Baseline fall orchard-floor management cost from previous year.
Tractor mowing.
Fuel.
Labor.
Fruit cleanup.
Purchased pest-control inputs.
Current integrated system costs.
Bird purchase.
Feed.
Infrastructure.
Labor.
Egg packaging.
Then revenue.
Eggs.
By February, Avery had sold just over 19,000 dozen.
Frank stared.
“You sold what?”
Avery smiled.
“Nineteen thousand dozen.”
“That’s impossible.”
Priya corrected:
“Not nineteen thousand dozen.”
Avery looked at her.
Priya smiled.
“Nineteen thousand individual eggs.”
Laughter exploded.
Avery covered her face.
“Thank you.”
Frank laughed harder than anyone.
Priya continued.
“Approximately 1,590 dozen.”
“That makes more sense.”
Avery pointed toward Frank.
“Enjoy this moment.”
“I am.”
The room relaxed.
Then the actual totals appeared.
The integrated system had not produced massive profit in three months.
Infrastructure costs absorbed much of early revenue.
But weekly cash flow improved.
Sanitation cost decreased.
Mowing decreased.
Egg sales covered feed and contributed toward infrastructure payback.
Projected twelve-month scenario, under conservative assumptions, showed $21,000 to $29,000 positive contribution compared with conventional orchard-floor management plus no poultry enterprise.
Farmers stopped laughing.
Questions began.
“How much labor?”
“What about hawks?”
“How many birds per acre?”
“Do they damage roots?”
“What varieties?”
“Can you do pears?”
“Parasites?”
“Winter housing?”
“Egg buyer?”
“Feed conversion?”
“Disease risk?”
Avery answered until her throat hurt.
Then Frank raised one hand.
Everybody noticed.
Avery pointed.
“Dangerous.”
Frank ignored the joke.
“How much did you reduce fall fuel?”
Avery looked at the sheet.
“Thirty-eight percent in treated blocks compared with last year’s comparable operations.”
“Labor?”
“Direct sanitation labor down forty-four percent.”
“Counting poultry labor?”
“Yes.”
“Full rate?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“What about spray next year?”
“Unknown.”
“Not counting it?”
“No.”
Frank looked at her for several seconds.
Then:
“Good.”
Avery almost smiled.
The same man who had told her to sell now wanted conservative assumptions.
He asked:
“If your pest numbers hold, what do you expect?”
Ramirez answered before Avery could.
“We do not project until spring monitoring.”
Frank nodded.
“Fair.”
Then he looked at Avery.
“Can I see the notebook?”
She blinked.
“What notebook?”
“The one you keep carrying like scripture.”
Laughter.
Avery looked at the warped field ledger in her hand.
Mud stains.
Bent cover.
Pages full of feed weights, mortalities, fuel hours, rainfall, egg counts, bird movements, notes.
Frank held out his hand.
She hesitated.
Then gave it to him.
He read.
Not quickly.
He moved through pages.
Kyle Maddox came closer.
Then Rachel.