let’s get to it, shall we? Note that Amy’s section has been mildly edited due to potential conflicts of interest between her work and hobby.

Amy’s Hobby

Amy works for [redacted] as a [conflict of interest]. She spends much of the work day helping small scale [nouns] plan out and achieve their [objectives]. Due to the nature of her work, she’s often out-and-about, visiting [landmasses] and [the owners of those landmasses]. Lately, the outbreak of [a deadly virus] has made her very popular, and she’s made several appearances on [various media outlets] to discuss the implications of [a deadly virus] on the price of [baking ingredients with high cholesterol]. Everybody loves Amy and the work she does to make Western NY a better place for [people who wear brimmed hats] <3

A mysterious person giving a mysterious interview about mysterious animals

Zach’s Hobby

Zach is a climate scientist. Yup. One of those guys. In a country where half of the inhabitants think climate change is fictitious, the otherwise banal question “and what do you do for a living” can be a tricky topic to navigate. Fortunately, this isn’t small talk with neighbors; it’s a blog post on a website about chickens, so buckle up and get ready to learn all about the daily adventures of a guy that studies methane!

Yes, methane. I spend all day studying this thing.

Check out those sweet curves

As far as gases go, methane is pretty great. We heat our homes with it. It produces lots of economic revenue. It can even be used to make flatulence jokes. Unfortunately, like all things that are good and holy in this world, this also means it’s a greenhouse gas. And indeed, a tripling of methane since the Industrial Revolution has contributed to about 0.5F of warming so far. The good news is that concentrations of methane leveled out in the mid-2000s. We did it! We did nothing and methane was defeated!!!…until it wasn’t. By 2008, it started increasing again, and now it’s increasing faster than it ever has in our lifetimes.

Zach doing very advanced analytics on a plot

I am the Grand Secretariat of Methane. It is my job to observe methane, talk to methane, audit methane, become methane (I’m good at that one, Amy will testify to that). We as a community must figure out what the heck is going on with methane, because, and I’m being completely frank here, we have absolutely no idea why it’s increasing rapidly and that’s a very bad thing for long term prospects.

So how does one talk with methane? As an atmospheric scientist, our group does this using atmospheric observations. Imagine you have a big gas basin, and you want to know how much methane is escaping out of the infrastructure. Instead of measuring every one of the 100,000 or so gas wells point by point, we instead stick a methane measuring instrument on large cellphone towers both upwind and downwind of the gas basin and continuously measure over the course of days/months/years. The difference between the two values measured tells us something about the total methane that must have been emitted by everything in-between the towers.

An incredibly sophisticated diagram of how we measure methane

These towers give us an observed methane enhancement. On it’s own, it’s a cool data point, but what we really need is to compare these observed values to what we should be seeing based on what we’re told the methane emissions should be. We need to model the expected methane! This is done through a series of steps involving lots of physics and math far too detailed for a farming blog post being written on a Saturday.

This gif is meant to convey the complexities in calculating the expected methane enhancement. Look at all the pretty moving colors!

Here’s what’s important: If the observed values are lower/higher than our modeled estimates, then we know the emissions must be lower/higher than the expected methane emissions being used in the model (it’s always higher). From there, we can work with industry, policymakers, and other groups to help identify where the missing methane emissions are coming from and what actions can be done to reduce them. By preventing methane escaping infrastructure from gas basins, we can increase the amount of fuel that makes it to powerplants and homes while also decreasing the amount of methane entering the atmosphere. It’s a win win!

So that’s my hobby. Methane Scientist! It’s not where I pegged myself being when I was 5 year old, but I do enjoy it. Others may disagree, but personally, there’s nothing better than being able to immerse oneself in a warm blanket of data, encountering new questions each day, and trying to figure out how to code your way out of it. Unfortunately, the public has spoken, and funding that was already pledged for research and climate policy has instead been redirected to more important things like eliminating the estate tax for people inheriting more than $10,000,000. Friends and colleagues of mine have already lost their jobs, and it’s looking more and more likely that my hobby as a Methane Scientist will be coming to a close before year’s end. So let us end this sad tale with a toast. Here’s to you methane, you brilliant, odorless gas! You may no longer be observed, but you will never be forgotten~

An ode to methane, the most glorious of all gases.

Christmas Card

December 14, 2024December 19, 2024

We survived another year! Here’s our obligatory Christmas card rehashing all our 2024 adventures. Click on the 3 black dots to make the card Fullscreen. Use the arrows to scroll between slides. Be aware there is background music, though you may have to click the (!) at the bottom of the slides to give it permission to play.

