I grew up in the Debary area, so I know that Fetter's has been around for years. Although I've…read morepassed by it many times, I never really knew what it was, therefore never had a reason to go in. The name "Fetter's Feed" I guess made me think of livestock or something. Recently Hubby and I were driving by and I noticed they had a sign out that said "baby chicks are here". I immediately got excited and begged him to turn the car around! You see, for about four years now, I've daydreamed about having a couple backyard chickens. How fun would it be to have a cute little coop and fresh eggs?! Unfortunately most of the cities or neighborhoods I've lived in don't allow chickens as pets. But my curiosity was peaked, so I just had to find out about these baby chicks.
Fetter's is definitely what I would call a "Mom and Pop" kind of place. First off, it's cash only...no plastic here folks. Second, there was an older lady at the counter and you could tell she had been working at that counter for years. The inside is rustic, almost like a barn even. I was surprised to see shelves and racks full of dog and cat products. Turns out they have "feed" for animals of all kind. As the sign outside promised, there were some baby chicks right when I walked in. I started talking to the lady at the counter, asking her about the chicks...who buys them, what for, what breeds are they, how much, etc. Honestly I probably asked her a hundred questions. She was super friendly and took the time to answer all my questions. Turns out people buy them for eggs, like I envisioned myself doing. And she explained that all the babies come vaccinated and debeaked. "Debeaked?!", I thought! I immediately imagined some machine cutting off the beaks of helpless chicks. But she assured me that it just means they file down the very sharp point at the tip of their beaks so they can't hurt each other. Phew!
Eventually the chicken talk turned to dog talk, as she asked if we had any pets. I let her know that we have 3 dogs and a cat (yes we have a zoo!). Then she started to talk about the "feed" they carry for dogs (it still kind of throws me off how they refer to everything there as feed - I can't seem to shake the image of livestock when I hear that word, lol). Turns out the brand they carry, Exclusive, is the original Purina recipe. She made it very clear that it is NOT the same as the Purina that you can buy at the grocery store or Petsmart, that stuff is garbage, she said. When Nestle bought out Purina, they completely changed the recipe of the food, essentially ruining it. But the brand they have still has all the great qualities of the original recipe. I am very picky about what I feed my pets and have always opted for the holistic, more expensive brands. I thought there was no way that what they have here could be better then what I already was feeding them. But the more she talked about it, the more intrigued I became. She showed us a brochure and pointed out the ingredients. No animal by-product or other fillers. Plus I was in shock once she mentioned the price...$35 for 35 lb bag! What I was buying at the time runs at around $60 for a 35 lb bag. So the next thing you know, Hubby and I are walking out with the a bag of dog food! It's been about 2 weeks now, and so far the dogs love the food. The real test for me will be if it makes their coats shinier or duller, so I will update in a couple months.
Overall, I'm very glad that we stopped in to Fetter's. I will be more than happy to become a regular customer and support this local business.
