Next Level Nerds: From Backyard Birds to Full-Blown Farm Biz
What starts with a few backyard chickens can spiral into a full-scale farming operation before you even know what hit you. In this kickoff episode of Next Level Nerds: From Hobby to Hustle, hosts Jennifer and Carey get real about how they each went from “just a few birds” to running multi-layered ag businesses — from breeding, shipping, and selling hatching eggs to creating feed brands, running delivery routes, and launching podcasts.
If you’ve ever wondered how to offset your feed bill (or justify those extra goats), this episode is for you. Whether you’re looking to start selling eggs, launch a side hustle, or go full-time farmpreneur, this series is your crash course in turning passion into profit—without losing the joy in the process.
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Jennifer: 0:25
Hey poultry nerds. We are back. I'm Jennifer and.
Carey: 0:30
I am Carey,
Jennifer: 0:31
and we are going to start a new series called next Level Nerds from Hobby to Hustle.
0:40
Yeah,
Jennifer: 0:41
because there's so many people out there who have taken their hobby to the next level. And are making a business out of it, and we wanted to highlight those people and maybe inspire you to make a little money with those eggs in your backyard,
Carey: 1:02
or at least help you figure out if you want to run down the rabbit hole or just have some cute yard candy,
Jennifer: 1:10
which is nice too. Yeah. So if you are interested, we are going to kick this new series off with telling our stories of how we went from just eggs to a full fledged business, and then we have some really cool people coming on to explain the avenues that they're taking to turn their hobby into a business. Like later
Carey: 1:39
we're gonna try to teach y'all how to make money.
Jennifer: 1:42
We're gonna, with
Carey: 1:43
all of that you're spending
Jennifer: 1:45
Yeah. All that feed. All those feed bags, you're fine.
Carey: 1:49
And there's a lot of people out there that they're just happy if they could offset their feed bill.
1:54
Yep.
Carey: 1:55
Because if you feed'em we both know that ain't cheap. Offsetting your feed bill. While enjoying your animals. That in itself is pretty huge, in my opinion. Yeah, let's talk about it. Figure it out.
Jennifer: 2:09
All right. So I'm gonna go first to tell you how I got started and at what point it kind. Turn a sharp corner and went from David. I just want a couple ducks in the backyard to, wow, we're going to chicken shows and we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that. And oh, by the way yeah, and then he just rolls his eyes and goes, okay and look
Carey: 2:35
guys, she is not bluffing. I have seen her. Pop off with some really out there ideas and this man straight up, yes, dear.
Jennifer: 2:49
He likes to build stuff though.
Carey: 2:50
He does like to build stuff. He's very good at building stuff.
Jennifer: 2:53
Yeah.
Carey: 2:55
Every farm needs a David.
Jennifer: 2:57
Yep. So a little bit about my background is I actually grew up on a farm, not like a full-fledged farm, but we had cows and chickens and gardens and mom canned and just, I don't know. To me it was normal. I had a horse and went off to college and got an animal science degree and swore I would never own another chicken as long as I lived. Hated him. Never wanted to see him again, and managed to not have any for about maybe 15 years.
Carey: 3:36
Okay. You held out for a while
Jennifer: 3:39
and so I looked at David one day and I said. I think that I want a chicken. So after he picked himself up off the floor, we decided on Orpingtons. He just instantly fell in love with them. Never had orpington. He's never had chickens before at all. And so we went on a shopping spree and found a guy that lived about an hour from us and had Orpingtons. And at this point I did not know that there was a difference between production Orpingtons and Exhibition Orpingtons. So we just picked up 10 chicks. And went home and then we had to go get food and we had to do all this brooders and we had to do all that stuff. And I wasn't on Facebook, I didn't know any of this stuff. Just kinda winging it from this point,'cause I was a kid and we always let mama hand do the chicks. So this part of it was all new to me. And then I went to the feed store. And then we had ducks.
Carey: 4:46
Man, that's how a lot of crab starts right there.