Advertising

August 25, 2024August 26, 2024

Who’s that Pokemon?!

Of course, I do not need to answer that question for you because you know who that Pokemon is. And you know exactly who that Pokemon is because, as much as we hate to acknowledge it, advertising works! When I was four years old my parents, through some form of advertising, were made aware of the Pokemon Red/Blue for the Gameboy and bought me and my brother a copy to keep us distracted for a few months. This in turn led us to watch the Pokemon show every Saturday. Watching the Pokemon show led us to getting the new Pokemon games in the series. Getting the new games in the series led us to getting the Pokemon Trading Card video game. Playing the Pokemon Trading Card video game led us to getting packs of Pokemon trading cards. Owning Pokemon cards helped us keep up with new Pokemon additions. Keeping up with new Pokemon additions required us to buy new Pokemon games. Now I am a 32 year old man who can probably name 800+ random anime creatures along with their base stats and types. Meanwhile, the Pokemon company continues to churn out a stale product that fails to evolve (pun intended) beyond its dated 28 year old design, raking in $10 billion a year off of nostalgia and name-recognition. Advertising works folks.

This positive feedback of financial success by doing the bare minimum is the dream scenario of any self-respecting startup company, and Snowy Brook Farm is no exception. Unfortunately, our company has struggled with both “financial success” and “doing the bare minimum”. While we can’t do much to change the cost of feed or the level of effort Amy puts into her craft, we can work on advertising our brand, so that once the populace realizes that there is a big chicken-shaped hole in their heart, they come fill that hole with a Snowy Brook chicken! The boss here categorizes advertising as a Tier B skillset (other Tier B skills include: running a website, restarting routers, scooping cat litter), so it fell to me, the simple farmhand, to get the Snowy Brook brand recognition at the same level as a Pikachu. Let’s take a look at some of the progress I’ve made so far.

The Official Logo Of Snowy Brook Farm

Behold! Through tiresome minutes of trial and error and multiple email accounts, I have created (~~using AI built upon the backs of millions of unthanked artists~~) the Official Logo of Snowy Brook Farm: A Buff Orpington, one of the most popular and obese breeds raised at our farm, looking out upon a snowy creek. Its single, conjoined mess of a foot represents the solidarity we here at Snowy Brook Farm feel towards all of our animals, regardless of their outer appearances or anomalies. Though the Official Logo of Snowy Brook Farm is not currently used on any of our current labels, I have been told by the boss that once our revenue stream becomes so large that color ink becomes a trivial cost, we will “consider” adapting “some form of the logo” for “potential use” on “certain products in the future”.

30 Second Commercials

We had a chicken named George. He was not a good looking chicken. But as the official marketer of Snowy Brook Farm, it was my job to make other people want a chicken named George. Now, my life is a neverending cascade of accolades, but even still… this is Top 10 Zach material right here.

Okay, I’m sure most of the focus is on that pandering 1960s(?) theme song nostalgia, but personally my favorite part was the slogan at the end. “The friend you never knew you wanted is waiting for you”. This is a winning message. Despite their incredibly small brains, I’ve come to conclude that chickens do have distinct personality traits. Advertising this concept is a great way to show someone who has never thought of a chicken as anything other than a source of cholesterol that there might actually be more to these rambunctious feather clumps, and introduce them to a potential sidekick they otherwise would have never wanted. One day when I’m not scooping cat poop, I’d like to make these short videos for different chickens, advertising different characteristics in each one.

And a little sprinkle of Bribery

Let’s face it, we’re a small farm that sells a niche product. Making cute 30 second videos or running a small blog on a website someone stumbled across while mistyping “Stony Brook” is good, honest work, but ultimately the biggest hurdle our company faces is being discovered in the first place. And for that, we are mostly at the mercy of Google. When a person types in “i wAnT chiCKenZ now”, our best chance for business is popping up on either the search feed or Google maps. And to do that, we need reviews! So if you’re a customer and you find yourself reading this blog post with no immediate plans for the 1 minute and 27 seconds of your time, it would mean the world to us if you could take a moment to leave us a review on Google. But I’m not naive. Humans require motivation! Behold, the ultimate motivator

Everyone who has ever submitted a Google review (regardless of score) will have their name added to The Wheel of Pie! Once a year (November), we will publicly spin The Wheel of Pie, and the winner will receive a free pie, baked by the boss herself! You get pie. We get customers. Amy gets an excuse to bake pie. Everybody wins!

