09/09/2026
Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling since she reached out late last night. Apologizing for “taking advantage of me”.
I had no idea what she was talking about but then the screen shots came in.
Let me start by saying I am not here to pass judgement. Frankly, this whole thing is about judgement passed by the masses. I want to lend my unsolicited advice. I am only trying to understand both sides. I stay away from social media because there is the this constant back-and-forth movement of “I hate drama” and “share kindness” followed by the actions and words that would clearly state the opposite.
Here’s the thing, she never asked for eggs to be donated. We had an amazing conversation like I do with many of you that enter my inbox on a daily basis. I felt her struggle and I offered to send them before it was ever brought up. The ability to gift something to somebody that I have so readily brings me complete joy. I don’t know how to describe it and I don’t need affirmations for it. In fact, I prefer my name to be kept quiet. I want to give and so I do. This will be one of the few times that I let you know about how much I donate. I do so every month and it always fills my cup to share joy, to spread happiness and to give more than I take.
Someone’s mental health is not my responsibility. It is my responsibility to treat others with respect. In the grand scale of interactions that social media has created, the comment section has become the proverbial rooms we walk into. The posts we make and the comment section has this weight of responsibility that I’m not sure we are aware of at times.
Hear me out.
I don’t like how we can so easily attack one person when we rarely if ever know the full story. We are taking screenshots and assuming we can peek into the life they live. That we somehow know who they are as a person. As I read through everyone’s comments and all the posts, it was clear that this is a large scale issue of how to respect your own boundaries. How to tune into what your gut is saying. How to know when yes or no is the correct answer. Boundaries are hard and I get that. Most of us are millennials after all 😂 If you feel uncomfortable with a request for donated eggs, respectfully say no. As you grow as a breeder, I promise you, you will get more requests. As your reach and eggs become more defined, people will want them. You will also need to charge more for them because of the years you have invested both emotionally and financially. I understand fully how both of these two things could cause a total pause if someone asks for donated eggs. Trust your gut and say yes or… simply say no with a well wish and move on.  
If you sell eggs, you run a business. There are many books on communication and learning to respect your boundaries. If anybody is interested in my favorite reads. This business is 100% a personal and mental growth business because any business you own is that. The chicken world is no different. 
Ｉ ＤＯＮ’Ｔ ＤＯ ＰＩＬＥ－ＯＮＳ
It’s way too early for this post, but I opened my phone this morning, saw this person yet again splashed across my FYP, and I’m tired. It just needs to get said.
There’s something happening in the poultry community right now and I’m going to be the odd one out. (Shockerrrr)
As you know, a woman messaged multiple breeders whose birds/eggs she admired asking if anyone would consider donating hatching eggs for her five-year-old daughter. She said they’d lost a lot of their flock this year and that her daughter loves chickens. She said she had spent way more money than she should have on something she really wanted previously and there was an issue.
I got the message too.
I donated eggs.
I hope she had an amazing hatch. There’s no regret or malice from me about it.
And apparently this is a shocking revelation, but I donate eggs and work out special arrangements with people constantly. I always have.
You usually don’t know about it because why would you?
I don’t need a public thank you, I don’t need to wave it around in front of everyone. I don’t need a screenshot proving I did something nice. I don’t need the pat on the back.
Sometimes you just help someone and move on.
She asked a lot of breeders.
And the more I think about it… I might have too.
If I had to choose between paying my mortgage, putting food on the table or buying stupidly expensive pretty chicken eggs from breeders I idolized, obviously the eggs lose.
But if my child, who is my entire damn world, liked those chickens too?
Or maybe chickens were the one stupid little hobby keeping me mentally above water while everything else in life felt like s**t?
Maybe I’d swallow my pride and ask.
Maybe I’d ask ten people. Maybe one hundred.
Because asking is free and I’d assume the worst thing somebody could say was no.
I wouldn’t expect to wake up and discover my private messages had become community content.
And maybe none of those things are true for her.
Maybe she just wanted free expensive eggs.
I don’t know.
That’s the point.
The five-year-old part certainly doesn’t sound unbelievable or exploitive to me PERSONALLY. My 14-month-old spends an unreasonable amount of his existence pointing, gesturing and whining because he wants quail eggs to feed my chickens. He already very clearly favors the Silkies. (Complete opposite of me, he’s like my mother lol)
In a few years of this continues will I be making him his own farm page ? You bet your ass I will lol give him something he can be proud of when he understands life. That part is free.
Kids love things deeply before they can even properly explain why.
Maybe this hits me differently because I was raised by a struggling mother who would literally not eat lunch for days so she could save money to buy me freaking Beanie Babies.
I didn’t know.
I was the kid.
I just knew somehow my mom just made things happen for me.
So maybe I’m always going to have a softer spot for a parent asking for something they can’t justify buying when their kid NEEDS absolutely none of it, but would really, really love it.
And if I got played?
Fine.
I lost some chicken eggs. I’ll rebuild lmfao.
What I’m having a much harder time with is watching breeder after breeder post this woman’s messages and the inevitable “she messaged me too” comments pile underneath.
This isn’t Me Too.
She asked for CHICKEN EGGS.
Nobody owed her anything. Saying no was completely reasonable.
But I don’t understand why no needed an audience.
And I’m not writing this maliciously to call out the people who posted. PLEASE, please know that. Some of you are my close friends. I’m genuinely not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings.
But if you feel called out by this, just put yourself on the other side for a MINUTE. Some of you are familiar with this seat as you’ve sat here before.
Imagine you ASKED.
Whatever your reason was.
And then imagine opening Facebook and realizing an entire community was discussing you for having the nerve to ASK.
That’s a human being over there.
And yes, there ARE times breeders need to warn each other.
Do it behind closed doors.
I have a Do Not Sell list. The public has absolutely no idea who is on it because it’s none of their business.
I’ve been very obviously and intentionally wronged by people in this community and still gone out of my way to protect their identities publicly.
Not necessarily because they deserved that courtesy.
Because I don’t believe every s**tty interaction deserves an internet mob.
Sometimes you swallow your pride and do what you think is right even when someone didn’t do right by you.
If you genuinely believe somebody could harm another breeder, warn a friend privately.
You can protect people without publicly feeding someone to the internet to chew up and spit out.
Because you don’t know what somebody goes home to. You don’t know what their bank account looks like. You don’t know what’s happening in their head.
You don’t know if chickens are just chickens to them or the one thing getting them out of bed that morning.
And sometimes people are much closer to a breaking point than anyone around them realizes.
I would rather accidentally give free eggs to somebody who didn’t desperately need them than accidentally help publicly humiliate somebody who was already barely holding it together.
One costs me some eggs.
I can live with that.
And at this point, I hope she becomes internet famous from all of this.
I hope those eggs hatched beautifully.
I hope people find her page. I hope she eventually sells eggs and it helps make ends meet.
Or maybe this becomes her daughter’s thing.
Maybe she’s five now and still obsessed with chickens at seven. And nine. Maybe someday she’s the kid outside collecting eggs before school because her mom swallowed her pride once and asked some strangers if they had anything they could spare.
I hope something good comes from it.
And if this post earns me an unfollow because we have a different opinion about how humans should treat other humans, that’s okay.
I see the faces on the unfollow list.
Just don’t find yourself wandering back here later when it’s you on the other side of the mob, or whatever the case.
Anyway.
It’s stupidly early and I’m already tired of the internet.
If this is the s**t I was looking for I’d be scrolling on my personal account.
