Wordless Wednesday: Farm Additions

Two Columbia ewes Halley received as a scholarship from the Columbia Ewe Association.

200 Buff Orpington chicks to raise for meat.

A red front door and matching chairs.

Two pairs of hens and chicks.

Four chicken tractors for the previously introduced chicks.

A trailer for hauling sheep, cows and who knows what else.

Commitment to Chicken

Two hundred chicks are now in residence on the farm.  We are going to be raising meat birds for sale.  For the past two years we raised chicken just for our own consumption.  This year we are expanding.  We are also investigating how to out-source the harvest.  None of the butchers in our area process chicken.  We hope the Amish community nearby may offer some good options for us. 

Our chickens will be technically free range and grass fed.  Rob is working on a new design for our chicken tractors to make them lighter and easier to manage.  The new tractors are looking great.  As soon as we have a completed model I'll post a picture.

Wordless Wednesday: A Snowy Day #3 - Poultry Pictures

Wordless Wednesday: Eggs of a Different Color

Chicken Harvest 2012

Catching the chickens.

A captive audience.

An expert chicken wrangler.

Preparing for the harvest.

The harvest.

Thank God for chicken pluckers.

Thank God for more chicken pluckers.

The really dirty work.

The harvest is complete.

August Down on the Farm

This month has been a busy one on the farm.  The chickens, turkeys and cows are growing. Thankfully they do that without much help.

The chicken tractor served the growing turkeys well for awhile but was only a temporary fix.  Rob started building a new turkey house when he was interrupted by open-heart surgery.  The job was finished by K15 and her boyfriend.  The turkeys love their new home.

The garden is almost totally overgrown.  All was well until we took a week (maybe a week and a half) off weeding for our trip to Idaho.  When we returned all farm work was put on hold by an unscheduled trip to the hospital.  (That pesky open-heart surgery, again.)  By the time I was home and had time to think about anything other than Rob, the garden was a hot mess.  I figured it just reflected the gardener.  We are still picking things out of it but any resemblance to a real garden is lost for this year.  Maybe next year will yield better results.

To be honest, I have no idea how my bees are.  I haven't so much as strolled in their direction in the last month.  There will probably be no honey this year. 

I keep reminding myself that priorities change and that I can't always accomplish everything I set out to do.  Changing priorities and refocusing doesn't mean failure it means success redefined.

Becoming Farmers

Today it occurred to me that we might really be turning into farmers.  This morning I went out to do the morning chores and discovered many chickens outside the chicken tractor.  About half of the chickens had found their way to freedom and were scattered around the yard.  I sent Rob back inside to wake up the children and send them outside to help me with the chickens.  I continued feeding and watering animals and then went to investigate the chicken escape.  By the time I got there three of the four kids and my mother were dealing with the chickens and had it well in hand.  S10 was keeping the chickens out of the soybeans.  Mom, K15 and M7 were lifting the edge of the chicken tractor and herding the chickens back under the edge.   I was so impressed with their ingenuity and success.

The behavior of the chickens made an impression on all of us.  They were so quick to move into freedom but once they'd escaped their cage the chickens hung close to the edges of the cage.  Even the most adventurous chickens were within 20 feet of the tractor.  Once we started to round them up only one or two resisted the pull of their fellow chickens and tried to stay free. As a mother, I'm sure I'll be able to draw lessons from this experience later.  At breakfast this morning it was just fun to hear the kids talking about the chickens and their success in rounding them up and returning them to safety.

How does this experience prove that we might be turning into farmers?  First of all, none of us panicked or felt overwhelmed by the task at hand.  Even though the kids went from sleeping to herding chickens they knew they had the skills to handle the job.  They didn't complain or whine.  They got the job done.

Second, we were able to work together.  We supported each other and got the job done.  No one blamed anyone else for the escape of the chickens.  No one argued over what needed to be done or who should do it they just worked to fix the problem.

Third, while we started the day with a crisis that event did not define our day.  We returned the chickens to their pen, fixed the break in the tractor and moved on.  Our day began with chickens but it continued on to waffles, reading, conversations and  more chores.  The chickens were just one thing that happened today, they didn't make or break it.

I suppose each experience we have on the farm builds our knowledge and skill bringing us one step closer to being farmers.

Chick Day

This year we received a mix of Rhode Island Reds and Araucana chicks.  We'll be raising 100 of them for meat.  We also ordered 15 pullets to increase our laying flock.  The different color eggs should be a fun addition to our farm.