IN CONCLUSION

This is the Pokemon type chart, displaying the strengths and weaknesses of each type to different attacks. I memorized this chart when I was 5 and will likely remember it long after I’ve forgotten how to tie my shoes, because advertising works. One day I hope everyone memorizes the Snowy Brook Farm type chart. But to do that, we need your help. So leave us a review if you’re a customer! And if you’re not a customer (what the heck are you doing on this blog), go to our farm stand and buy a clove of garlic. Then tell Google how good that garlic was! If not for us, do it for the pie.

The post next month will be about how to save for retirement and the math of index funds, so savor these farm posts while they’re around. Have a good evening everyone

Security Cameras

July 28, 2024July 28, 2024

Like most people, we like to drown out the existential thoughts of human mortality through the purchasing of shiny new objects. Most farms do this through the slow accumulation of broken-down machinery. Unfortunately, I’m a really bad farmer who likes tech more than tractors, so here at Snowy Brook Farm we instead went the route of installing a PoE security camera network across the farm.

No, we’re not worried about burglars sneaking onto the farm to steal our debt (and this is your annual reminder that crime rates are 1/3rd of what they were 30 years ago). Rather, it’s important to remember that we live on a farm. Do you know what kind of crazy/stupid/awesome stuff happens on a farm when nobody’s looking? No? Well let’s review the film and find out!

Goose vs FEDEX

A 2021 poll performed by YouGov (B+ pollster, +0.8 Dem bias) found that only 71% of men believed they could 1v1 a goose. This man was clearly in the 29%. We have since put up a fence to keep the wraith of the goose contained, but should you ever find yourself stranded on an island with a goose and no place to hide, please be aware that yes… you can beat a goose in a fight. It’s just a goose…

Accidents HAppen

We here at Snowy Brook Farm believe that worker safety is paramount towards employee retention, and 24/7 monitoring allows for immediate action/assignment of blame should an accident occur.

All employees were unharmed in the filming of this video. The same cannot be said for the eggs.

Digging Timelapse with funny music added

This was for the ground loop install to service our ground-source heat pump.

Other notable achievements of the cameras include:
-Provided a live feed for Amy to confirm I have not gotten all the chickens killed while she’s on a business trip.
-Tracked down Circles the Blind Goose as he circled his way into a ditch during a monsoon.
-Tracked George, Chicken of the Jungle, as he wandered aimlessly back to the wrong farm.
-Captured an image of the Blue SUV that stole our Biden sign so that we could chuckle and stereotype all blue SUV owners henceforth.
-Created lots of beautiful timelapses of scenic sunrises for a week until the gig got old.
-Created enough content for me to create a post about them and fulfill my monthly Life in the Coop quota.

If this entire post seems like a list of after-the-fact justifications for my decision to invest in the camera network, you’re right! That was your poor decision to read a post titled “Security Cameras” on a farm blog 😉

The Coops of Snowy Brook Farm

April 27, 2024May 1, 2024

These post segments are part of a series called “Life in the Coop”, and yet, up to this point there are ZERO coop pictures. Let’s alleviate this distressing realization now and share some photos. The media upload page says 16 photos to be exact, so buckle up. Fortunately, I’ve figured out the slideshow function, so no more 52 page posts.

Amish Shed

The Beverly Hills of the Snowy Brook Estate, Amish Shed is where the elite come to roost, home to the Named Chickens and any of our long-term favorites. This shed is one of our few imported works, built by Amish Valley Sheds. However, Amy made some additional modifications to it to add her own personal flair, and sectioned it off into 4 districts. Much to Amy’s dismay, Zach does not believe in chicken class segregation and added his own modifications: a series of secret holes and bridges to connect the different pens. By some miracle their little chicken brains figured out how to navigate the labyrinth and now all the chickens are free to sex each other up, just as nature intended.

Silky Shack Boulevard

Silky Shack Boulevard is a suburian offshoot of Snowy Brook Estates, nestled just across the driveway creek. All three structures were built onsite by the boss and come with a variety of basic amenities for the 21st century chicken, including nest boxes with easy human access, electricity for charging their smartphones, and even 24 hour surveillance with livestreaming capabilities. Originally intended for the tiniest of our chicken flock, wayward chickens from Amish shed keep finding their way to these coops, and now a mix of chickens in all shapes and sizes can be found roosting in Silky Shack Boulevard

Red Shed

Across the main brook from which Snowy Brook gets its name lies the reddest of all the sheds. Originally a dilapidated structure built in the 70s to protect the secrets of nitrogen technology, the shed was revamped and repurposed to host our main layer groups. As such, Red Shed is equipped with state-of-the-art nest boxes and a timed light to let the birds know when the sun should be out, even when it’s not. The chickens of Red Shed have a profound sense of mischief, and do all they can to route a path beyond the white fence and into the neighbor’s yard.

