116. From Hollywood Dreams to Backyard Chickens: Embracing Life's Lessons with Dalia Monterroso of Chickenlandia

When Dalia Monterroso, the president of Chickenlandia, traded her Hollywood dreams for the rustic charm of backyard chickens. This week on Milk and Honey with Lemon, we crack open more than just eggs as we discuss the compelling shifts that occur when nurturing nature becomes a part of daily life.

The episode takes a turn toward the legal intricacies of urban chicken-keeping and the surprising impact of these animals on family dynamics and community bonds, particularly during the ongoing pandemic. Listen as Dalia and I shed light on the simplicity and joy that these backyard birds can bring into our lives, along with the broader implications for self-reliance and the environment.

Our discussion transitions into a thought-provoking reflection on food rights, government control, and the surprising journey from raising chickens to questioning the integrity of the food system. Through the lens of historical legal cases and present-day food politics, we explore how personal agriculture can symbolize a movement toward empowerment and resistance. As we close the episode, I extend an invitation to you, our listeners, to share the wisdom you've gleaned, to inspire others, and to partake in the transformative power of backyard chickens. Join us on this episode for an inspiring look at how these humble creatures can help us live more harmoniously within the abundance that surrounds us.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Chickens
• 9:52 The Impact of Chickens on Families
• 24:34 Food Rights and Government Control
• 28:37 Access to Information and Food Resources
• 35:47 Inspiring Call to Share Wisdom

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Y'all, I'm so excited about today's episode. I have my friend Dahlia on and we're going to talk about chickens, which may seem a little weird, but I also feel like as leaders, as women, it is our job to know also like how we're leading our family in health and all those kind of fun things, and so I'm actually really excited Dahlia is going to come on and she's going to talk about really the importance of having chicken, but then we also kind of get into all the legalities of owning chickens and all of these kind of things that go into it that make a huge difference for your family. So I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Hey friend, welcome to Milk and Honey with Lemon.

Speaker 1: 0:43

The Bible says in Numbers 14, 8, and if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey. On this podcast we talk about stepping into that overflow that God has for us by becoming those ultimate Proverbs 31 women. Hey, I'm Lemon. I am just like you, sister, friend, I knew God had something more in store for me. Proverbs 31 women leadership development. In this podcast you're going to find financial freedom, leadership, growth and motivation so you'll be able to do all the things God has called you to do with ease and really step into that land of milk and honey.

Speaker 1: 1:34

Welcome back to the Milk and Honey Podcast. I'm your host, lemon Price, and I am really excited because I have my friend Dahlia with me and you might know her as the president of Chickenlandia, which I personally really love. But she teaches you everything you need to know about backyard chickens and she does in-person classes, seminars. She has a YouTube channel. We were just talking about her podcast, bok Talk, before we hit record. She has a course that she's going to talk about, and so I'm just excited that you're here to kind of talk chickens with me, friend.

Speaker 2: 2:05

That's great because I love to talk chickens and so I'm just excited that you're here to kind of talk chickens with me, friend. That's great because I love to talk chickens, love chicken.

Speaker 1: 2:09

Okay, Can you give a little background? Was this year always your thing? You're like I am going to be the president of Chickenlandia.

Speaker 2: 2:18

No, I did not lie in bed at night as a little kid and think, oh, I'm going to be a backyard chicken educator. I'm going to be a backyard chicken educator, I'm going to be the president of Chickenlandia. Never thought that I had really big dreams as a kid. I was like, oh, I'm going to be a rock star, I'm going to be an actress, I'm going to be a talk show host, I'm going to write the next great American novel, I'm going to make the next great American movie, like all this stuff. And it was all big stuff.

Speaker 2: 2:49

And I did end up through just my life in my 20s. I did end up in Hollywood. I was being a personal assistant and I was trying to be a writer. I really wanted to break into that scene and I was in that scene, but as an assistant for a little while. And then I met the man that would become my husband and we got married and we started talking about having kids and it was like, okay, I didn't want to do that in LA. I didn't want to raise kids in LA. Nothing against LA. I had a ton of fun when I was there. It's a great place to be when you're 20 and you're in your 20s. But raising kids, I just didn't. I didn't feel it. We moved up here to the Pacific Northwest. I'm in Bellingham, washington now, and I don't know if you want me to keep going with this.

