Locally Laid: How We Built a Plucky, Industry-changing Egg Farm - from Scratch

by Lucie B. Amundsen

How a Midwestern family with no agriculture experience went from a few backyard chickens to a full-fledged farm—and discovered why local chicks are better.

When Lucie Amundsen had a rare night out with her husband, she never imagined what he’d tell her over dinner—that his dream was to quit his office job (with benefits!) and start a commercial-scale pasture-raised egg farm. His entire agricultural experience consisted of raising five backyard hens, none of whom had yet laid a single egg.
 
To create this pastured poultry ranch, the couple scrambles to acquire nearly two thousand chickens—all named Lola. These hens, purchased commercially, arrive bereft of basic chicken-y instincts, such as the evening urge to roost. The newbie farmers also deal with their own shortcomings, making for a failed inspection and intense struggles to keep livestock alive (much less laying) during a brutal winter. But with a heavy dose of humor, they learn to negotiate the highly stressed no-man’s-land known as Middle Agriculture. Amundsen sees firsthand how these midsized farms, situated between small-scale operations and mammoth factory farms, are vital to rebuilding America’s local food system.
 
With an unexpected passion for this dubious enterprise, Amundsen shares a messy, wry, and entirely educational story of the unforeseen payoffs (and frequent pitfalls) of one couple’s ag adventure—and many, many hours spent wrangling chickens.

• ISBN10: 159463422X
• ISBN13: 9781594634222
• Publish Date: 1 March 2016
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 27 April 2022
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Hudson Street Press (an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc)
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 336
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781594634222

Reviews

[Heather]

"When Lucie Amundsen had a rare night out with her husband, she never imagined what he’d tell her over dinner—that his dream was to quit his office job (with benefits!) and start a commercial-scale pasture-raised egg farm. His entire agricultural experience consisted of raising five backyard hens, none of whom had yet laid a single egg."



I laughed when Lucie Amundsen wrote about finding out that one of her first social media followers was a vegan.  After all, here I am, a vegan wannabe reading and reviewing her book.  To understand why people like me would be interested you have to understand that farm animal welfare is a huge issue.  A lot people become vegan because  of it.

Animal Welfare on Chicken Farms

On conventional farms chickens are kept in battery cages where they don't have enough room to stretch their wings.  Because of this, a lot of people like to buy eggs that are labeled as cage-free.  However, just because they aren't in cages doesn't mean the chickens are living a happy life.  A lot of farms keep thousands of birds in large barns crammed together on the floor.  They aren't in cages but they may not have much more room either.  They may have access to a concrete outside area.

Pasture-raised birds spend part of the day outside on grass.  This is the type of farm that Locally Laid is.  And no matter how nice of a life the chickens have there comes a time when they are no longer laying.  Chickens don't get a pension plan.



The Amundsens had no farm experience prior to starting a chicken farm so things that I saw as glaring problems they went blissfully into.  For example, there was no water in their rented barn.  They would be getting water from a garden hose and transporting it to the barn.  In winter.  In northern Minnesota. Oh, honey, no.  I've had to do that for a few horses for a few days when there have been barn plumbing issues and it sucks.  I can't even imagine trying to water 1800 chickens that way.  They soon realized that this was a major issue.

Another issue was that Lucie was not on board with this venture.  The stress on their marriage is covered honestly. Is it fair to ask one spouse to (repeatedly) give up her life and goals for the other spouse's strange dreams?

The book gets into lots of other hot button food production issues like encouraging local agriculture, the role of mid sized farms, and the difficulties of getting organic certification.  Their successes and failures are told with candor and humor.  If you have read a lot about food issues or watched any of the documentaries on this then this isn't going to be anything new to you but it is interesting to see how it plays out on one farm.

The husband is reading this book too.  He came running out to me one day and was mock crying with his head on my shoulder.  "I just read chapter five!" I couldn't remember anything sob worthy.  "The birds came.  Myron's an asshole!"  Oh, yes, Myron.  There is a big difference in caring for an individual bird and caring for a large flock where deaths are seen as the cost of doing business.  Myron was their supplier of the first flock and he wasn't as into chicken welfare as they were.

The husband proudly showed me the pasture-raised eggs that he bought at the store too.  See, even vegans reading the book and passing it on can help make a difference.



Save

Save

Save

Save

SaveThis review was originally posted on Based On A True Story

[Beth C.]

Over the last several years, the local food movement has become, well...a thing. People are becoming more aware of just how many resources their Big Ag food requires, and that it will not be - CANNOT be - sustainable over the long term. In response to that knowledge, there are more "backyard" farms popping up, and more businesses designed to be part of the local food in their area. Locally Laid is one such business. In the book, Lucie Amundsen describes just how their family ended up as one of those businesses - and she bares the good and bad of it all.

This book was actually an unexpectedly enjoyable read. Some books on this sort of topic are all about "WE ARE DOOMED", and while I appreciate that those are important as well, it's a pleasant change of pace to read something that is knowledgeable and informative without feeling exhausted when it is finished. Amundsen has a plucky (HA! See what I did there?) sense of humor, and she isn't shy about using it in the book. It was entertaining and refreshing all at once. She also isn't shy about elucidating the difficulties that she and her family went through in order to try and make this enterprise work. She writes well about the all-encompassing fear that the farm would fail and they would have lost everything. While I think some people might not like such a close look, the realities are there for all to see - smaller farms have been going out of business at soul-crushing rates for the last several years, and the debt-load to make a go of it can often be unsustainable, even for those who work for Big Ag. I'd much rather an honest look than a sugar-coated one.

As someone who grew up on a farm (one that may not last much longer for many of the reasons outlined in the book), I feel that Amundsen did a good job of exploring the challenges and highlights of trying to make one work, particularly knowing that this was never her choice. This was her husband's idea, and she ended up along for the ride. I don't blame her for not feeling a soul-enhancing passion, because she is very honest that she would never have chosen this to be their life's work. And she very clearly says that, if they had to go back and make the choice all over again, she really doesn't know that she would say yes. But it's there now, and they are doing their best to be proper stewards of the land and of the local food movement.