The Aviary

This once-struggling barn lies just to the north of Red Shed and has just finished being renovated into a duck and chick paradise. The Aviary is one of our most spacious condos, with the left side home to our laying ducks and the right side hosting younger chicks. Though renovations are mostly complete, the duck housing in particular is lacking in personality. In due time, Zach plans to use money generated by the local community through the farm stand to improve the lives of these resident ducks, decorating the interior with portraits of famous ducks past to inspire its tenants.

The Projects

These miscellaneous structures lie scattered around the Estate and have served various purposes throughout time. Most of these projects have since been abandoned as larger, more coherent structures have emerged to take their place, but they’re still useful in times of emergencies. Despite their limited utility, you can still count on one or two of these unique structures to randomly generate itself somewhere in our yard each year.

You’ll notice some of them have wheels. The idea was simple: “What if coops could roll?” That was definitely one of the weirder phases the boss went through.

The Garage

The garage is not a coop. Do not encourage this behavior!

The Science of Naming Chickens

April 8, 2024April 9, 2024

As you may have heard, Snowy Brook Farm has a lot of chickens. 7 gazillion to be exact. While we do not have the emotional capacity to develop a personal connection with every single chicken, it is true that at least some of our chickens have names. In fact, I’ve added a tab to the main page with photos of all of our named chickens! But how does a chicken become a “named” chicken? And how is that name decided on? Let’s explore the taxonomy of Snowy Brook chickens

At the dawn of the Snowy era in the year 0 BSB, all chickens were nameless. However, one day my brother and his wife sent us Home Depot gift card sleeves, in the form of miniature aprons.

These tiny aprons are supposed to be a cute gag referencing the outfits worn by the employees at Home Depot, but as it so happens, they also fit well on chickens. However, at the top, it says “Hi, I’m _______”. In order to wear the apron, you must have a name. It is the Law of the Apron. As such, to put these aprons on our chickens we started naming them. And thus, Clyde was born

Why Clyde? I don’t know. The boss named him, and whenever I ask the boss why he’s named Clyde, she just gives a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and we carry on with our day. Understandably, I have mostly taken on chicken naming duties since, though Amy still participates when appropriate.

To earn a name, there must be something that sets a chicken apart from the flock. Once that happens, the name just naturally develops. For example, a chicken that poops a lot might just naturally start being called “Sir Poops a Lot”. And if it sticks, it becomes their name for life, and that chicken officially becomes a Named Chicken. Being a Named Chicken is a very prestigious status, often resulting in extra corn (they like this), and extra human attention (they do not like this). Additionally, a Named Chicken gains a form of immortality, for when they inevitably pass on to the great Yolk in the sky, a new chicken will one day come along with their same traits and personality, and they inherit the name and are treated as one-in-the-same with the original.

Deep stuff, huh… A chicken name is a name that will be carried on the farm for life. Thus, it is of the upmost important that our names carry with them a level of thoughtfulness that is reflective of this farm’s high standards. And so to understand this process fully, below I will go over each of the current Named Chickens of the farm and why they are the name they are.

Name: Little Red Hen
Origin of Name: She’s a little red hen
Why she’s Nameworthy: Hops to patio door and jumps at sliding door to come in house and eat chip crumbs on the floor

Name: Jayne and/or April
Origin of Name: Michigan same-sex couple that helped legalize gay marriage
Why they’re nameworthy: Jayne and April were two Buff Orpingtons hens that were always grouped up. There was clearly some sort of AI manufacturing error, because both of their motions were completely identical all the time. One day, one of them was eaten. We have no idea which. So the remaining one is Jayne and/or April.

Name: Clyde
Origin of Name: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Why they’re nameworthy: You know that award that sometimes gets given out to the first person to do something, even if they didn’t necessarily do it well? Clyde was the first rooster. So he got a name just for existing. Fortunately, he did a good job living up to being a Named Chicken, and is probably the most regal rooster we have on the property.

Name: Stormy
Origin of Name: Dark thunderclouds. Sex worker who had an affair with a former president and got shortchanged on the bill.
Why they’re Nameworthy: This is another “early chicken gets name by default” accolade. Dark = Stormy. But unlike Clyde, she’s done very little to be a Nameworthy chicken, with no notable attributes other than being dark. An early blunder on our part.

