When you can get a $5 cooked and ready to eat chicken at Costco, how many consumers are going to pay $40 for the same amount of product, uncooked. Not many. In a world where we are still trying to get the public to accept the $20 chicken, the $40 chicken is insanity.   Given that, let’s work with what we have.  Let’s run with the $20 chicken and be OK with it. Let’s use what we have as a starting point to get to more regenerative future.  And let’s taper our visions back to meet the customer who will ultimately be the one to cash flow that long term vision.   Let me repeat that.  We are the ones that need to back off.  We are the ones that need to go meet the customer if we want to start in business long enough to have the customer start meeting us. As Darby will say in this episode, if the customer won’t support our moral compass then we need to back off a bit until they will.   That can be a hard pill for some people to swallow.  But it’s the reality of the world that we live in.  It’s a long game.  The food system didn’t get messed up overnight and we aren’t going to fix it overnight.  And we have to survive now, today, in order to make it to tomorrow and the long term vision that we want to see. Surviving today means selling what the customer wants and will pay for, today.  That means start by building solid foundations of a good business first - meaning build a customer base, start generating cash flow, and starting building trust and relationships with your customers. As that trust grows you can learn more about what those customers want, create that in a way that matches up with your ideology, and lead them a little ways down the field.  And it is those steps that slowly move agriculture in the direction that you want it to go in. Darby has a great analogy for this.  Farmers have a big rope.  And they are slowly pulling the customers forward towards the manifestation of the prefect regenerative farm.  It’s a constant pull and constant progress has been made.  We are further along than we were 20 years ago, and 20 years from now we will be further along than today, but that’s only going to happen if we are still in business tomorrow, and the key to that is selling the customer what they want and will pay for today.  

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it’s not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that’s right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com 

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

When you can get a $5 cooked and ready to eat chicken at Costco, how many consumers are going to pay $40 for the same amount of product, uncooked.

Not many.

In a world where we are still trying to get the public to accept the $20 chicken, the $40 chicken is insanity.  

Given that, let’s work with what we have.  Let’s run with the $20 chicken and be OK with it.

Let’s use what we have as a starting point to get to more regenerative future.  And let’s taper our visions back to meet the customer who will ultimately be the one to cash flow that long term vision.  

Let me repeat that.  We are the ones that need to back off.  We are the ones that need to go meet the customer if we want to start in business long enough to have the customer start meeting us.

As Darby will say in this episode, if the customer won’t support our moral compass then we need to back off a bit until they will.  

That can be a hard pill for some people to swallow.  But it’s the reality of the world that we live in.  It’s a long game.  The food system didn’t get messed up overnight and we aren’t going to fix it overnight.  And we have to survive now, today, in order to make it to tomorrow and the long term vision that we want to see.

Surviving today means selling what the customer wants and will pay for, today.  That means start by building solid foundations of a good business first - meaning build a customer base, start generating cash flow, and starting building trust and relationships with your customers.

As that trust grows you can learn more about what those customers want, create that in a way that matches up with your ideology, and lead them a little ways down the field.  And it is those steps that slowly move agriculture in the direction that you want it to go in.

Darby has a great analogy for this.  Farmers have a big rope.  And they are slowly pulling the customers forward towards the manifestation of the prefect regenerative farm.  It’s a constant pull and constant progress has been made.  We are further along than we were 20 years ago, and 20 years from now we will be further along than today, but that’s only going to happen if we are still in business tomorrow, and the key to that is selling the customer what they want and will pay for today.  

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it’s not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that’s right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com 

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

If you romanticized farming before, well this episode is going to take that romantic vision and drag it through the mud a bit. The goal isn't to discourage you from wanting to do any of this.  It’s just to make sure that you think about what you are getting into.   Because while the life style can be great.  And while there are many more good days than bad days.  The bad days, can be really bad.  And just to make things easy the bad days show up at the most inopportune times - Christmas, birthdays, late a night, when you are tight on cash, when you already have your plate full. In today's episode we are going to take a realistic look at the times when farming isn't so great.  The days when farming sucks.  Because those days do exist, so let's not pretend that they don't.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it’s not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that’s right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com 

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

If you romanticized farming before, well this episode is going to take that romantic vision and drag it through the mud a bit.