Jennifer: 4:49
And then we had guineas, and then we had turkeys. And then I had a friend that had turkeys and then we were sharing turkeys and then I looked at our yard and I said, David I need goats and I want like more dogs and stuff. And so then we went shopping and we actually bought a farm, and now we have. Cows, goats, pigs, dogs quail, but quail ducks, turkeys, orpingtons. Still, we'll always have orpingtons and breasts. Is it oh and two cats? Is that it?
Carey: 5:34
Is there a partridge in a pair of tree?
Jennifer: 5:38
And I have a garden. We garden too now. And I learned how to
Carey: 5:43
you, did you forget cows?
Jennifer: 5:46
I think I said cows. Okay. I have a Holstein, she's, her name's Mabel. She's like the mascot out in the field, but you can't miss her. So last year I got a livestock crayon. Have you ever played with a livestock crayon before? You can write on animals with it. So I went out there and wrote on
Carey: 6:06
did you ride eat more chicken or something on? I did
Jennifer: 6:08
eat more quail. Pictures because Chick-fil-A for all of y'all, people that not live in the south, we have Chick-fil-A and it's a Holstein. It says, eat more chicken. So I run on the side of it, eat more quail, and then posted pictures of that. But I did it in red and then it started raining and it didn't look pretty. So next time I'll need to do it in blue, I think.
Carey: 6:33
Somebody probably was like, oh my god, that cow's dying. That got shot.
Jennifer: 6:38
Yeah, it wasn't really pretty. Wow. Okay, so now we're out at the farm. We have all these critters and I start hatching. I had already been hatching, but now I like have the setup, like I have the barn and I got the incubate, the good incubators.'cause I had the crappy incubators before that. You get borrowed from somebody's yard sale or something and got a good incubator. Everybody
Carey: 7:04
has a start somewhere.
Jennifer: 7:05
You don't know until
Carey: 7:06
that's right.
Jennifer: 7:07
I start hatching and I was like, oh, this is fun. So I can take all these eggs and I can make babies. This is awesome. And so I posted a sign out at the road and it said, chicks for sale. And then. People were coming and then more people were coming and then I started selling eggs and then I had quail and started selling quail. And then I. Guinea, in the summertime you can't hardly hatch enough guineas in Tennessee. And we sold them like all summer for three summers. And then David said, get do the guineas.
Carey: 7:48
Like people buy that Guinea.
Jennifer: 7:50
Yeah. I can tell you this story, but I don't really wanna offend anybody. So a lot of Westerners moved to Tennessee. And then they, I guess they don't know about ticks and Chis from, and I don't know, do they not have ticks and Chis in the west? I have no idea. So they get on these Facebook groups and they're like, what do we do with ticks and Chis? And I think people are mean to'em and tell'em they need guineas. And so they would come here? Yeah. I need 20 guineas. And if they said they needed 20 guineas, I sold'em 20 guineas.
Carey: 8:27
When somebody says, Hey, I need this. Don't argue with'em.
Jennifer: 8:33
No. But if they come and they say, we just moved here and we have ticks and triggers, and we saw online that. Guineas eat them. What's your opinion? And I'm like that's true. They do eat them and got a little bit more information to find out. They only had five acres and they were told they needed 20 guineas.
Carey: 8:55
In, in all actuality, I think 20 Guinea would more than fix a problem.
Jennifer: 9:04
I didn't even have 20 guineas.
Carey: 9:07
But holy cow, 20 guineas for five acres.
Jennifer: 9:12
I think at one point I had, I think the most I had was like a dozen or 15 because that's about all I could stand. And I would, I just would tell them, just stand here for a minute and let them get going. And I would make some kind of noise to get'em going. And I'm like, that's. Like a dozen out there going, so you tell me how loud do you want it to be at your house? How much do you like your neighbors? And they would usually leave with five or six. But at the end of the summer, all those people who bought 20 guineas. Would text me or call me and Do you want back? Hey, do you want something back? Back? Nope. I do not want them back. But eventually David just, he kinda looked at me one day and he said I'm really over the guineas. I'm really over, I'm really over them. And since he doesn't say stuff like that, they
Carey: 10:10
being loud.
