The Find My Poultry Story: The Auctions That Changed everything - Episode 4

The Auctions That Changed everything - Episode 4

By the time COVID shut down the show circuit, the poultry world had effectively ground to a halt. Shows were cancelled, markets closed and the usual places where breeders met, traded and shared knowledge simply disappeared overnight.

For a community that relies so heavily on personal connections and face-to-face sales, the impact was enormous. Birds were still being bred, eggs were still hatching and people still needed to buy and sell stock — but suddenly there was nowhere organised to do it.

That gap became obvious very quickly.

When I first set up the WhatsApp poultry auction, it was simply an attempt to help people stay connected during lockdown. I began collecting listings from breeders, grouping birds and eggs into lots, scheduling sales and managing bids manually. Each evening I would spend hours assembling the auctions, promoting them, confirming bids and helping buyers and sellers connect.

The response was immediate.

Breeders from across the country began sending listings. Buyers joined quickly. Transactions were happening daily. The group filled faster than I ever expected — in fact, it grew so quickly that within just a few weeks we reached WhatsApp’s maximum group capacity.

That moment made something very clear: the demand was far bigger than I had imagined.

People wanted a place to buy and sell poultry. They wanted somewhere dedicated to them, their breeding programmes and the breeds they care about. Most importantly, they wanted somewhere they could trust.

To keep things running, I moved the auctions across to Telegram so more people could join. The larger capacity allowed the community to keep growing and the auctions continued to run regularly. Every evening I would sit down and organise the lots, coordinate breeders, answer messages and keep the sales moving.

I loved it.

There was a real buzz around the auctions. People were excited again. Birds were finding new homes. Breeders were connecting with new customers. The community had found a way to keep moving despite everything that was happening around us.

But while the auctions worked, the limitations quickly became obvious.

Telegram — like WhatsApp — was never designed for something like this. There were no proper categories, no way to search breeds, no notifications for listings that mattered to you and no system for verification or trust between users. Everything relied on constant manual organisation and scrolling through endless messages.

The more the auctions grew, the clearer the problem became.

The poultry community didn’t just need another group.

It needed its own platform.

A dedicated space built specifically for poultry keepers and breeders. Somewhere organised, searchable and accessible to everyone — whether you kept a few hens in the garden or ran a serious breeding programme.

That realisation led to the biggest decision I had made up to that point.

After finishing my GCSEs, I left school at sixteen and went straight into working within my parents’ business at Ty-Mawr. I worked in reception and the warehouse — answering calls, packing orders and helping wherever I could. I still work there today.

Every penny I earned (and still earn) went into one thing: building Find My Poultry.

Development was never going to happen overnight. I knew it would take time, careful planning and the right technical support. So alongside working during the day, I spent evenings and weekends mapping out what the platform needed to become.

What features did breeders need?

What would make buying birds easier?

How could we build something safe, simple and genuinely useful?

Eventually I partnered with an app development company in Cardiff to help bring the idea to life. Together we began designing the foundations of the platform — focusing not just on what the app should do immediately, but how it could grow in the future.

It needed to be dedicated to poultry.

It needed to be easy to use.

It needed to help people find birds, breeds and breeders quickly.

And most importantly, it needed to serve the community that had shown me just how much demand existed.

From that point on, every spare minute I had went into turning those ideas into reality — slowly building what would eventually become Find My Poultry.

But designing an app is only the beginning.

In the next episode I’ll take you behind the scenes of the development process — from early sketches and feature planning to working with developers and preparing to launch the UK’s first dedicated poultry App.