new business module

INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS 23
After a few days, Nathalie noticed that some chicks looked weak. After one week, she found several
chicks dead. She was disappointed because this would decrease her income. Nathalie did not
know what to do. She wondered whether the chicks had been delivered sick. When she found
some more chicks dead the next day she decided to talk to a local trader selling veterinary products.
The trader asked her many questions, but Nathalie did not tell him that she was feeding her
chicks maize. She told him that she had put her laying hens in the shed to help keep the chicks
warm. The trader said that this was probably the problem. The chicks could have caught an
infection from the chickens. He recommended buying medicine. Nathalie spent $9 on medicine.
Back home, Nathalie immediately removed the laying hens from the shed, gave the medicine
to the chicks, and turned up the oven. She did not want to lose more chicks.
Nathalie was relieved when she saw that the remaining 38 chicks finally started to gain weight.
After three weeks she was convinced that she would lose no more chicks. Although Nathalie did
not know what size chickens should be at different ages, she was disappointed at their size at
that point.
Nathalie knew that broilers were usually sold at six weeks, so when her chickens were six weeks
old she decided to bring them to the provincial market. She went to her neighbour Chris, who
had a large van and asked how much he would charge to transport the chickens to the market.
Chris said he would do it for $37. She agreed and asked him whether she could pay him after
she had sold her chickens, as she was out of money. Chris made an exception and agreed.
Nathalie also needed some large crates to transport her chickens. Chris said he would rent her
eight large boxes for $1 each.
The next day Nathalie went to the market. There were other people like her selling chickens and
their chickens looked much larger and fatter than hers. After Nathalie had unloaded her chickens
the woman next to her asked how old the chickens were. When Nathalie told her they were 6 weeks
old, the woman looked very surprised and asked why they were so small. Nathalie was worried.
Then the customers started coming. They checked the different lots of chicken and immediately
realized that Nathalie’s chickens were smaller than the others. One man laughed and said her
chickens were so small, she should provide her customers with fodder to feed them. The owner
of a restaurant told her that he could not buy her chickens for his restaurant because his
customers would not want to eat skinny chickens like that and he bought all the chickens of the
woman next to Nathalie for $8 each.
Nathalie realized that she had to lower the price of her chickens to sell them. But even when she
offered them at $4, she was only able to sell 20 chickens. She decided to try and sell the remaining
18 chickens in her village. Fortunately, Chris did not charge her for transporting the chickens back
because he had to bring back his boxes anyway. Back in the village, Nathalie was able to sell 12
more chickens at $3 each. She decided that she would keep the remaining ones for her family.
At the end of the day, Nathalie calculated how much money she had made. She realized that
she had only earned $116 and she hadn’t even paid Chris yet! When her husband came home,
Nathalie told him that her project was a complete failure as she had spent more than she had
earned. Tom asked how much she had lost. Nathalie said she had no idea but that her
housekeeping money was all gone.