Speaker 1: 3:46

I can tell the whole, the full thing. Yeah, I love this because, yeah, how did you end up like getting into chickens? Because I know the reason like I ended up in like getting chickens and I would love to hear yours.

Speaker 2: 3:58

I did not grow up with chickens.

Speaker 1: 4:00

I was total.

Speaker 2: 4:01

Yeah, like I was Gen X kid, just lived in the suburbs. I hadn't really held a baby. I think I held a baby chick one time before I actually got chickens. But anyway, just to backtrack a little bit, I, we were up here in Bellingham, washington. I had my first son. He was about 18 months old. He was beautiful. First son, he was about 18 months old, he was beautiful.

Speaker 2: 4:25

I absolutely loved being a mother. I loved my family. I loved being a wife. Just, it was a great situation. But I had pretty intense postpartum depression and I didn't even know. I honestly I did not know and the people around me didn't know, because as a mother, I think you know for the mothers out there they can probably relate to this. We just hide it and, like chickens, hide their illnesses. Moms will literally just run themselves into the ground and if the kids are okay, then they're like okay, everything's okay. But something was definitely not right. I was depressed and I was, on top of that, mourning the loss of these big dreams that I had my whole life and I really felt like I'm ready to make this shift. I'm okay with this. But once we were up here and it just became a reality that that phase of my life is likely over. It was really difficult for me. Naturally, I said I'm going to get some chickens. I don't know, I don't know why I call it divine intervention.

Speaker 2: 5:43

I was in the suburbs, like a suburban type of area. His subdivision didn't have a huge yard, it wasn't super small but not really big. But I was like I'm going to get some chickens and I did a whole bunch of research, really got into it, went to the farm store. They gave me a bag with had 10 little baby chicks in it and I went home and I'm like putting these little baby chicks into this brooder and I really feel like at that moment my heart opened up and a new dream came in and I can't explain it. It's just something. It's like one of the miracles of my life. I became so incredibly passionate about chickens, of all things, and I was just like talking about chickens all the time and just really getting into the research and the care and all this stuff. And before I knew it, people were asking, they wanted advice from me and so I was giving people advice and then the local community college contacted me and they were like, will you teach a class? And I had chickens for six months.

Speaker 1: 7:02

And I didn't say that in my head.

Speaker 2: 7:04

I thought that, but I did not say that. I said yes and I prepared and prepared to teach this class. When I was done teaching that class, a woman came up to me. She was an older woman and she was like I have had chickens for 30 years and I learned more in this class about them than I ever knew. And I was like, oh my gosh, it just. It was such a validation because I was feeling some imposter syndrome and I still feel like that to this day sometimes, but I felt so good about what I was doing. And then it just from there. I started doing seminars.

Speaker 2: 7:46

I did my TEDx talk in 2017. It was called I Dream of Chickens and after that, my YouTube channel started and then it was just like it just took off. And I was still like, even at that point I was still after my YouTube channel started I was still reluctant to become like a chicken educator on a grander scale. I was happy to teach classes locally, but I was like, oh, I just don't know if I want to do this. I just want to entertain people. That was my dream, was to create fun, entertaining stuff. But people just kept wanting information from me. And when I finally leaned into that, it ended up feeling really good. And now here I am.

Speaker 1: 8:36

I love that. Okay, how long ago was it when you started, when you got your first chicken?

Speaker 2: 8:42

Almost 13 years now. Let's see my little one. He was 18 months and he's going to be turning 15 soon. So yeah, almost 13 years 13 years ago.

Speaker 1: 8:54

That's amazing. Okay, I love how you arrived here, because it wasn't so for me and this is why I was like excited to have you on here For me. The reason I got into chickens is I was making all of our food from scratch, started like small with whatever I make, all of our bread I make. I started with those pre COVID.