Jennifer: 10:12
So we were on the back deck trying to eat breakfast, and they were on the far side of the barn and they were so loud we could not have a conversation. So he went inside and closed the door and he just looked at me and he goes, please, can we get rid of the guineas? And since he doesn't ask me for a lot like that, I got rid of the guineas because truth be told, I was really sick of them too. You can't handle'em. They I have scars all over my arm from trying to handle them. Their talons are like razor blades. And it, they're super hard to sex. I got really good at it once they were adults, but they are incredibly hard to sex. So yeah, there's that
Carey: 11:05
sucks.
Jennifer: 11:06
Yeah. They have I forget what they're called, the. The things on the side of their head, the horns, I guess on the side of their head, I forget what they're called. That the males would be like more upright and a little bit larger, and then the females would be a little bit smaller and sloped down. That's literally the only difference, aside from an egg coming out of one of them.
Carey: 11:26
Oh wow.
Jennifer: 11:27
Yeah, so you
Carey: 11:27
just have to flip over your bucket and sit out there and watch and be like,
Jennifer: 11:32
yes.
Carey: 11:33
And then chase that one down and hope that you catch that one and put a little pink leg band around it or something.
Jennifer: 11:40
So I had white and lavender guineas, which kind of was a specialty thing. And I got them on accident too, but to go into the cage'cause I had'em in a cage to collect their eggs'cause they're seasonal layers. And to go in there, I had to wear a ball cap, a le, a denim jacket and leather gloves, because that's the only way you can catch them. They will slice you open if you're not careful. Not meaning to they won't attack you, but if you're trying to pick'em up and handle'em they're ta, their nails are just that sharp. They're razor sharp. They just weren't fun, and he didn't like'em, so I got rid of them. But anyway, so the point of all of this is where did it turn to go towards business? And that was when I decided to start selling hatching eggs. And learn all the ins and outs of how to do that legally, which is the NPIP, how to box them, which is the foam and the double boxing, and then how to find buyers.'Cause remember I wasn't on Facebook until about, five years ago, COVID is when I got on Facebook. And then Facebook doesn't allow animal sales, so they kept shutting my farm page down. So I just went around them and created my own website and that's how I started selling hatching eggs. And I couldn't find a foam supplier that could keep up with the demand. So I designed and created my own foam and started selling that, and then expanded to boxes and other, if I use it, then I would just buy extra and sell it, and it's just gone from. Hey, I just need 10 orpington chicks to full flowed website and, have feed delivered by the pallets.
Carey: 13:52
It it happens.
Jennifer: 13:53
Yeah, so it kind, I hope that kind of makes sense how it started and kinda made a right hand turn into full fledged business. Yeah. He,
Carey: 14:07
yeah.
Jennifer: 14:09
Yeah, so the basis of my business would be hatching eggs of all the species. I sell live birds, obviously live birds. I ship live birds. I ship frozen birds. I dehydrate for pets. And then I sell the products for the other breeders to support their business. Yep. And now I have ventured into more website design and creating courses on how to do it to become a seller of things. So it's just a domino effect.
Carey: 14:51
So now you're teaching people how to run down that rabbit hole.
Jennifer: 14:56
Yes. I'm, I am enabling.
Carey: 14:59
I was gonna say, we're like, we're such enablers. Yeah.
Jennifer: 15:03
We're really bad.
Carey: 15:05
To me, I just, I don't know. I.
Jennifer: 15:11
We forgot the best fart, and then that started, top chicken. So then that led to podcast, right?
15:19
Yeah.
Jennifer: 15:22
So if y'all don't know, we met like about two years ago and I was wanting to do a podcast, but I didn't wanna do it by myself, so I asked Carrie to do it with me, and he is okay, whatever. I now, I know that in the back of his head, he is like, nobody's gonna listen to two weirdos talk about chickens.
Carey: 15:42
I'm gonna be honest. Look, in the beginning I was like, man, I'm gonna learn a lot from this lady. People aren't gonna listen because they don't listen to that kind of stuff, but.
Jennifer: 15:56
They do
Carey: 15:57
25,000 downloads later. Here we are.
Jennifer: 16:00
Yeah,
Carey: 16:01
so
Jennifer: 16:02
So it's a thing. Yeah,
Carey: 16:03
it is a thing.
