Such things always remind me of this: 2:55 is the bit I am referring to:

The government's position is that you can't know what they ate unless the floor is concrete. Otherwise they might find a worm or a blade of grass or something. A concrete field might count, a car park or something.

Bizarre. How do you happen to know about this, do you keep chickens?

I kept a few chickens and sold the eggs. They were popular and profitable so I got a lot of chickens and sold a lot of eggs. At the time my ex was being prosecuted for selling milk, that interested me so I researched a bit to see what regulations I was breaking (I think it's a given that, if one is awake and in Ontario one is breaking some law or other).

When you had the chickens did it snow a lot where you lived? I like the idea of chickens here, just three, like I had before and even bought my Eglu Cube with me, but I just couldn't face the idea of putting the poor buggers outside here.

Oink, I 'thought' that I might feel the same about a warehouse, and only really joined for electrical items when we first arrived. I find however, that more and more I shop there from choice as they have such nice cheese, by comparrison, and a really great range of other 'foodie' items, I am hooked on their pickled asparagus, and they have the nicest olives in Fredericton (admittedly in a HUGE jar, but then im piggy with olives) and their own range of smoked tinned oysters are the best anywhere. Admitedly, we arent exactly spoiled for choice on lots of things just here. The staff are unfailingly nice, and it's never that crowded. The free food is nearly always sweet, so I'm not keen, but my son whirls from stand to stand like a trainee food critic. I'm as sad as bats, because I always seem to meet people in there too. I may be very very sad as my trip to Costco is starting to become one of the things I look forward to! Never mind my husband finally returns at the weekend!

We don't have big big shops here, Altlantic Superstore is OK, although I think I prefer Sobeys and other than that we have the Coop, which is ho hum, or the ghastly Walmart, which I hate, and none of those is any great size. I hate 'other' shopping, but food shopping can be such a pleasure.

Oh yes. One cock suffered a frostbitten comb. In the winter the chickens, like the horses, stuck to the area next to the barn. In the summer though they'd go all over, up to mile from their coop.

At that time we kept a blog, I'll see if I can rescue some pictures from it.

This is the problem with NA. After you’ve been here awhile it dulls and tricks your senses into thinking the rubbish stuff they that they fill up the troughs with is normal and how it should be. Most cradles don’t know no better but you should, you’ve got no excuse.

Hmmm. It depends if you want to assimilate (or at least enjoy your stay if temporary) or be constantly comparing. The opposite, for example, would be an American coming to Britain and constantly railing against lack of water pressure or small food portions or something like that. Saying that most cradles don't know better is a bit of a generalisation too.

I would never have guessed this, for some reason I thought that you were in central Toronto, and with your positive leanings towards Detroit and East London, not into things rural.

BC hens can go outside
http://bcegg.com/faq-general/

Whether they actually do ...

Other common complaints...the drinks are not cold enough, the cars aren't big enough, the houses are too small , the shops close too early...all common complaints but if people just focus on these things and complain about how things aren't like there were in their original country, they will just post endlessly on webforums for expats.

Thanks, couldn't think of enough typical American whinges in my example. Small houses, cars, streets is definitely a common one.

The office is in central Toronto. We shop in central Toronto. But we have a house in a small town and 25 acres in the country. I would not be surprised to be keeping chickens again shortly.

I have not read all comments on the thread, but to those with exec membership, how much do you actually spend vs get back (PM me if you like).

From memory isn't it something like 2% on your total yearly spend before taxes? In that case you'd need to spend around $5500 a year, so about $458 per month, pre-tax to get even your membership back. Unless I'm wrong, and I'm happy to be corrected on this point.

On the whole I do like Costco, and buying in bulk for some things does make sense. Prices for electronics are fairly good too.

We got just less than $850 back last time. I don't want to work out how many chicken breasts and giant Toblerones that represents. Most years the rebate is about the same as the membership fee but, again, apart from each guessing the bill before checking out, we don't pay a lot of attention to the amount spent.