Speaker 1: 9:13

I will never forget my youngest, actually, he said to me I got a call from his teacher when he was in kindergarten and she said why it is student of the week so he can bring in a special treat next week. I always like to call the parents and give them a heads up. She's like most kids just send in like chips or whatever cookies. My youngest comes home and he said mommy, it would be so cool if you made strawberry cupcakes from scratch, hollowed out the inside and stuffed it with strawberry compote and then made like a strawberry buttercream for him. I was like so I can't just buy cupcakes at the store. He was like no, I'm like okay, so now they're like offended if I don't make, and so that started it for me is. I was like okay, now I'm making this from scratch. I'm learning this and that about food and I noticed a huge difference when I like got eggs for my in-laws versus buying them as a store and that changed everything for me.

Speaker 2: 10:02

when it gets to chickens and that changed everything for me when it came to chickens. Yeah yeah, it's a huge difference. Like my son, he grew up both of my kids have grown up on eggs that were raised in Chickenlandia and or that were laid in Chickenlandia. And now, like they can really tell if they, if we go to Denny's or whatever you know, you just get like a fried egg from Denny's Wow, I can really tell the difference. If youny's or whatever you know, you just get like a fried egg from Denny's Wow, I can really tell the difference.

Speaker 2: 10:28

If you get an omelet. You know the cheese helps.

Speaker 1: 10:30

Yeah, but even just the color, the texture, all of it is different and it's so fascinating to me. It's like an obsession. My husband hates it. Every time like a new documentary or something drops, here we go, she's going throw something out. Or I spent the whole summer on a glyphosate kick. He was like you're killing me, so your husband and my husband should get together. Yeah, so mine is. Every time something comes out, he's like here we go, our whole life is about to get uprooted again because you've learned something new. I'm like it's great that I stay home and I can research these things. He's like sure, but I love that you've gotten into chickens because it's such a huge part, I think, of our family.

Speaker 1: 11:10

I was telling Dolly before we hit record so we don't have enough space for chickens, so we use my in-laws farm. They have 12 acres and so I just show up at their house on a regular basis with chickens. She only had ones that laid light brown eggs and I was like we need some different chickens in here. So she only had one set of light brown eggs and I was like we need some different chickens in here. So I bought her like a bunch of Americanas this year Selfishly for me. I want pretty pictures to post every week of different colored eggs, but I love that. This is how your kids grew up and everything so can you talk about, because you're like I needed this for me. But then how has it impacted your family and what's been the benefit you've seen with having chicken at your house?

Speaker 2: 11:50

Oh gosh, it's so. Obviously there's the eggs, there's like the health part of it and that's huge. And if that's the only reason you have chickens, I think that is absolutely wonderful done for me and also for my family, is that it gives us a connection with nature that I think we probably wouldn't have if we were not, like, forced to go out and deal with them and usually it's me, but my kids also have that connection. My husband doesn't quite deal with them as much, he enjoys them from afar, but I think especially he had mentioned COVID before.

Speaker 2: 12:36

When COVID happened, I spent a lot of time initially outside with the chickens because I was worried, like I it was the very beginning and nobody really knew what was going on and I would go out there and just breathe and be with them. And then, as things progressed and we had lockdowns and a lot of people just weren't getting outside at all, I thought to myself oh my gosh, like I am so fortunate to be able to have this connection right now, when there are people living in apartments and they just there's kids living in areas where they literally cannot go outside. They couldn't go to the park and at that moment I had, I have this. I have a book that came out last year I had already written. I got the book deal like right before COVID happened, and I had already written most of the book, like it had the bones, most of it. All the information was there.

Speaker 2: 13:35

But after COVID happened and I really felt like everyone needs to have access to this, I went back and I changed a lot of it because it is a great passion of mine to make this accessible for everybody, because even more so than just like the health aspect of it, obviously we would like to see less factory farms. We want people to have fresh nutrients. Just being able to have that connection with nature, I believe, is a right that just belongs to all of us and many of us most of us, certainly in the Western world have had that severed and so we're suffering from that and it's really my goal to heal that, work on healing that, and I think that would really help. I say chickens can save the world and I really feel that way.

Speaker 2: 14:30

I really do feel that way. There's just so much about it that we can use to heal ourselves, that can be beneficial for our families, our communities, but also we can use to really have more compassion and understanding for each other on the planet that don't have chickens in their history in a significant way, and those cultures are extremely remote and we only think that maybe they don't, but the chicken is something that is common with all of us, so maybe we could start there.

