behold...the molting process!

Folks, I'm here to tell you about one of the wonders of nature.

About this time of year, our laying hens go through a process called molting. What is molting you say? Well, just before the cold weather sets in, a chicken loses its feathers and regrows new ones. Just in time for full feathered fluffy warmth when the cold temperatures arrive. It's truly an amazing process and quite a sight to behold. During the molt, the hens lay far fewer eggs as the majority of their energy is put towards growing new feathers. They also eat more and require a bit more protein as feathers are made up of mostly protein. They also get a little....well, bitchy. We are very friendly with our hens and spend a lot of time with them and we notice that they tend to want to be off on their own while molting. Maybe they just don't wish to be seen in such a disheveled state. I can't really blame them. A 'No hair' day is way worse than a bad hair day!

Example. . .

This is 'Lazy Eye Hen' looking extra bummed that she's such a hot mess.
First, the feathers fall out. Sometimes they fall out to the point of 'naked' and sometimes they lose them while replacing them simultaneously. See on this next photo, the pin feathers that are coming in on her chest?

And check this girl out below. See all the pin feathers on her head and wing?

This is an after shot. Now doesn't she look beautiful?! And look at all of that nice extra fluff under her feathers. She'll be nice and toasty this winter.

Amazing, right? Nature never ceases to amaze me.

fall!

It's Fall!?! How did we get here already? It seems like just yesterday we were in the height of the season; overworked, overheated and up to our eyeballs in chickens. I can't believe we're quickly approaching the end of our second season. We raised more chickens this year and somehow it still wasn't enough. We have been overwhelmed by the demand for our chicken and I think that's a good problem to have.

Well, I'll tell you....we have some HAPPY turkeys right now. Nate worked his farmer butt off making this very unique shelter for them.

See, those wheels in the middle flip up and down. You flip them down on each side and it raises the shelter up so it can be easily moved and then you flip the wheels up to lower it to the ground. It's genius, right?

We don't have crates big enough to fit these guys so we had to carry them one by one to move them into their new digs. And let me tell you, those males are big strong suckers! I know it looks like I've got him under control but my inner voice was saying "hurry up and take the damn picture, Nate. He's gonna bust loose!" I got wing slapped many a time that day.

 
Happy, happy turkeys. We have another shelter that's not as fancy with more turkeys and we move both of the shelters several times a day to keep up with their appetite for grass.

Right now our last batch of meat chickens of the season is ready to process. We're having the absolute worst weather, and have been for days, which is making things very difficult for us but we have to do it anyway. Once these chickens are gone, it's just turkeys and laying hens.

We are desperately trying to figure out what to do next as we have to find another living arrangement after Thanksgiving. This little camper does have heat but it is not winterized and the pipes will freeze. Plus, it's starting to be a pain in the ass. We are looking for a new farm as the clock tick tocs. It is crazy stressful and we're really hoping something comes along quick. Keep your fingers crossed for us. WE NEED A FARM!

eggmobile II

 This is the new Eggmobile that Nate lovingly built for our new flock of laying hens. Just like the other Eggmobile, this one is parked out in the pasture and we move it every few days to a new spot so the girls have access to all of the fresh grass and bugs they want. We just moved them outside a few weeks ago and they are loving it.

 That lucky guy in the middle is our rooster, Mr. Blonde. He has his hands full. He's in charge of keeping all 100 hens in line. One of his jobs is to get all of the girls inside at night. That's actually why they're called roosters, because they get the hens to go inside and get up on the roosts at night. This keep them safe from predators.

 And our new girls have started laying! That means lots of tiny eggs for a month or so before they get bigger. Below is a regular sized egg next to a new egg. People LOVE our eggs. They are a huge draw at markets and we can never have enough. We have several different breeds of hens that lay different colored eggs; green, blue, white,pink, brown. At farmers markets, people line up at my table waiting for the market to start and I sell out of eggs in the first half hour. And for good reason...they are absolutely delicious. I could never eat a grocery store egg again....ever.

 So, what do we do with all of these tiny eggs when we have more than we can handle?? Well, we hard boil them and feed them to the turkeys, of course! Our turkeys are still growing and they need extra protein. They have to stay in the brooder building for a few more weeks and then they can move out to pasture. They LOVE hard boiled eggs and go CRAZY for them. Working on uploading a video of the egg-feeding mayhem but sadly, I think the file is too big. Maybe another post.

life, simplified.