Jennifer: 16:05
Yeah,
Carey: 16:05
it is definitely a thing.
Jennifer: 16:07
So how did you get started?
Carey: 16:09
When I was a kid my granddaddy was a huge role model to me, and he had reds and I don't know what kind these little black. Bantam chickens were that were tiny and they laid a small egg, but he called'em banies. So it was the black, the little black ones, the Rhode Island Reds. And he had some game foul, and that was probably some of my fondest memories of him, and I've always wanted to delve back into that. But never really been able to. And like nine, eight or nine years ago my wife and I we were renting a house in a neighborhood and we were gonna buy it and then they decided, oh, we don't wanna sell it. We just want to keep renting it to y'all. And I was like. I'm tired of not putting something, putting money into something that's gonna be mine. So we started looking for land and we found us a spot that is very close to town, but I'm not in 80 city limits. So I can do what I wanna do and it's at the end of a dead end road. So it was pretty nice. And we built a house and gonna gimme some chickens. And I found a lady down in Shelby County that had some Rhode Island reds that I looked long and hard and they were about the best ones I could find. And so that's what I did. I said, Hey, I wanna get 20. And she was like, I'll put you on my list. And then she gave me a hatch date and she said, come a couple days after that. So I did. Raise them suckers up. And they weren't like, they were Rhode Island reds, but they were not reds. So my quest began to find reds or breed reds and get standard reds. And then amongst that, I was able to come across some game foul that reminded me of the ones that my granddaddy had as well. And I'm raising these, doing what I can and hatching everything I can to try to enrich this. And I start finding out manganese and stuff will help get them ready. So I start looking at my feed and. My feed sucked. And so I started trying to figure out ways to make it better. And I was, so let me get this and mix it with that, and mix that. And, I find myself spending hours every week mixing up some feed with, all kinds of different grains and some pellets and stuff like that. And, that was a headache. And so I actually asked you about my Reds and you were like, I don't know, you need to join this group and you need to look for this guy.
Jennifer: 19:41
Is that how?
Carey: 19:43
No, we had met before that. Okay.
Jennifer: 19:45
I don't remember.
Carey: 19:46
I had asked you about quail'cause they inched their way into this whole thing too. We came into it and you were like, join this Facebook group. Find this guy. Ask him. He knows everything about reds. I'm like, okay. Sounded good to me. I didn't think it would be very fruitful, but I met a man that has over the last couple years become one of my best friends.
20:16
Rip?
Carey: 20:17
Yep. Rip. And, he. He basically told me that I could get them there, but it was gonna be a long process. And he showed me what some of his reds looked like and I was like, oh, those are reds. That mahogany deep red colors just and things progressed and I was actually able to get some. Standard Reds from the Tompkins bloodline, and I've been working with those for about a year and some change now year and a half. So that's where I've got those from and I've also got a lot of quail. Because, you
Jennifer: 21:06
enabled you
Carey: 21:08
Yeah. You were enabler. Which I will say in your defense, a lot of quail people are enablers because we like to share our passion with folks. But, their eggs taste pretty good. Their meat's pretty lean. And with the quail, I was like, I'm just gonna get me a few.'cause I like to listen to'em. I really wanted Bob Whites, but that's like a whole different world and'cause some more of mine. And my favorite memories of my granddaddy was quail hunting for Bob Whites and they have that whistle that I really enjoy listening to. And the. The NICs that I have, they're, their crow is more like a, I stuck my finger in a light socket type, like a weak wiki or some kind of crap. But, that was a whole road that I wasn't really prepared for because once people found out that I had quail, they wanted some and they wanted them alive, they wanted them grown. They wanted chicks, they wanted hatching eggs. And then I had somebody approach me about feeders and they want those, which is a thing. It's a whole different world. And from working with my game Foul and my Reds, I finally decided that it's time to share those. I also have a really good set of Hardy. Vigorous American breasts. And so I finally started selling hatching eggs. And that's a different world. Quail hatching eggs, that's one thing, but you get into a standard red or something else, that's a really good bloodline and people really get excited about that. I get it. I was excited when I was, practically gifted a trio of Standard Reds. So it's become a thing. I'm pretty, I'll sell my quail eggs to anybody that wants'em, but my chicken eggs, I'm pretty particular with who I let have'em because I do wanna make sure that they maintain the bloodlines and not just. Stick'em somewhere and let whatever, do whatever, and act like they're the reds that I have or the breasts that I have. So there's that. And I went from a nature, right? 360 enjoying that little chirp to now I have. Five cabinet incubators, three minimum running around the clock, and a hatcher that's about the size of a refrigerator. And I recently purchased a Redwood incubator that I've got to. They had to get a special piece of equipment to get it out of their building, to be able to load it for me. So we're gonna do that later on, and I'm gonna get that into my warehouse, but it holds 25,000 quail eggs. And it's functional. It's a rabbit hole. You can go down. It went from. To cover the feed bill to Can't find good feed to now I actually have a feed company where we make supplements and we make breeder feed. And things like that for people that couldn't find it. Some say it don't exist, but hey, I'm in Birmingham, Alabama. It does exist. We got it and we ship it. And it's a thing, so it's a world that's been really good to me.