The goal isn't to discourage you from wanting to do any of this.  It’s just to make sure that you think about what you are getting into.  

Because while the life style can be great.  And while there are many more good days than bad days.  The bad days, can be really bad.  And just to make things easy the bad days show up at the most inopportune times - Christmas, birthdays, late a night, when you are tight on cash, when you already have your plate full.

In today's episode we are going to take a realistic look at the times when farming isn't so great.  The days when farming sucks.  Because those days do exist, so let's not pretend that they don't.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it’s not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that’s right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com 

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

"I am looking into starting my farming business soon, in nearly such a manner as you did Darby, while working a full time job in the city.  I plan to start with chickens and have a few questions.... Did you start out processing your own birds? I ask because I live in Georgia and there is a 1000 bird limit per year before you have to go through an inspected slaughter house. While I don't plan to start out with 1000 birds per year, i was curious if it is worth purchasing the processing equipment to only be forced to use a slaughter house if my sales grow greater than 1000 in a few years." That's an email question that one of you send in... and that's what we will be talking about in this episode - processing poultry. In today's episode we will talk about How if Darby process his birds on farm or off farm and why? We will talk about the importance of knowing what your state regulations are. And we'll look at selling whole chickens versus cuts. Today, it's 10 years of Darby's experience with processing condensed down into an hour.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it’s not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that’s right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com 

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Darby has been at one particular farmers market for the past six years, but this year he is changing things and not returning to that market due to low sales. In today's episode we will talk about what he looked for in a new market, and how evaluated a new market.   Darby will also talk about some of the differences between getting into weekend markets versus weekday markets, what his thoughts are on being one of many meat vendors at a market, the time required to get established at a market, and a lot more.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it’s not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that’s right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com 

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

500 baby chicks have arrived at Darby's farm thus beginning the cycle of raising broilers for the season.  With the chicks on farm we will talk about what the next steps are.

We also discuss the importance of choosing the right hatcheries and breed.  Not just to make sure that you receive quality birds, but also to make sure that you receive quality birds in the shortest shipping time possible. 

Darby will talk about introducing the birds to pasture and how started with the Salatin style chicken tractor and then evolved away from that.   And we talk about how Darby plans his successions of broilers.

There is a lot of good advice in this one for those just starting out and those with experience.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it’s not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that’s right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com 

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Darby has 500 baby chicks arriving at the farm next week.  We talk about what he has to do to prepare for that. He is upgrading his in field feeding system, find out how and why. And Darby gives advice on starting out with grazing cattle.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it’s not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that’s right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com 

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

This podcast can be helpful to all farmers, it targets the wannabes, the folks who actually entertain notions of living, loving and learning on a piece of land.  Anyone willing to dance with such a dream should be able to assets its assets and liabilities its fantasies and realities.  "Is it really possible for me?" is the burning question this podcast addresses.

And this isn't just one episode that I talking about here.  It's a season.  

I am going to follow pastured livestock farmer Darby Simpson through a full farm season to show what farming on pasture is really like.   

If you are listening to this and asking yourself is farming really possible for me?

Then stay tuned because that question will be answered over the course of a season by someone who grew up being told that it wasn't possible, and later circled back into farming with no experience.

Darby Simpson is someone who transitioned into farming on a part time basis while working full time in an unrelated field.  Putting in well over 50 hours each week as an engineer and spending a couple hours each day in the car commuting back and forth.  But despite those long hours, he started his farm, on the side.  He did it while raising a young family, and keeping his sanity in the process.  He did it by working hard and smart.  And he did it in a very approachable way.  He started his farming operation with only $500.  With that $500 he bought 50 broilers and some equipment and he was on his way to farming full time.  The first 50 sold and he never looked back.  

$500 in initial expenses started farming on the side, while working full time, and with a young family.  A very relatable and applicable situation to many people listening to this show.  If you are contemplating that jump into farming and making that dream a reality, but you feel like life is standing in the way, here is someone who's done it with life in the way.  

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it’s not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that’s right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com 

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod