Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for November 11, 2016

Much good experience for her at such a young age.

Dear me, she shouldn’t be feeding the chickens like that, it wastes feed. Ah, well, ’tis only a comic strip.

It looks like she may be suffering from some burnout.

Actually, it is the best way to feed the chickens. They will find it all plus get their exercise as well. One of the miths about raising them is to pasture raise them instead of crates. Too much fighting in the field as they try to set pecking order. In crates, there is usually one that will take charge and no more fighting. Great training for Meg.

In my early years on a farm, that is the only way I saw chickens fed.

The family that works together, eats together.

At that age it she probably is loving it. It is when she gets older when she looks at it like unwanted chores.

That is the way we always fed the chickens at grandma’s house. Use to love being the one to do it.

Pastured eggs. New one on me. Looked it up and it was interesting. My first thought was how old are these eggs that they are being put out to pasture?

“Meg” the powerhouse worker!

$5 a dozen!? If they have customers that’ll pay those prices for eggs, and I presume for their other enterprises, no wonder they’re doing great.

Most farm kids grow up knowing how to work and contribute to the family.

Tell me where I can get $5 for eggs — I’ve got all kinds of pasture here to raise them.

Feel free to disagree with me, but I think the colorist blew it today. I think that white area in panel four on Meg’s head should have been flesh colored. The bottom of what looks like an open eye would actually just be her closed eye, and she would be shown sleeping after a long day. The way they did it, it looks as if she is lying awake in bed.

Chickens are great. We have a dozen or so, those suckers produce wonderful eggs, excellent compost plus they eat pests and aerate the soil.

I guess I’m the only one who thinks this is not good. She should be having fun with her friends, not being an “employee”…

Meg looks totally stressed out. Otherwise, why show the last panel? Let her grow up the way kids should, and hire the guy whose business folded. He’ll probably work for very little.

Darling Meg.

Brown eggs come from Rhode Island Red hens. No different from plain old white eggs. I know city folks will pay extra for them, but that just proves there’s one born every minute.

The ideal is to have a chicken coop with retractable wheels. This protects the flock from predators, enables them to get insects in the diet (while controlling the insect population), fertilize the pasture, and the whole thing can be moved periodically to give them fresh grass and prevent the pasture being scalped.

This kid isn’t having much of a “childhood”. I say that even though “yes”, I’m aware they’ve portrayed Meg as always begging to work. But it isn’t always the greatest idea to give in to all of a kid’s begging— even if it’s for something generally “good” for them, like work.