Many teens spend their time sharing videos and pictures on social media.
Yet, one day an east Kansas teen got an idea – and it’s turned into a popular roadside attraction.
MOVING TO THE COUNTRY
It all started more than a year ago, when Mariell Neff’s family has their eye on farmland outside of Emporia. They moved there, but the 16-year-old said she had her sight set on one thing: chickens.
“I got my first batch of babies before we actually even moved here,” she said.
Her grandpa, who lives nearby, has had chickens, and it’s something Mariell admired.
So, she got the first chicks and raised them in his brooder. Chicks, as some have found in recent months can be a bit harder to come by. She gets them shipped to their home.
“Yeah, I got them by the mail,” Mariell said. “I went to the post office and picked them up. I think that was a month before we actually owned this property. So, but we knew that we were buying it, and we knew that we could move in. I kind of planned ahead of time and started raising them, that way I would get eggs decently quick.”
Every day, she gets about 24 eggs – all thanks to her flock. Sometimes people even give her birds they don’t want or can’t take care of anymore, so it continues to grow.
BECOMING A MOMMA HEN
She currently has about 30 hens, made up of six different breeds. Most of them she’s raised from babies. As their momma hen, she makes sure they’re fed and taken care of. She raises groups of babies nearby, and then introduces them to the group when they’re ready.
Inside the coop, there are feeders, some areas for the chickens to climb and even a purple-and-white neon sign beaming “it’s a vibe.” The blue nesting boxes offer privacy to the hens.
“I keep curtains,” she said of the curtains with a white-and-tan print. “Sometimes they like to pick them off, but sometimes they’ll let me keep them on there.”
As she checks early on a spring afternoon, the hens let her collect about two dozen eggs. In a black metal basket with hay on the bottom, the eggs are colored tan to terra cotta. Her favorites, though, are the speckled ones.
“You take care of them, and you get something back,” she said of the flock. “You get a little bit of reward with the eggs. And, they’re pretty, and they’re pretty nice too. They’re pretty calm.”
She does come prepared, though – just in case she ruffles some feathers.
“I actually have a ladle in here,” she explained. “If it’s a mean hen, and I know it’s a mean hen, I use the ladle and scoop it out from under her.”
The hens have become her friends. She’s named many of them. Some are named after trees like “Oak” and “Walnut.” Others, like a black-and-white one, is called “Mamacita” because she’s more in charge, Mariell shares.
THE NEW CHICKS
Getting to this stage takes a lot of work. In addition to being a junior in high school and working as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA,) Mariell continues to focus on her hobby on the farm. She raises chicks, which require a bit more care.
In their metal stock tank, she has about a dozen babies who are growing fast.
“My grandma calls it their homely stage,” she describes of their feathers. “When they’re getting their big kid features. They’re kind of half-naked, but they got something there.”
Mariell will fill up their feeder and water about twice a day, and then introduce them to the big girls later.
BUILDING A BUSINESS
With so many hens, Mariell wants to put her eggs in other’s baskets. So, she embraced the egg-selling business.
One day on TikTok and YouTube, she saw something that caught her eye: a flower stand. She thought it looked pretty cool, and then got to searching for ideas of how she could elevate her business. She mashed up the concept of an egg stand and a flower stand.
Mariell and her dad started cracking at the idea. Over the course of a few months, they built a self-serve wooden stand. She hand-painted the outside and on the inside, there are a lot of custom touches, like county-chic signage, a cooler to keep the eggs safe and multiple payment options for customer.
Since this fall, she’s had plenty of business.
“If I put about 4 dozen out there a day, they’re gone in about 12 hours,” she said. “It is cool. Usually, my dog will bark and let me know that somebody is here or the Ring camera that I have down there will notify me.”
They did install some lighting and a camera, so she can monitor what’s happening. Only a couple of people have stolen from the stand, but for the most part, it’s pretty exciting to see who will walk up to shop, she said.
Yet, not everything has been perfect with the experience. The weather hasn’t always been kind, Marielle said. On the first day it tipped over.
“I learned pretty quick that we got to keep it staked down,” she said. “Right now, I’m saving up for a concrete slab to put under it.”
KEEPING EGG PRICES FAIR
In addition to that, she is saving up to pay for some other upgrades for the coop. However, she is determined to keep her egg prices fair. Right now, she charges $4.50 a dozen. In today’s egg market, her price is below the national average of $6.22 a dozen, as of March, which is a 22-percent increase from January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics shares. Egg prices have fluctuated in recent months due to an outbreak of the avian flu and inflation.
“Right now, I’m charging almost $2 less a dozen than most stores do,” Mariell said. “It pays for the feed and what the chickens need. I don’t need any more than that.”
She simply hopes to keep up with the demand.
For those who can’t make it there, Mariell is making sure her product gets to them. She delivers them to people in the Emporia and Chase County-areas, and she sells them at a nearby marina.
The stand, however, has been a great way to sell to people on their own schedule – and – her own, as busy as a teenager’s life is.
“I keep it open as much as I can, and when I don’t have eggs to put in it, I go and steal some from my grandpa,” she said, with a smile. “He usually has some that I can steal.”
Mariell said her family has been quite supportive of the project. She plans to keep it going until graduation next year, and beyond that, she’ll see what her parents plan for the future.