Jennifer: 25:51
So your direction went a little bit different because you went into the nutrition. Versus where I went, but we're both into supporting other breeders with our businesses.
Carey: 26:03
Yeah. So like for you your problem that you had was you couldn't get a good supply of egg foam. So you had to fix that.
26:12
And you
Carey: 26:12
did. And other people, myself included, are glad that you did that because I don't have to worry about a supply. Egg foam.com has a container full of it and she can help you out. The thing for me that I really get nerdy when it comes to the nutrition side because there's a lot of things that are similar and a lot of things that aren't with the different animals. That's, that was my quest, was to find adequate food for my animals, to be able to see what their genetic potential was. So I knew exactly what I had. And it's made a huge difference. It's been really exciting.
Jennifer: 27:01
So you had to make it yourself and Yeah,
Carey: 27:04
because it, I. I, I met Jeff and we started having conversation and it doesn't exist, period. And I was like that's ridiculous because I'm sure I'm not the only person with this problem. He said, you're right. Just people don't wanna pay for it. I said I want my birds to have the best, so tell me what that is. And he did. And, I went from ordering some bags for me to ordering some bags for me and some friends to shipping it by the ton all over the country to people
Jennifer: 27:46
and delivering.
Carey: 27:47
Yep. And I do run a delivery route and have it in the Birmingham area for people to come pick up too.
Jennifer: 27:55
Oh, and you forgot the cages now. You still cages too.
Carey: 27:59
Oh yeah, I do. So I do have cages.'cause apparently that's another problem that people have, which I had that problem and so I sourced cages where I could get'em at a reasonable price and be able to help people out at a reasonable price and fix that problem for people. So I guess I. For me, what I would say is if you're wanting to figure out a way to essentially cover the feed bill, find a problem and fix it, and then once other people find out that they have the same problem you did and what you did to fix it. Then help'em with it.
Jennifer: 28:47
The problems will come. You don't really have to look very hard.
Carey: 28:51
Oh my God.
Jennifer: 28:54
They appear when you're trying to do farm animals. They have, they appear pretty readily.
Carey: 29:02
So I recently picked up some Nigerian dwarfs who, I thought it's just some goats. Okay. Now I'm figuring out that you gotta take really good care of your goats more so than a lot of other farm animals are. They'll just fall over dead.
Jennifer: 29:20
Yeah. That was a whole conversation before we hit the record button because Yeah I didn't send you home with any goats on Saturday. You mean you just took'em?
Carey: 29:34
I did pick them up and give them a hug and. Put'em in the back of the truck.
Jennifer: 29:40
I would like to know what Tamara's face was when she saw them
Carey: 29:45
actually. Okay, so this is how it went down. She actually thought they were cute.
Jennifer: 29:52
Aw. They are
Carey: 29:52
cute. The black one that I have has this like white glow. Around its actual eye and she just thought that was beautiful. And then the white goat that I have has beautiful eyes too, so that's become a thing. She's I think that's something, we have a toddler. And she's I think that's something that Kristy would play with. I'm pretty much got a green light to make a big. Area just for said goats and see how it works. When I was a kid, I'm not gonna lie, I had a goat that I played with a, like somebody would play with a dog and we would headbutt the yard that's
Jennifer: 30:37
what's wrong with you?