Wordless Wednesday: Farm Scenes

Raising Heritage Birds and Establishing a Breeding Flock

One of our successful farm efforts is found in our hen house.  Over the last nine months we raised 100 meat birds and more than ten laying hens.  We harvested many of the birds, sold some and have some living happily in our hen house.  While learning about chickens and raising our meat birds, I learned about heritage breeds.  Did you know that farm animals face extinction just like wild animals?  With our food supply being mass produced, the animal breeds chosen must meet the standards for production.  The desirable qualities for animals of the past don't always translate to large scale food production.  As a result, breeds are being lost.  Last year, the idea of farm animals facing extinction was totally new to me.  I thought farm animals were farm animals; black and white cows, pink pigs, white hens, brown horses.  As you can tell, I had and still have a lot to learn.

If you are as new to this farm thing as I was, perhaps, you may be interested to learn about heritage breeds as well.  The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy does a great job on education.  Slow Food International is also an organization that does a great job on education.

As a result of learning about heritage breeds, one of our plans for this year is to start two breeding flocks.  It may be a lofty goal but we are doing our research and making our plans.  This spring we intend to start with a straight run (that means a mix of boy and girl) of Buckeyes, a heritage breed of chicken that is on the threatened list.  We will have to separate our mixed bag of hens and roosters from the new chickens.  We'll probably cull the older birds as the new Buckeyes begin to lay.  We plan to go into next winter with at least fifteen Buckeyes.  Next spring we hope to be enjoying a new flock of chicks from our own chickens.

In addition to the chickens, we also plan to purchase a straight run of Bourbon Red turkeys, another heritage breed. The Bourbon Red is on the ALBC watch list.  We are still deciding how many turkeys we need to start a flock.  We'd like to have a couple of birds for the table this year with at least two hens and a tom for breeding. 

Going to the grocery store and buying a couple dozen eggs and a five pound bag of frozen skinless, boneless chicken breasts would certainly be easier.  As we've discovered with our other endeavors, the start up costs are greater but the investment is worthwhile. I'm excited about the idea of preserving a breed.  I'm excited about linking our farm to history.  I'm excited about laying the foundation for birds that will be part of our farm for years to come. 

Savoring the Fruits of Our Labor

One of the things I love about our farm life is enjoying the fruits of our labor.  Tonight for dinner we had two of our own roosters roasted to perfection.  For dessert we had Raspberry and White Chocolate Fudge Brownies made from our own raspberries and eggs.  A year ago I could only imagine the benefits of living on a farm.  Now I enjoy those benefits at almost every meal.

We are currently planning our garden and livestock for the spring.  Now that I understand that we can really grow food and then eat it I am excited to provide as much for ourselves as I can.  My garden increases in size every time I go to the store and buy something only to realize that I could grow this myself.  Potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, lots and lots of tomatoes, green peppers, strawberries, lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, turnips, asparagus...  The list grows and grows.  It's a good thing we have a really large yard and four children.  Lots of space and lots of hands to help.

Each time we eat one of our own roosters the memory of the harvest slips away.  The benefit of cost and pleasure now make the labor and gross factor grow fuzzy.  Maybe 100 roosters isn't such a bad idea.  Maybe we should try more.

As we savor the fruits of our labor during the lull of winter it's easy to lose sight of the labor that produced those fruits.  It's easy to feel is if it is all as simple as opening the door to the freezer and selecting what we want.  It's easy to overlook the real man hours involved in each bite of chicken and each raspberry in our brownies.  It's hard to reign in our enthusiasm and vision with reality.

Last year was our year of intense learning.  This year is our year of serious planning.  We will continue to savor the labor and the results and pray that we can find a balance for the two. 

Counting Them Down

Beginning April 1, 2011
0 chickens + 18 chickens (day old chicks) = 18 chickens + 6 chickens (day old chicks) = 24 chickens - 20 chickens (thanks to the neighbors dog) = 4 chickens + 100 chickens (day old chicks) = 104 chickens + 6 chickens (rooster and 5 hens) = 110 chickens - 1 chicken (cause of death unknown) = 109 chickens - 2 chickens (trial run) = 107 chickens - 17 chickens (harvest) =  90 chickens - 32 chickens (harvest) = 58 chickens - 4 chickens (sold live) = 54 chickens - 1 chicken (pecked to death) = 53 chickens - 22 chickens (harvest) = 31 chickens - 19 chickens (harvest) = 12 chickens (2 roosters, 10 hens)

The Chicken Harvest Continues

We have now successfully harvested half of our chickens.  It's taken our trial run plus two harvesting sessions.  We are getting more efficient but we are liking it less each time.  Killing chickens is messy business.  I suppose the killing isn't really the messy part.  The feathers and the insides are the messy parts.  We find ourselves wishing for chickens with zippers.