Speaker 1: 15:08

I really love that because it's I'm glad we're having this conversation now and that you're like everybody should be able to do something like this. So my husband and I are moving in over the summer and they have a city ordinance that you can't have chicken now, I know some people.

Speaker 1: 15:27

I know, I know some people do, and I totally get it. I'm right near Savannah and so it's just over the border, right near Hilton Head, and so it's very historic and beautiful and I guess I get it. You know what I mean, because I'm the person who would like. This is why I take them all to my in-laws, because I just see chickens and I buy them. I would 100% overrun a neighborhood with 100 chickens. I know that about myself. I have no self-control when it comes to chickens or produce. There's no, there's no start small with me, and so I get it. So then, how? So say you have a situation like that, or you're in an urban area, or like maybe you don't have an answer for that? That's I'm like asking you to solve a world problem, but how do you try that?

Speaker 2: 16:10

experience. I think it's important to get a connection with nature, no matter what, whether it's with chickens. How do you try that experience where you are originally supposed to be? So that's why I call it a connection with nature, rather than you need to go outside and disconnect. In my book I do talk about some things that you can do to try and change the laws where you live.

Speaker 2: 16:45

I know a lot of people keep chickens illegally. It's difficult to do that depending on where you live and who your neighbors are, because chickens do make noise and people are always asking me what are the quietest chickens? I'm like you can get breeds that people on YouTube say, oh, these are quiet chickens, blah, blah, blah, and that breed is still going to sing the egg song and your neighbors are going to know about them, Like it just happens, and every chicken has its own personality. You might get one that wants to talk to you all day long, even if you're inside. So it's tough for people when it is illegal.

Speaker 2: 17:22

And what really breaks my heart is if you go into the inner city and it's literally there's places where there are food deserts, there's literally not access to fresh food and it's illegal to grow your own food and you can't have chickens, and it's like what it feels. That feels like sinister to me. Yes, I think a lot of what I've been doing lately, and certainly my plan for the future, is a lot of advocacy in terms of that. I'd love to see people, even people living in apartment complexes there's no reason why they can't have community. If they have community gardens, if we know that's a possibility, why can't they have community chickens? And over the? It was like last spring I met somebody that has community chickens in the middle of the city in Baltimore and when there was that egg shortage in I think it was spring of 2023, there was that crazy egg shortage and then the prices shot up and everything.

Speaker 1: 18:31

But yeah it was like $6 a dozen it was insane.

Speaker 2: 18:35

I remember that, and we could have a whole podcast about what I think about that.

Speaker 1: 18:40

I have a lot of feelings on that.

Speaker 2: 18:43

Feelings. But anyway, he told me he was like we were the only people with eggs and we supplied the community with eggs and it's like a source of pride for their community. There's no reason why we can't see that in cities all across the US. Yeah, I don't even know what I was talking about or what question I was answering no.

Speaker 1: 19:06

This is good. This is so important because I remember that I like, honestly, I might have a PTSD blackout from that shortage because I forgot it existed. Yeah, I remember some of our friends. They were paying like $6 to $9 a dozen for eggs and I'm like I literally just pick some up every 18, every week up from my in-laws when we go over for dinner. I swap containers, I get eggs Like I don't even think about it and I'm like man, I can't imagine having to. And I live in rural Georgia, right, so almost everybody is chickens around me. That's normal for us, but I'm like it'll be weird when we move, for sure. But I love that you called it connecting.

Speaker 1: 19:41

This made me think my husband. Last weekend we were finishing the garden because we planted everything in stages because they all have the same harvest time and I'm like I cannot have this garden be ready to harvest all in one week, cannot have this garden be ready to harvest all in one week. We're not doing that. So I spaced it out and he was tilling and my mother-in-law was so funny she noticed he took his shoes off and he literally just had his toes in the dirt tilling this garden. She's like that is so gross. And he was like, no, it's actually perfect.

Speaker 2: 20:07

And it's really good for you.

