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Dear Chicken Coop Co-op members,
Last week, I was in Fraser Valley helping my friend's farm baling straw. (nice hot weather!) My farmer friend is wondering if there is any interest in certified organic straw among backyard chicken communities in the city. The straw are nice and clean and organic certification detail is available.
I live in East Van and am thinking that my home can be used as a distribution point for people to pick up. I would like to learn how much demand is out there and think about logistics and cost.
If you are interested, could you email me with your desirable quantity of each purchase and frequency? (I think each bale is 14"x18"x36") Of course, please feel free to share questions and suggestions too.
Thank you!
Yoshi
[email protected]
Tags:
I am interested - how much per bale?
Evonne
Hi Evonne,
Thank you for your interest. I confirmed more details and pictures are attached.
Certified Organic Straw Bales (certified by BCARA)
14”x20”x40”
Approximately 35lbs each
Oat or Rye straw
Grown in Agassiz, BC
As for the price, we are trying to figure out affordable and reasonable price to people in our community while providing a fair and meaningful return to the farm. I'm thinking about $12-15 depending on how many bales are transported and sold at once and how they are distributed. For example, this $12-15 is based on the farm transporting the bales to my house in East Van, and I’m coordinating orders and hosting a pick up day.
If there is anyone who can take on the role of ordering, receiving and distributing of straw, that would lower the cost to a group. Or, a person from this group may own a trailer or a large truck and can come to the farm in Agassiz to pick up the straw bales, that would eliminate the transportation cost from the pricing.
Additionally, the farm may be able to offer is to bring in bags of certified organic feed from Chilliwack. They are not produced at the farm, but the farm buys feed from Canadian Organic Feeds for their chickens and may be able to offer to transport when straw bales are shipped. The farm is not interested in marking up the price of feed, simply added benefit to the straw shipping and may ask for nominal fee to cover transportation cost.
It would be great to connect this great resource from the local farm to people who care about organically grown products.
Thank you in advance for your input!
I'm looking forward to hearing from others too.
Yoshi
Hi Yoshi, I have done a straw distribution from my house before, but the person you really want to talk to is the woman who did all the straw distribution before my attempt. Jean Kindranksy I think. She can tell you what you might expect.
$15 is a decent price for delivered to Vancouver - especially for organic. Please keep me updated and let me know if there's anything I can do to help.
p.s. It took me a while to figure out what it was, but the chicken dancing on the bales in the picture is a nice touch!
Hi Alyssa,
I'm sorry for my VERY late reply. (I just found your message where it shouldn't be!)
Thank you for offering the information. I'll continue exploring a good use of great local organic resources.
All the best,
Yoshi
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