We are extremely thankful for the chicken plucker.  I'm not sure how we'd manage without it.  It cuts the processing time and effort down considerably.  However, each time we use it I feel bad for the chicken, even though it's dead and doesn't feel a thing.  There's just something about the sound of the rubber "fingers" slapping against the chicken and seeing the feathers fly that seems disrespectful to the bird.

I even learned to process the chicken myself.  I never cut up a chicken before.  Until the farm, I only bought frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts.  Yesterday, I divided three of the birds into their parts.  Breasts, thighs, legs and wings neatly placed in a pan.   For someone that hates touching raw meat, this is huge.  Bravery is something I can add as a useful tool for farming.

After this experience of harvesting chickens, I think it's safe to say that we will not be full-time chicken farmers.

The Chicken Harvest: A Trial Run

This week we spent much of our time planning and gathering equipment for the chicken harvest.  Our local feed store had a chicken plucker that they loan to clients.  No one in our area had killing cones so we had to improvise concerning cutting and bleeding the chickens.  We bought a turkey fryer because it had a propane burner and a pot big enough for scalding the chicken.  We created a processing area in the barn, complete with utility sink, table, garbage cans and cooler.

After dinner this evening we went to the barn to get the harvest underway.  My job was to catch the chicken and hold it while Rob tied the feet and slit the throat.  We hung the chicken over a garbage can and waited while it bled out.  After the chicken stopped bleeding we dipped it in the water to loosen the feathers for plucking. 

Using the chicken plucker was a little different than expected.  Holding a dead chicken while it's pummeled by flexible plastic rods designed to remove the feathers was a little disturbing.  As with so many things around the farm, I'm sure it will get easier with practice.  The company website boasted that the plucker could clean a chicken in 30 seconds.  Obviously, the person operating the plucker had more experience than we did.  The website didn't mention how long it took an inexperienced operator to pluck a chicken using the chicken plucker.  I'm guessing it was still quicker than we could have done by hand.

Rob handled the evisceration of the birds while I waited to rinse and put them on ice.  I was so thankful that he was willing to do the gutting because I'm really pretty certain that the chicken harvest would have stopped never to be resumed if I had been given this responsibility.  I'm not sure what I would have done with ninety-three roosters but I wouldn't have been eating them.

We got two birds done before it got too dark to work effectively.  In the process we learned that we need a sharper knife.  We also learned that, despite the issues with the chicken plucker, we prefer plucked chicken to skinned chicken. 

Tomorrow we'll spend some more time harvesting our chickens.  It would be great to get half of them done.  We'll see how quickly we increase our skill.  Though the job was difficult and messy, we were able to do it.  There is a sense of accomplishment in that.  I think it's safe to say that we've done something that most our generation in this country has never done and will never do. 

Two chickens down, ninety-two to go.

Chief Chicken Catcher

I have a new skill to add to my resume.  Once again, my skills and abilities are being increased in ways I never imagined by the farm.  My most recent skill is chicken catching. 

Every so often one of our layers gets out of the hen house yard or one of the meat birds escapes from the chicken tractor.  That kind of escape has gotten to be a routine event.  The key to catching a runaway chicken is to surround and pin down.  If the bird has no escape route it will usually hunker down in confusion.  This momentary inactivity on the part of the bird makes grabbing it a fairly easy job.  Grabbing a chicken does require both hands.  The key when grabbing a chicken is to make sure the wings are folded next to the body and the feet and beak are facing away from the grabber.  If you have the wings down and the feet and beak away from bare skin there really isn't much the chicken can do to escape.  As long as you have a good grip, carrying the chicken and putting it where you want it to go is easy. 

A few weeks ago we transferred half of our meat birds from a single chicken tractor into a second chicken tractor.  Moving 50 birds from tractor one to tractor two helped me perfect my chicken grabbing technique.  Having the boundary of the tractor certainly made the grabbing easier.  Also having plenty of chicken targets increased the odds for success.  I was even able to share my chicken grabbing expertise with my brother in law.  While he doesn't have nearly as much chicken grabbing experience as I do, he learned quickly and, because of his help, the time and energy required for moving the chickens was much less.

I'm not really sure how I'll list my new chicken skills on my resume.  Chicken grabbing expert doesn't sound quite right.  In fact, it sounds a bit perverted.  Chicken catcher might work.  Chicken wrangler?  Chicken coordinator?  Chicken director?  Any other suggestions?

