Nepal123.com - 5

I am an American chicken farmer. There is a large Nepalese refugee / immigrant population in and around my city. I raise and sell roosters and hens for eggs and meat.

Almost all of them are very nice, and polite. I have been invited to dinner by two families, and I have been to their local church for holiday celebrations. The food is fabulous!

I have some problems, and I am unsure of how to deal with them, so I am here asking for suggestions.

A. Although I have managed to get some customers to text or call ahead of time to tell me they are coming, some do not, they just show up unannounced. They sometimes get upset if they have to wait, or if I am not home. ("Well, that's why you should text / call me to make sure I am home.")

B. Most customers refuse to leave empty-handed. This is the big problem. They come for a rooster, and I will say that I have these 3 or 4 available (or, however many), and because the color is wrong (color is very important to them), or we cannot agree on a price for the size (which I don't have a problem with, they want a good size for their money as everyone does), they don't want to buy anything that I say is available.

They immediately turn to the roosters & hens that are unavailable. They just seem to think that everything has a price–and a reasonable price at that. If they can see it, they want to buy it. Today, they wanted to buy my Ayam Cemani rooster. Day-old chicks sell for $45 each! And that's if you buy like 10 or more! A single Ayam is like $80 as a day old chick! They wanted it for $20!!

They see a rooster they do like,

Customer: "How much for that one?"

Me: "That rooster isn't for sale. I want to breed him" or, "I like that one (as a pet.)"

Either response is usually met with, "No, I want that one. How much?" It goes on like this for 10 – 20 minutes. They just push and push until I give in, and I end up selling a bird I didn't want to sell. Like today, I sold two young hens that I was collecting eggs from. "No, I don't want to sell those two. I collect the eggs." (They wouldn't buy the roosters I said were available, but refused to leave empty handed. Most American-born customers would admit that a deal isn't possible, and try again another time.)

Customer: "Just go to the store and buy some eggs. It's the same."

This response leaves me speechless. I want to eat my eggs. I don't want to eat some store bought eggs. Raising my eggs is way cheaper than buying them at the store.

It takes 5 – 8 months to raise a local rooster (all good roosters are "local roosters"), and __ just one hour to eat it__. How do I explain this disparity in time? I've said this exact phrase multiple times, but I feel like it means more to me, than it does to them. To some of them, it means nothing.

The time & resource investment is incredible, and I feel like most of that time and energy investment on my behalf (driving to pick up the grain, feeding & watering twice a day, etc), the roosters' behalf, goes unacknowledged by most of my customers.

So, how should I handle pushy customers? Should I have signs written in Nepalese? Are there some phrases I could use which might help them to understand that some birds are strictly not for sale? How do I get them to understand that it takes hundreds of hours of my labor to raise a rooster big enough to eat, but only takes them an hour to pluck and it eat?

Any suggestions are appreciated. Thank you!