Carey: 30:39
Yeah, that's what's wrong. Oh, and since we're talking about the goats On my way to the warehouse today, I found a double slide, like step two, some kind of kid's toy type thing that looked atrocious, but it wasn't broken on the side of the road. Since I was in a truck, I picked it up, put it in the back, got here, sprayed it down with some Lysol and some degreaser, and hosed it off. Got it. Really good and clean, and I think my kids are gonna love it.
Jennifer: 31:13
Okay, so the goats
Carey: 31:14
and the toddler,
Jennifer: 31:15
we have to back up for just a minute because the truck that you were in had to be purchased to deliver, said feed. That you have to mill for said fires.
Carey: 31:28
Yeah, that rabbit hole grew quickly because I had a 20 foot trailer that would haul like eight to 10,000 pounds. Pretty easy, but it was open and I really wanted an enclosed trailer or something. I really wanted a box truck, but I thought that was out of the way. And then one of my buddies was like, Hey, I got a friend that's trying to sell a 16 foot and got a really good deal on it. And it's already, it's come in very handy.
Jennifer: 32:03
So the cool thing about all of this is you make a business out of it, but you still got food to eat. And food to share, and food to preserve, and eggs to eat. Oh
Carey: 32:17
yeah, like I have a kitchen table that's got eggs in plastic trays waiting to either be put in, foam to ship, put in a refrigerator, or let somebody get them from me for some purpose. And I have a 17 cubic foot, a 10 cubic foot and a 22 cubic foot deep freeze. And the 22 cubic foot has some room in it. The 17 does not, and the 10 may have a little bit.
Jennifer: 32:53
Both of my freezers are completely slam packed full. And I have another cow going. In July. So I have to get to canning or have a big barbecue.
Carey: 33:05
So right now I have a boar that needs to be no more, and I have nowhere to put him after they get done. So I'm looking for a deal for a deep freeze. Yeah, farming can, you can put a few dollars in your pocket to give you some return on your investment and have fun. You can also use it to feed your family and benefit that way.'cause I don't know if anybody's noticed and looked at their grocery bill lately, but it's not getting cheaper. And you are what you eat.
Jennifer: 33:49
Yeah, so hopefully what the, our purpose with this new series is to show you that you can still do what you wanted to do and. Maybe make a little bit of money with it. Or turn it into a whole thing that is a business. Carrie's retiring from his other job here soon to do this full time. I was already semi-retired and now I'm not. I worked this 12 hours a day it seems like, especially during spring. Yep. But farming isn't for the faint of heart. I have not been on a vacation in six years. 2019 was last vacation, and we don't have anybody to help take care of the animals and there's not really where I want to go anyway. So there's pros and cons to everything. So you gotta think about that kind of stuff.
Carey: 34:44
Hey, I could send my, I could bring my farmer hand up there and you and David could get away for a few days.
Jennifer: 34:51
That might be nice. We might, we could work that trade out
Carey: 34:55
mean he wouldn't mind getting out, getting town and, coming to Tennessee for a few days.
Jennifer: 35:00
Yeah.
Carey: 35:00
So
Jennifer: 35:01
we might, could do that.
Carey: 35:02
Heck, I might could talk my wife into to coming up there. Us get away for a few days
Jennifer: 35:10
and let your farm hands stay there. So we have some people on the books we're gonna have on, we're not gonna do this all the time, maybe like once a quarter. We'll do this series and the next guest that we're recording with have turned it into, they do pastured meat and they have turned it into a local source for homegrown meat and are supplying local businesses. So we're going to try to bring in all these different avenues to show you like where the business can turn, all the different areas it can turn to. And hopefully maybe give you some ideas and inspire you a little bit to, to turn your stuff into a business.
Carey: 35:51
Yep.
Jennifer: 35:53
So thank you guys for listening. As always, subscribe and leave a review if you don't mind.
Carey: 36:01
Have a good day.
Jennifer: 36:02
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