Feed Store Gives Life To New Owner’s Dream
When Diana Neeley grew up in Mead, her family had horses and plenty of other animals.
After moving away, she started a career in real estate but always missed being around animals.
Last spring, she was driving through Airway Heights and noticed that a feed store was going out of business. She decided to reopen it as her own.
Now, the 27-year-old single mom is packing 50-pound sacks of feed like they were bags of groceries and asking her customers what products she should stock.
“I’ve always wanted to do this since I was a kid,” Neeley said. “I’ve always wanted a feed store.”
West Plains Feed opened at the end of July at the west end of the Airway Heights strip on U.S. Highway 2. It succeeds the former store, McBride’s Feed & Supply.
Neeley said many of the former store’s customers are coming to her now, and she is quickly building up her stocks based on customer demand.
“I’m lucky because a lot of people are used to coming here for a feed store,” she said. “The people out here are so nice.”
Right after she opened, a dairy farmer stopped in and asked her to stock a special type of feed used to wean calves off milk. The man told her he’d be back to buy some.
True to his word, Odessa dairyman Doug Hemmerling showed up last Thursday and bought six 50-pound bags of the feed at nearly $42 a bag.
Hemmerling said he had 25 calves to wean and promised to be back for more feed on his next trip to Spokane.
That kind of business couldn’t make Neeley happier because it’s helping her get off to a good start.
So far, she has a pretty good supply of products. She offers feed for most farm animals and also for more exotic creatures like llamas and emus.
Her shelves are lined with care products for household pets as well as farm animals. Of course, there’s a stack of salt blocks.
She plans to stock leather tack for horse riders, and she is lining up a repair service for halters and saddles and such.
The store has that unmistakable smell of feed, something like a blend of hay, oats and molasses.
Having her own business gives Neeley flexibility to be a mom. Neeley’s 5-year-old daughter, Falon, accompanies her at the store most days and loves to help stock pet food. She occasionally tricks her mom by hiding the work gloves.
Neeley said packing the big feed bundles into the store and then back out to customers’ vehicles keeps her in shape.
She said she loves to get customers talking about their animals so she can learn more about them and about how to meet their needs.
“I like to hear about everybody’s cows and sheep and pigs and horses,” she said.
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