Wow. So much has happened and I really should have been blogging about it as we went along but alas....there was no time.

A little background... I mentioned before that we are 'borrowing' space on this farm. We were given the opportunity to use the land, tools and equipment. This was an amazing way for us to see if we liked farming without making the huge commitment of buying a farm. We knew our time on this farm was temporary from the beginning as the owners had purchased a bigger farm and put this place on the market. They still live here while waiting for it to sell and their cattle reside on the new farm. We have spent our time here contemplating what would be next for us and considering all options. After almost 2 seasons as farmers, we are now sure that we want to continue farming and we have been searching for a new location to move to over the winter so we could be ready to start up again in the spring.

I also mentioned before that we were able to rent a house just 400 feet from the farm to live in. This house has a separate owner from the farm. A few weeks ago, on the day before my birthday, our landlord informed us that he was kicking us out. He said he wants to do some remodeling on the house so he can put it on the market and told us that we have to leave. We have no lease, just an informal rental agreement so our rights are limited. We told him that we currently have 700 animals who need our daily care and that we can't just leave. See, our last batch of meat chickens will be finished for the season in mid October and our turkeys will be finished before Thanksgiving. The lambs should be gone by then as well. So that would leave the 200 laying hens that we keep over the winter. We asked our landlord if he could hold off until the end of November to help us out but he wasn't in the 'helping' mood. We had 3 weeks to figure out what to do.

We had 2 options....move our entire operation plus 700 animals somewhere or find a place close to the farm to live for 3 months. We could have rented a place nearby but that would have cost money that we didn't have and would have required a commute back and forth throughout every day to collect eggs, feed and water animals and work on other farm projects.

Enter my Dad. He and his wife have a 27 ft travel trailer which they generously offered us. We had to clear it with the farm owners as we would need to park it on the farm and hook into their water and electric. They allowed us to do it and here we are. This is our new home for the next few months...

 The one on the left, that is. That structure on the right is the new Eggmobile that Nate just finished for our new flock of hens. More on that to follow...

So the last 3 weeks have been spent processing 240 chickens, moving 200 chickens out to pasture, getting 260 new chicks, packing up a house, deciding what will fit in the camper with us, what we need to have access to and can store in the barn, what will go into the storage POD, building a new Eggmobile, doing 3 different farmers markets a week, moving into said camper, daily farm chores, etc. In addition, our van which we heavily depend on for getting our product to market and for hauling things around is now broken beyond repair. Stress has been felt in indescribable ways and I questioned whether one or both of us would survive. However, we're still here.

I will say that being free of a house is quite liberating. It feels good to simplify to just the essentials. I will also say that our new living space is...small.

For now, at this moment, we are more than fortunate to have a free roof over our heads with heat and running water. We also have the ability to pick up the wireless internet from the barn office, however spotty the connection may be....at least we have it and it's free.

We are working on planning our next move. The universe was very cooperative in facilitating our entrance into farming as things just sort of fell into place. Things have been challenging lately, to say the least. We have had to work really hard and make many, many sacrifices to continue to follow our dream. It's heartbreaking to think that things could not work out for us. Farming is our life and we are determined to make this work.

Where will we go in December? Well, we'll just have to see...

american gothic

We thought it would be fun to re-create a modern version of American Gothic. There were so many hilarious outtakes that were too good not to share.
We set up the tripod, used the timer on the camera and experimented with many things.....
This rare, exotic "Mohawk chick" didn't show up too well against my black shirt...

This pitch fork was a little too big...

No explanation for this one...

Should we smile or not smile???

And then I thought it would be cute to have the little hen on my shoulder. And it was, until she got bored, turned around and pooped on me. Just as the automatic timer button on the camera was pressed. What follows is the hen-poop-on-the-boob series...

Neither of us has noticed yet...

 

Nate still hasn't noticed yet...

 

 Priceless

And our 2 favorites...

on a brighter note. . .

