We went to the Tour D’Cluck Chicken Chat at Runnings last year, so when we saw that they were doing it again, we were all sorts of eggcited! Once again, the workshop was hosted by Heather Jaquay, a representative for Nutrena. The presentation was pretty much the same as last year, but had new info for their Nature Smart Organic line. Although there was info on meat birds in last years’ presentation, we sort of skimmed over that, since we weren’t planning on keeping them at that point. It was great to be able to go over the info on the layers that we were familiar with, but to also get better info on how to care for meat birds, since this is our first year with them.

Luckily, Heather was quite knowledgeable about meat birds, and said that she kept 50 birds each year, and her Amish neighbors butchered them for her. She then freezes them and takes one out each weekend. I think that system is brilliant really, but we are only starting with 9 birds to see how long it takes them to grow, give us an approximate cost to raise them and see how efficient we can get at butchering. With our family size, I think we would need about 150 birds per year though, so maybe 75 in Spring and 75 in Fall? I guess we will find out!

Now, I really love the idea of feeding my meat birds the Organic line of feeds, but they are out of my price range. As you know, we do our best to keep our costs as low as possible, and we have already purchased all the food our meat birds should need. I am also looking into fermenting the food, but need to do more research on that before I dive in.

As we walked in to find our seats, we were told to fill out entry tickets for the door prizes. We won some cool things, my favorite was the reusable egg carton! My daughter won that and insists it is a Shopkins storage container, so now I have to buy it from her for a dollar. Totally worth it! Owen won a hat, and I won a shirt, but Owen claimed that too. Preston won the stickers with the farmer lady and the chickens, they glow in the dark and he’s quite excited about that fact. We all got a coupon for $2 off a bag of poultry feed, so we will make sure to put that to good use before they expire. I’ll watch out for sales at Runnings, even though their regular prices are pretty great; I just like to get the best bang for my buck.

On top of the chicken feed coupons, we also got coupons for $10 (YES, TEN DOLLARS! WOAH!) off of a bag of Loyall Premium Dog food for our pup, Bogo. Loyall is a Nutrena brand as well, so I am looking forward to seeing how Bogo reacts to it. Luckily he’s not a picky pup, so I know he will eat it, but will he love it? That’s what I want to find out.

The kids enjoys the punch and cookies that Runnings put out, and I, of course, grabbed some coffee. It was a great time, and we’re looking forward to more events like this. You can check out the upcoming Tour D’Cluck events at Runnings, and the full list for all stores, to see if one is coming to a store near you.