Speaker 1: 20:11

It was so good, it's so funny. So my husband, this is like crazy. This is totally a side note. He has chemical burns from the military on his feet and when he got done and we washed his feet or whatever, there was nothing on his foot. It was completely clear. They weren't bothering him. I was like, look what happens when you like connect with the natural. Yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 20:32

Oh, I love this idea of a community of like chickens too. I think that is that should be, because, yeah, we have community gardens, why can't we have community chicken?

Speaker 2: 20:42

yeah, and just thinking about when that egg shortage happened. Another thing that made me cranky during is that a lot of articles came out where other educators and this is not to put down other educators, because I know their hearts are in the right place they were like acknowledging that there was a shortage, but also you really shouldn't get backyard chickens because you can't afford it. Yeah, and I'm like we're telling them they can't do it.

Speaker 1: 21:12

They're like like it's harder, it's more expensive, but all these things yes, all these roadblocks, and I'm like, wow, that is really rich.

Speaker 2: 21:20

Because initially if you look at like the history of chicken keeping in the united states just in the united states, you will see a time when everybody had chickens. Then you will see the first animal going into the factory farm were chickens and a real campaign to get chickens out of the city. And there, if you look at the situation, there were legitimate reasons where really some education needed to happen because it was creating like a public health problem. But the solution to that was not factory farms. Let's just say that that solution put a lot of money into a very few people's pockets, but anyway, then after World War II there was more of a hey, we need chicken in every backyard, we should get chickens. And then at some point it turned into chickens are low class, oh, we don't want chickens in our neighborhood. It'll bring property value down.

Speaker 2: 22:22

And it's just like this whole kind of like class thing and you can get really deep into it. But what I find so funny now is that there are more places where you can keep chickens, there's more neighborhoods that are saying you can keep chickens, there's more high-end areas where you can keep chickens, but then there's now there's like different roadblocks being put up of, oh you can't afford to do this because in order to keep chickens, you have to do it this way and you have to spend this amount of money. And it's I know that's not true, because if you go to the absolute poorest places in the world, you will find poor people and you will find their chickens. And I've spent a lot of time in Central America, where there are chickens everywhere. My great-grandmother had chickens, my grandmother had chickens.

Speaker 2: 23:19

I know that it is possible to have chickens and not spend a ton of money, and so that's become a new thing that I'm really doing a lot of research right now just trying to combat that mentality that really comes from factory farming. That's where that comes from, because, oh, you have to have this kind of building for them. They can't have any kind of pathogen, not even pathogens, but just natural things like bacteria, fungi, like all the things that are in the natural environment. We have this idea that we have to protect them from all those things rather than build their internal resilience so that they can live in the environment that they're originally supposed to live in without getting disease. It's just all of these little things that put into our heads that chicken keeping is costly, when in reality chickens are super resilient. They have been by our sides through war, through famine, through natural disaster, and that's what makes them so wonderful, and it's what makes this symbiotic relationship so amazing that it's gone literally through the millennia up to now.

Speaker 1: 24:33

My gosh. Okay, I love this. We could do a whole episode talking about, like the legalities, factory farming, all of it, because I am very much a. I don't know. You guys think I heard somebody one time say that chickens are like a gateway to conspiracy theories and things. They're like. Once you get there's somebody on TikTok what are they? It's BNR Homestead and he's got a chicken with a tinfoil hat and it's the tinfoil hat club with his chicken. That is funny Because they're like a gateway to conspiracy theories, because you notice your eggs look different and then you start questioning the whole food system and now you're looking into the EPA and looking into all of these things. He's like all because you had chickens and they produced better looking eggs than you got in the store and I was like that's funny, Like that is that's very true.

Speaker 1: 25:16

I feel like I have gone down some crazy rabbit holes, but I love that advocacy has become a huge part of your platform too, because in my research land I was listening to when I was on like a big glyphosate kick and I am like we grow our own wheat now because I'm like terrified of glyphosate. So that's fine and but I was listening and they brought up this like Wickard versus Philburn case and from the Supreme Court, if you like, heard this case no, tell me, okay, I'm gonna blow you're gonna go on such a tangent when we hang up.

Speaker 1: 25:51

I'm'm so sorry. So it happened right at like during World War II. After World War II, when you're like talking about putting more chickens in backyards and things. This man had a farm. He produced enough to take care of himself and sell product, of course, because people were rationing and all these things were happening, he got sued by the government for disrupting the flow of commerce Into his pocket, right, and so this is like so fascinating.