The Chicken Experiment: Calculating the Cost

The chicken experiment continues.  I've become a regular at the local feed store.  They know me  now.  I go in once a week and buy five bags of chicken grower/finisher.  $60.   A few days ago, my husband commented that he was sure we'd spent $600 just feeding these chickens.  It was a bad day for him.  He wasn't trying to be unsupportive, he was frustrated about other things.  He did vocalize a concern that is a universal plague for farmers.  How do you make more money than you spend?

As far as I can tell, the only way to make money by raising meat is to grown your own feed.  This is something we are looking into, but we aren't there yet.  We don't have the equipment or the knowledge.  It's possible that we might be ready to get this started next spring.  Right now, feed comes from the feed store.  The costs add up quickly.  When the chickens were several weeks old 250 lbs. of feed lasted a long time.  Now it lasts just a little longer than a week. 

Our chickens aren't the fast maturing type.  They will look like healthy, happy chickens until they are ready to harvest.  They won't have jumbo breasts.   They won't weigh eight or ten pounds at twelve weeks. This is important to me.  I know there are breeds of chicken that will grow faster and mature sooner than our chickens.  Those chickens concern me just like the use of antibiotics concern me.  I'm not against chickens for meat.  I'm growing 100 chickens for meat.  I have serious concerns about chickens developed for meat without consideration of the well being of the chicken.  A chicken that can't move isn't a healthy bird. 

The catch is that the sooner a chicken matures the less you have to feed the chicken.  The less you feed the chicken the less it costs to produce chicken meat.  Four weeks, at the rate my chickens are eating can mean $2.40 per chicken.  That's the difference between profit and no profit. It's huge. We've tried to cut our production costs by employing the chicken tractors.  I'm sure we'd be spending more by this time if we didn't have some "free ranging" going on but we are still spending a lot of money on feed.  Granted, at our production rate it doesn't make much difference.  We are really only hoping to cover our costs.  Given the costs of the chicken tractors we've produced, we have quite a bit of costs to cover.  It will take several chicken crops before we break even.  But if we plan to make this farm into a viable business we have to figure out how to make money.  Are we willing to produce factor chickens in a non-factory setting in order to turn a profit or do we maintain our principles and produce real chicken for real people?

As a consumer, it never really occurred to me to wonder what breed of chicken I was purchasing.  Today, as I picked up my last, I hope, bag of frozen chicken breasts I wondered what breed of chicken I was getting ready to eat.  Where did my chicken come from?  What kind of chicken was it?  Not just breast or wing but what color were the feathers?  What did it look like?  How did it behave?  A year ago it wouldn't have even occurred to me that my bag of frozen chicken breasts had feathers at one point.

It's said that when we know better we do better.  I'm not sure that I know better or that I am doing better but my perspective has shifted.  With that shift comes a sense of responsibility for my chickens and for my family.  If we lived in a city, I could charge upward of $3 a pound for my antibiotic, free-range, happy chickens.  Here in the country, I hope for $1.50 to $2 per pound.  We'll probably sell our chickens for $6 or $7 each.  Most will be in the four to five pound range.  My ethics say that raising the kind of chickens I raise the way that I raise them is the right thing to do.  My profitability says something must change.  We'll be tweaking and trying chicken production again in the spring.  Maybe with experience, we'll see an improvement in profitability.  Maybe with experience, we'll find a market to get top dollar for our birds.  Maybe with time, we'll find consumers that value what we are trying to provide enough to pay for our birds.  At the very least, I know my family will be eating happy, healthy chickens and I will be able to tell you about the color of their feathers and the breed of the bird.  I will be the most informed of consumers.

Chickens: Phase 2

Our group of 100 cockrels is now four weeks old.  Yesterday, we spent several hours fashioning a chicken tractor for them.  The tractor is designed to house the chickens safely while giving them the opportunity to range on grass.  The idea is to create safe, affordable housing and cut the cost of chicken feed.  We are all for this because last week the boys ate almost 100 lbs of feed.  If they continue at that rate for the next eight weeks, I doubt we would break even on the chicken project.

Building the chicken tractor proved managable.  In less than three hours we had a completed pen.  Rob looked at several examples in books and online and we discussed how it would be used and the plans for moving it.  He hasn't done the research that I have and it helped me to explain it so we could both clarify what we were trying to accomplish.  We fashioned the tractor out of 12' x 2" boards.  The measurements of the entire pen is 12'x10'x2'.   It took eleven boards to create the entire tractor.  We used 48" chicken wire to cover the top and a portion of the sides and 24" chicken wire to complete the job.  Three panels of fiberglass roof cover the remainder of the top.  Other materials used were wood screws and endless staples.

Moving the boys was a little more challenging.  We tried to box them but they wouldn't stay put so we ended up carrying them out two at a time.  Thankfully there were four of us for the job.  We were all pleasantly surprised to discover we still have all 100 chicks.  It's hard to count them when they are in the the brooder.

