It’s not uncommon for high school students to have a part-time job, but one 15-year-old from the southern Alberta town of Coaldale is determined to be his own boss.
Ethan Meyer has been running his own egg business on-and-off since he was seven years old.
“At that time, we had 50 chickens,” Ethan said.
“We didn’t have any horses, so we had a problem with the foxes. One morning, they wiped us all out.”
After two more attempts, Ethan finally got “Ethan’s Eggs” off the ground. But a few years later, his chickens started laying fewer eggs, so he decided it was time for a break.
Now he’s back at it and his business is bigger than ever, with over 200 brown and white chickens.
“They’re both from the Leghorn family,” Ethan said. “The brown ones, they tend to forage more, you’ll see them out in the yard more. So their eggs are a bit bigger and darker, whereas the white chickens don’t forage as much, so the eggs are a little smaller.”
Michael Holland said he’s been a customer for the past four months.
“A lot of times, younger kids kind of struggle to think about finding a job until they’re 16 or 17,” Holland said. “So he’s found something that works for him at a fairly young age–so that’s great.”
Collecting around 180 eggs a day, Ethan does it all: from washing and packaging, to advertising and selling.
“The whole process takes about an hour to an hour-and-a-half,” he said. “I usually come home, do the eggs quick and then do some homework,” he said.
Ethan has his own Facebook page, where he connects with his clientele.
“It’s taught him a lot,” Ethan’s mom Chantal Meyer said. “He’s somewhat shy, so he has to go out there and meet people and do a bit of public relations and he has to keep track of his finances and expenses. So I think it’s going to teach him a lot in the long run.”
Ethan says he plans to use the money to help pay for university and has some advice to offer other young entrepreneurs.
“Take advantage of the opportunity you’ve got,” he said. “I have all this space so I decided to do this, where I’ve got friends who own a snow-cone business.
“It’s all just taking advantage of the opportunity you’ve got.”