Speaker 1: 26:21

So then, so that it was an attorney on a podcast I was listening to I'm not gonna send it to you because it was so good, but she was talking about how the formation of the United States they were all basically like this is why the states have so many rights is they act like individual countries.

Speaker 1: 26:35

And then the whole purpose of Congress is to make sure that there is a flow of commerce between states, and so, if you look, almost every law has something to do with commerce in some way, shape or form. That's like really their only sphere of influence is commerce. And yeah, so they said that this man, by putting food into his home, disrupted the flow of commerce, and I just saw somebody got sued by the government in the Seattle area because she had a cannabis farm and she had a prescription for cannabis and so she kept enough for herself and was selling the rest to distribution centers or whatever. How that works I don't know, it's not my area of expertise, but she got arrested by the dea for it and it's like being sued and they're using this case to say that you can't provide, you can't grow things for yourself I, I just I think that's criminal, that is criminal.

Speaker 2: 27:35

And if you really think about all of our issues all even like our cultural issues and everything it feels, it feels purposeful, like I can't help but feel that way that why is it illegal for people to not grow, to grow their own food? And especially when I look at the cities, and if we're going to be talking about like poverty and race and all this stuff, it's okay. Then, if that is really the concern, let's put food in people's mouths, let's put healthy food in people's mouths, let's give them the ability to grow their own food. And it it's just like that. It just shows me that's actually not the concern. The concern is just keeping us angry at each other. So we don't know what's going on?

Speaker 1: 28:24

Yes, I just saw somebody on Shark Tank. They have pop up grocery stores for food desert and it's all like healthy, fresh food, because they're like you don't have access in a lot of areas, which, yeah, it's very interesting. I feel like I was very fortunate. I grew up in a tourist town in New Jersey and so everybody had money. My friend, she just listed the house for like $12 million. There was like money where I grew up.

Speaker 1: 28:48

I know I'm like that's silly, but somebody on YouTube bought this house for $12 million, so I'm like apparently there's money to be made on the internet.

Speaker 2: 28:56

Yeah, and so I'm trying, I'm trying to get that $12 million.

Speaker 1: 29:00

And so when I moved, I remember during I don't know what maybe it was during the last presidential campaign they were talking about there's areas that don't have access to the internet and all these things. I'm like in what world do we not have internet access? But then I go to my in-laws house and there is no internet and almost like in their entire town, like they have to get Starlink or they have to do all yeah. And I'm like, wait a minute. So like during COVID, they didn't. Like my nephew didn't have internet access. They had a like hotspot to do his homework and stuff and I was like, okay, fascinating. And so then hearing of food, deserts and all this and like this is mind-boggling to me how limited access is to certain things. Um, and, yeah, it does. It just feels criminal, like it is. It's very clear. I feel like where the intent. Guys, this is not where the podcast is supposed to go. I feel like we could do a whole another episode on just the whole system and the way it is so painfully broken.

Speaker 2: 30:00

Yeah, and what's so super funny is that the where I we were talking about like conspiracy theories and all of that where I ended up with the mentality that I have is that I am a child of immigrants. My parents came from Guatemala and in the in Guatemala's history there was an almost 40 year civil war and it was started by the CIA, and so if you want to go down a rabbit hole, that's my favorite.

Speaker 1: 30:28

OK, we're not best friends because we could just swap conspiracy theories. What did I hear? I heard somebody one time say it's only a conspiracy theory until, like, it breaks the news tomorrow, or something like it. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:40

And now, even if you go on Wikipedia, it will say the CIA backed coup in Guatemala, but it completely destroyed their country and they eventually, of course, they had to move and it was over bananas, Okay. So I understand how much power and food and resources really really fuel this machine that I feel has just too much control over us. And so that's where I get my kind of conspiratorial mind is just that I grew up with my dad telling me like, look, this is what they're willing to do to keep us down. And so my little way of fighting that and I'm a pacifist, I'm a very peaceful person so I'll say you don't have to, you don't have to fight, Just get some chickens just get chickens.