We plan to keep the chickens in the tractor, moving it daily, until they are ready to harvest.  We hope that will be in about ten weeks.  The boys are all Rhode Island Reds so their finished weight should be between six and eight pounds.  

This batch is really just an experiment to see if we can do this.  We'll know better after harvest when we can figure our total cost including time involved for harvest.  If this is profitable and not totally repuslive to us, we'll make plans to  increase our operation for next spring.  As a small farm, we can process up to 1000 chickens without needing to deal with inspections.  I figure in a summer we can probably raise and harvest between 600 and 800 birds.  We'd need at least three more chicken tractors but it could be done.

Wordless Wednesday - New Beginnings with Chicks

With a Peep Peep Here and a Peep Peep There

Our four survivors

Our farm is now home to 104 chickens.  We had our four survivors.  You can read more about our first chicken experience here.  On Thurday morning, we received the much anticipated call from the post office.  Our day old chicks had arrived and were making quite a racket.  Could we pick them up, please?

Boxes o'chicks

We arrived before the post office opened and waited patiently to be the first customers of the day.  The man at the post office commented that he'd never had any box o'chicks that were as noisy as ours.  We hoped that meant that they were healthy and eager to enjoy their new lives on our farm.

Our brooder seems to be working perfectly for the new tennants.  Six weeks in it before we move them to chicken tractors and then six to eight weeks before we harvest them.  It seems hard to believe that we'll be eating these cute little guys in the winter.  I suppose it will be easier as they lose the cute factor and move into chickenhood.

The Chicken Plunge

When we began planning the farm chickens were the first animal on our list.  We intended to start with two dozen dual purpose birds, harvest some and leave the others for layers.  We began our project successfully in April.  At first I'd intended to mail order our birds but after asking questions at the local feed store I discovered that they ordered their birds from the same hatchery.  Instead of having our birds shipped, we decided we'd get them from the feed store so that we could have the fun of picking the chicks we wanted.

Bright and early on chick day we got to the feed store and picked out 18 chicks. My nine year-old son had been disappointed to discover that the feed store only had pullets.  He wanted roosters and so he was willing to wait until the next day when we could drive to Tractor Supply and hopefully find some cockerels or at least a mixed run and take our chances.  We were in luck.  Plymouth Barred Rocks were the bird of the week.  My son was thrilled! Not only was there the possibility of a rooster but the birds were black and white. 

We started our chicks in a make shift brooding area in the chicken coop.  I used some boards to box in an area under the heat lamp.  That worked fine for the first day and night but then the temperature dropped.  The second night they were moved into our sun porch in a plastic storage box that had been previously used for Christmas decorations.  The chicks stayed happily on the sun porch until they were two weeks old and the temperatures rose a bit so we moved them to the brooder in the chicken coop. 

The brooder area, a coat closet size space with a door, worked perfectly and the chicks lived there happily until they were eight weeks old.  At eight weeks the chicks were transferred to the coop and seemed to glory in their new expansive digs.  We'd succeeded in raising 24 healthy chicks to the stage where they were feathering out and turning into teenage chickens.

For a few weeks we enjoyed watching the mature feathers come in and took pride in the colorful flock that we'd raised.  Then disaster struck.  A neighbor's dog, that had always been penned, got loose and used her shot at freedom to devastate our flock.  Four chickens survived the massacre.

After cleaning up the carnage, we took stock of our chicken situation.  Free range chickens were not going to be possible on the farm.  We couldn't put our chickens in danger like that nor could we put ourselves or the children through the unexpected loss of so many animals again.  We understood that we'd intended to kill about half those birds but with a plan and for a purpose.  The dog's killing of the chickens had been unplanned and pointless.

As we researched and talked about possibilities we liked the idea of the chicken tractor, a movable home for chickens so they can be grass fed without the danger of predators.  After checking the hatchery website we discovered that we could order 100 meat birds for $35 and that those day old chicks could be delivered shortly after we returned from our scheduled vacation.   We were more confident of our ability to raise chicks, had a better understanding of how to use our facilities and felt that the increased temperature would make it possible to start the chicks in the larger room off the main coop.  We put in our order for the chicks and began to prepare for their arrival.

In a few weeks, the chicks will arrive and we'll continue the saga of the chickens but for now we've definitely taken the chicken plunge.  By purchasing that many meat birds, though admittedly we are hoping for a few dual purpose pullets that we could add to our remaining four layers, we've committed to harvesting them.  We are figuring in October we'll be developing a whole new set of chicken skills.