Meet Tobi Kosanke President, Crazy K Poultry and Livestock, LLC and Crazy K Farm Pet and Poultry Products in Hempstead, TX
As a petroleum geologist with a flexible telecommuting work arrangement, Tobi Kosanke successfully balanced a well-paying career with caring for a child with special needs. Then a new manager forced her to make a decision: care for her daughter at home or work in the office. Tobi chose her daughter. Her family farm takes in rescued livestock and covering their considerable bills after a 60% drop in income became impossible, so she expanded the family farm business, Crazy K Farm Poultry and Livestock, LLC, which she founded in 2006 to sell chicken, duck, guinea fowl and goose eggs for both hatching and eating, by creating a second company in 2008, Crazy K Farm Pet and Poultry Products, to manufacture and sell three items she had invented for her own animals.
Although the company was born in a recession, Tobi quickly learned from the tremendous customer response and positive feedback she received that people will always elect to spend money on items that provide safety and/or comfort to their pets, provided they are not over-priced. Her mission was and is to produce high-quality essential pet and poultry products and to offer them to consumers at reasonable prices.
All three of Tobi’s highly innovative, patent-pending items are the first of their kind on the market and each provides a vital “service” to the animals they are purchased for. The Hen Saver hen apron protects hens from treading by roosters, pecking from other hens, and gives chickens a fighting chance against chicken hawks; it also enables existing wounds to heal and lost feathers to regrow. The Kitty Holster is a soft, ultra-lightweight, clothing-like cat harness that even cats who hate to wear other types of harnesses love to wear. And the Avian Haven hut is two products in one: a fabric hut shaped like a house that provides a semi-enclosed space for birds to retreat to within their cage to feel safe and secure and in which they can sleep and rest undisturbed in a natural perching position; inside the hut is a soft, thick-pile back wall for birds to snuggle against.
Although we are still in a full-blown recession, Tobi’s items are selling briskly to distributors and retail stores as well as directly to consumers via her internet sites, and the business continues to grow to meet customers’ needs: she will be offering the Avian Haven hut, which recently received an endorsement from a board certified avian veterinarian, in two additional sizes; she just introduced a new high-end Kitty Holster “Boutique Line;” and in the coming months she’ll be offering “Predator Eyes” Hen Savers to deter hawks from attacking chickens.
Tobi continues to grow the farm business as well, selling eggs not only directly from the farm, but via both her internet store and a variety of internet comparison shopping sites (Shopping.com, Shopzilla, etc.). She also recently introduced three innovative educational farm-visit programs, one for school children, the others for adults who are interested in test-driving life on a working family farm.
For more information visit:
www.kittyholster.com , www.avianhavenhut.com , www.hensaver.com , http://stores.crazykfarm.com/StoreFront.bok
www.crazykfarm.com