Name: Big Mama
Origin of Name: Absolutely stupid Metal Gear Solid reference
Why they’re Nameworthy: Big Mama is the best mama chicken. When she was broody, she would not give in to the egg collection, and her willpower was strong enough that we just sighed and let her go through with the whole motherhood thing. And she did a damn good job at it. No two chicks were safer than hers, much to the chagrin of neighboring hens that got too close.

Name: Hermes:
Origin of Name: Hermaphradite
Why they’re Nameworthy: Hermes was a hen… until she wasn’t. Apparently that happens in the chicken world. I think Aphrodite made more sense if we were going with Greek mythology here, but I was overruled by the boss.

Name: Shy Guy
Origin of Name: Common Mario nemesis
Why they’re Nameworthy: Back in the day, we had an emergency pen in the garage for chickens that couldn’t seem to… well.. survive well with the rest of the flock due to some defect. Shy Guy’s defect was that he was just too shy. He sat in a corner getting beat on by the other roosters, doing nothing to defend himself or make allies. He has since learned how to chicken better and has grown into a finely feathered rooster with plenty of friends.

Name: Boss
Origin of Name: That person that gets paid more than you to tell you what to do
Why they’re Nameworthy: Boss goes where she pleases. Often that involves following a human, because following a human often leads to food one way or another. This is especially true if your task involves a shovel. Shovels mean worms, and you can bet Boss will be the first one at the excavation site.

Name: Heihei Chickenchicken
Origin of Name: Chicken from Moana that looks like this thing
Why they’re Nameworthy: Heihei is the Yang to Clyde’s Yin. The two have lived in balance ever since being the first two roosters as Snowy Brook. And like any Yin/Yang relation, they are complete opposites. While Clyde is the stoic, regal chicken with all the ladies, Heihei is a coward. There isn’t a moment where he’s not screaming to let all the chickens know that danger is present. This danger takes many forms, including crows, rocks that tip over in the wind, dandelion growth, cold stares, 3 leaf clovers, sunshine breaking through a cloudy day, other chickens, fungus…

Name: Larry
Origin of Name: Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld and Curb.
Why they’re Nameworthy: Larry was our first naked-neck chicken. They say not to judge a book by its cover. You can do that here. Larry is as awkward as he looks, and rarely follows the societal norms set forth by chicken society. Despite this, he’s somehow the most prolific chicken on our farm. I hope people want naked-neck chickens.

Name: Friendly Rooster
Origin of Name: It’s a friendly rooster
Why they’re Nameworthy: In a world where no other roosters want to put up with Larry’s schenanigans, Friendly Rooster came in to fill the void. He often tagged behind Larry on all his adventures towards social acceptance, providing clucks of encouragement after each of his failed courtship attempts. Eventually, without any sort of prompting, he started coming up to me for corn, making him Friendly Rooster.

Name: Danny Bhanton
Origin of Name: Danny Phanton, Nickelodeon TV show in the early 2000s.
Why they’re Nameworthy: She’s a Bhantom. Danny Bhantom! I’m not going to turn down an easy pun when it’s gifted to me like that.

Name: Bucket Buff
Origin of Name: Bucket + Buff Worpington chicken = Bucket Buff
Why they’re Nameworthy: In the early days, chickens used to have access to the garage where a nest box had naturally formed in the corner of the structure. This buff did not like the nest box in the corner. It preferred buckets.

Name: George
Origin of Name: Quote from Amy, “I just made it up”
Why they’re Nameworthy: George is Polish. In the chicken world, that just means he needs a haircut. His long, stupid hair made him a target for other chickens to pick on, and he eventually found himself in the emergency pen with Shy Guy and CeCe. The three of them formed a close bond and together using the power of friendship, became three Named chickens

Name: CeCe
Origin of Name: Short for Crazy eyes Crazy eyes
Why they’re Nameworthy: CeCe was the runt of the litter, and lacked development in many areas, including the brain. Now chickens don’t have much to work with there to begin with, so CeCe spent her days in the emergency pen mostly trying to figure out how to function. But because her brain was already so tiny, that meant she had an even tinier head. This led to an interesting phenomenon where her eyeballs were larger than her head and she always looked like she was bugging out. Thus… crazy eyes! She eventually did figure out how to function to some extent, but her eyes were crazy till the end.

Name: Goose
Origin of Name: Goose
Why they’re Nameworthy: It’s a goose, what’s our other option? Not name the goose?

Name: Lady Goose
Origin of Name: Goose with lady parts
Why they’re Nameworthy: It’s Lady Goose.

Name: Gregorina the Gimpy Goose
Origin of Name: It was Greg, but then she got broody one day and an emergency naming session was required.
Why they’re Nameworthy: It’s a gimpy goose. Also alliteration.