Recommendation Letters
Aug. 9, 2011
Dear Fellow Chicken Keepers:
We recently hired Just Us Hens to watch our four hens (three pullets just starting to lay and an older hen) while we were on a weeklong vacation.
This is what we thought we were getting for our $25/day:
Two visits a day to feed, water, collect eggs and make sure they were in their coop at night
This is what we actually got for $25/day:
Rhonda (Piasecki) made the two visits a day to feed, water, collect eggs and make sure they were in their coop at night
She also:
Brought our girls greens
Groomed through our strawberry patch for treats for them
Found a brick and raised their water container to a better height
Put her own clip on their coop door to remind anyone else who might stop by to visit them that the door needed to be left completely latched
Put her own fake egg in their nest box (I had put in plastic Easter eggs before they started laying because I thought the point was to show them EGGS GO HERE, then removed them when they started laying eggs in the right place, not realizing that at least part of the point was to show them that EGGS AREN’T WORTH PECKING AT. Had she not done this, one of our girls would have started eating the soft-shelled eggs that a pullet started laying while we were gone.)
Consoled me when one of two pullets we recently had re-homed vanished shortly before we left on vacation – apparently she flew away – and helped me to find a new home for that pullet’s sister after the existing Gang of Four began harassing her because she now was new and unaccompanied
Gave me an article on introducing new chickens to an established flock, should I ever try THAT again
Sent me regular e-mails about how our girls were doing
Bottom line: I had read Storey’s, and taken Urban Farm Store’s class, before we got chickens, but I learned more from Rhonda in a week – a week in which I wasn’t even present! – than I did from anything else. If you are a new chicken keeper and don’t have a vacation planned, PLAN a vacation so Just Us Hens can watch your chickens!
Sincerely,
Janine Robben
(503) 774-7643 or [email protected]
Dear Fellow Chicken Keepers:
We recently hired Just Us Hens to watch our four hens (three pullets just starting to lay and an older hen) while we were on a weeklong vacation.
This is what we thought we were getting for our $25/day:
Two visits a day to feed, water, collect eggs and make sure they were in their coop at night
This is what we actually got for $25/day:
Rhonda (Piasecki) made the two visits a day to feed, water, collect eggs and make sure they were in their coop at night
She also:
Brought our girls greens
Groomed through our strawberry patch for treats for them
Found a brick and raised their water container to a better height
Put her own clip on their coop door to remind anyone else who might stop by to visit them that the door needed to be left completely latched
Put her own fake egg in their nest box (I had put in plastic Easter eggs before they started laying because I thought the point was to show them EGGS GO HERE, then removed them when they started laying eggs in the right place, not realizing that at least part of the point was to show them that EGGS AREN’T WORTH PECKING AT. Had she not done this, one of our girls would have started eating the soft-shelled eggs that a pullet started laying while we were gone.)
Consoled me when one of two pullets we recently had re-homed vanished shortly before we left on vacation – apparently she flew away – and helped me to find a new home for that pullet’s sister after the existing Gang of Four began harassing her because she now was new and unaccompanied
Gave me an article on introducing new chickens to an established flock, should I ever try THAT again
Sent me regular e-mails about how our girls were doing
Bottom line: I had read Storey’s, and taken Urban Farm Store’s class, before we got chickens, but I learned more from Rhonda in a week – a week in which I wasn’t even present! – than I did from anything else. If you are a new chicken keeper and don’t have a vacation planned, PLAN a vacation so Just Us Hens can watch your chickens!
Sincerely,
Janine Robben
(503) 774-7643 or [email protected]