Speaker 1: 31:37

There are loopholes around it. I just want to say you could use religious reasons. That is the number one argument I will say against Wickard v Filburn about growing your own food and things is that you can use a religious exemption implicitly. So if anybody wants to do that, yeah definitely.

Speaker 1: 31:57

I love this. Okay, so again we could have had this conversation. We could probably get 15 podcast episodes out of this. I don't know if we need to start a new conspiracy theory podcast or whatever. We can't talk about chickens, which I'm excited about. They are like a gateway drug because I also feel like you can't just buy one chicken, and I love that you talk about this gatekeeping of the chicken industry, which is wild. So you have a course and books. Do you want to talk about them, my friend? I?

Speaker 2: 32:22

do. I have got a course. It's called Backyard Chickens 101, a chicken course for everyone, because I do believe it should be for everybody, and it's an online course. You can take it at your own pace. You can ask me questions. I try to get to those questions within probably about 24 to 48 hours, which is like a big perk for a lot of people, because I get literally I cannot even tell you how many chicken questions I get emailed to me, messaged to me whatever. I even had somebody call me on my home phone once.

Speaker 1: 32:56

That's like nope, I'm not calling you back. That's wild.

Speaker 2: 33:02

Yes, and now you're like where's?

Speaker 1: 33:04

my home phone listed somewhere, I know.

Speaker 2: 33:07

I know People have a lot of chicken questions and they want answers, and if I spent all my time doing that, I would not have time to create the content that I create. So I have the course. You get a little certificate at the end and there's like quizzes and videos and stuff, and I found that a lot of homeschooling families really like using it, which was a surprise. I didn't. That was not when I created it, I didn't think about that, and then all of a sudden that was happening, so was cool.

Speaker 2: 33:38

And then last year my book came out. It's called let's All Keep Chickens the down-to-earth guide to natural practices for healthier birds and a happier world, and that is available at it's on the dreaded Amazon. It is at Tractor Supply, barnes and Noble. Hopefully you can get it at your local bookstore. If not, you can ask them to order it for you. So that is another way that you can get just access to all of the chicken information that I offer.

Speaker 2: 34:12

And then, of course, there's my YouTube channel and my podcast, and those are my biggest platforms. It's all free content. You can find just about anything there that you're looking for. How it differentiates from the course is that the course is very organized and so a lot of people like that and they like that. They get direct access to me and also you can go back and use the course anytime. Same with the book. It's a reference book that you could have on hand all the time. The YouTube channels, everything's there, but you got to search for it. But yeah, all of this information you can find on my website is welcome to chickenlandiacom and you'll find I'm on all the social media and stuff and you'll find links to everything.

Speaker 1: 34:58

Yeah, I love this. I actually have to go to Tractor Supply later because I need dog food, so I'm going to look for your book while I'm at Tractor.

Speaker 2: 35:04

Supply. I'm going to send you a picture of like I found it.

Speaker 1: 35:06

I'm going to assume I'm going to trust that it's there. It's a brand new Tractor Supply so I hope it's there.

Speaker 1: 35:12

They better have it. I'll let you know. I will keep you on the loop, because I've literally got to go in three hours to go pick up dog food, so this is perfect timing. So I just want to thank you so much for being here. I really, I'm telling you, I feel like I want to start a whole new podcast just to invite you to want to talk conspiracy theories one day or maybe we're just new best friends. I just I loved having you here. Thank you for this. This is just such a. It was such a good conversation and I deeply appreciate you being here, my friend.

Speaker 2: 35:40

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 35:43

Hey friend, what a joy it has been to share today's journey with you. If you found a spark of inspiration or a nugget of wisdom that resonated, would you bless someone else by sharing this episode with them? It could be the encouragement they need to step into their purpose and calling. Also, if you could spare a moment to leave a review, it would mean the world to me. I really appreciate your feedback and it really helps our community grow. Remember, the road to discovering God's call for you isn't one you have to walk alone. So join me again next Monday for another episode where we'll continue to explore the depths of leadership and the heights of our heavenly calling. Until then, keep seeking, keep growing and keep trusting in his plan. God bless you and I'll catch you on the flip side. Bye, friend.