The turkeys have arrived!! A baby turkey is called a poult and we now have 51. All arrived happy, healthy and cute as ever.
Turkeys are very different from chickens in that they're very friendly and social. They also imprint easily so they think Nate and I are their momma. If we put our hand inside their pen, they all come running. We loved raising them last year and looked forward to their arrival this year. I must say that after the week we've had, they are a breath of fresh air and generate many, many much-needed smiles.

just need to vent a little

Another crazy week gone by. We processed 240 chickens, had a health scare with our 'teenage' batch in the brooder which was easily remedied by administering garlic and vitamin E (no antibiotics here, thank you!), moved the teenage batch out to pasture to make room for new chicks, got 51 turkeys which arrived early and got a new batch of chicks. The new batch came with problems which 4 days later, we're still feeling the repercussions of...
I spent Wednesday at the farmers market selling while Nate spent the day cleaning out and setting up the brooder to get ready for the new chicks. It was a LONG day but we were all set up and ready to go. That night, knowing we would have an early wake up call from the post office telling us our chicks were there, we brought the phone into the bedroom.
So the phone rings sometime before 7am and we are utterly exhausted. Nate answers and of course, it's the post office. Unlike other times they've called, I hear Nate say "Oh No!" and "That's awful." Oh great, what now.
Ordering chicks through the mail can be a crap shoot. We are solely at the mercy of the postal service which is, to say the least, not a good feeling. Unless we have the set up needed to hatch our own chicks, which is something we're entirely not ready for, this is the way it has to be. When an egg hatches, the hatchery counts them out, puts them is a shipping box which is square with lots of holes and divided into 4 quadrants. They usually put about 100 to a box with 25 in each quadrant. This way the little guys keep each other nice and warm. The hatchery ships them Priority which takes 2 days. Once a chick hatches, it doesn't need any food or water for the first 48 hours because it's still living off of the inside of the egg.
These little puff balls are super susceptible to 2 things....stress and temperature. Both of which can make or break a life. So far, we have had very good experiences getting chicks with few weather-related exceptions.
So Nate hangs up the phone and says "A bunch of them are dead", "The post office just told me a bunch of bullshit, they're blaming it on the hatchery." Now, I'm sure I don't need to tell you how devastating this is. We feel a tremendous amount of guilt and sadness when something like this happens. Yes, these guys are going to eventually give their lives to become food but we love and respect all of our animals and work our butts of striving to give them the best lives possible. We can talk about eating food grown, raised and handled with good, loving energy as opposed to something treated inhumanely, infused with bad energy but that would be a whole separate post.
So off Nate goes to the post office, not knowing what he's going to find while I head up to the brooder to turn the heat lights on and get the feed ready. When he gets to the post office he sees 2 chick boxes in black garbage bags sitting outside. As he walks up to them, he can hear peeping coming from the bags. The post office had attempted to throw out the evidence, which was 2 boxes with the dead chicks and left some live ones in there! The remainder of the boxes were inside the building. He didn't say much to them because he was fuming. He grabbed the garbage bags, and the good boxes and headed back to the farm.
I start unloading and counting the chicks, dipping their beaks in water, trying to get them to eat and drink as soon as possible. We're still not sure what happened to cause the deaths or when in transit it occurred but somewhere along the way, the postal workers noticed that there many dead and proceeded to take out the lives ones and cram them all into one box. I unloaded 200 chicks from one box. Needless to say, that was way too many for one box. The chicks at the bottom were smashed and barely alive. We had to euthanize a few who were in really bad shape but I spent the morning feeding a bunch with a syringe trying to get them to pull through. So far, including the DOAs, we lost about 65 and amazingly, the ones who made it are doing really well.
We called the hatchery right away and while they know it's not theirs or our fault, they will compensate us for them. And the post office will have to answer to them as they try to track the chicks and attempt to find out what happened. Our guess is that they got left outside by some insensitive ass in the heat or something. I wont even describe the picture of what we saw in the boxes that were in the trash bags. It was awful.
We are more than grateful that the survivors are doing so well and hope that the cumulative stress of their journey doesn't claim any more lives from this batch. As I type this, they are running and jumping around as if they've already forgotten all about it.
And us? Well, we haven't forgotten. We're looking around for hatcheries that we can drive to, to pick up our chicks in the future.