Shades of Green Farm

Moving Right Along—The Art of Hen House Mobility

On Sundays we move our Layer House to a new location… the better to spread the wealth (of poop, that is) across the pasture, and reduce the stress on the earth, since inside their house is the hardest hit areas on the land. (It’s one of the reasons we move it, as well as chicken health and happiness and our health and happiness.)

What we move is a 10’ x 20’ portable garage built on a base comprised of six 4” by 4” x 10’ lumber… add the wire that protects them and the doors in their frames that give us access and them egress , plus the nest boxes and roosts and the whole thing weighs around 300 pounds. Moving such an object across fields with the classic small bumps and dips, roots and rocks found in our area (to say nothing of the slight gradient that runs along our entire land and which we are now moving along uphill)… well, you can imagine it takes some effort and ingenuity. Effort we’re willing to apply (obviously, given our lives here) and ingenuity we also have in decent measure~ our own, not too shabby, and the contributions of others I will now name.

The Bowmans, from whose farm we purchased a bunch of used material from when we first started and who had a clever lever system to raise and lower a metal framed 10’ x 10’ pasture pen for broilers. (While I believe it was a neighbor of the Bowmans, I don’t know that person’s name and I believe it was the Bowmans’ idea.) We didn’t purchase the very heavy and too small frame, but we did take pictures and a movie of its workings.

Sue, who found these swing- into- place trailer jack wheels that we attached to the base. Jules, who figured out how to lever the house up with a dolly in order to swing the wheel into place.

Tony, who welded a jack onto a triangular frame that allowed us to raise and lower the wheel by using the crank only… and then Tony and Wesley (his son) who came in their church clothes last Sunday to check out the problem and ended up spending hours removing the set-ups, repairing and re-installing them for greater strength, then attempted to roll it along to its new location.

Conclusion at this point, as stated by Wesley “Hard wheels for hard surfaces and soft (pneumatic) wheels for soft surfaces.” After much effort and strain, the house rolled to a new spot, barely one width from the old one. [Now some of you regular readers may recall that we had been inching the house along in order to avoid chickens wanting to bed down in their house’s previous location… to avoid another tragic pile-up. After many weeks/several months of such incrementally farther moves, we’ve reached a place where we can move the house a reasonable distance for nicely-spaced placement.] The wheels on their mounts were stressed to the max, as would the chickens have been with all this activity, except that Sue moved the pasture as well, so the gals were out and about while this was being done… we gather them back in once the fence is up by banging buckets of feed and calling~ they have their priorities, you know.

So, that move was last week and we weren’t looking forward to this week’s relocation. Tony is working on another prototype but he lives in upper Illinois and is often quite busy building feed mills so didn’t have new wheels to us in time. John is another prototype wheel developer working on the problem. Sue's father is yet another contributor to the engineering input of our effort to relatively effortlessly move these big houses around the land.

But I digress... back to this week's work. To the rescue comes first our new neighbors David and Kim, with their tractor and their heavy duty moving strap and their willingness to keep trying to maneuver the tractor and play with the chickens (David and Kim, respectively) as it proved not simple to simply pull the house along the ground.

Enter Bernie, visitor and handy gal extraordinaire… who commented that the pyramids were built with gigantic rocks being pulled only wooden slats, then commenced to collect a couple of nearby 2” by 6” boards. David lifted the house, we placed the boards under the front end, he lowered the house and backed up and the house slid (easily!) along the boards until it came off them. We repeated that once and had moved the house two lengths- perfect!

Sue and I can work this system on our own by using the dolly levering to fit the boards under each side, and using the truck to pull it along… at least until our fancy wheel assemblies are done and work.

Someday we’ll have a tractor… ahhhh, the dreams of a small and low income farmer.

We thank everyone who has helped over the past year to move our houses and our farming efforts along!

Spring Catch-up Time-- A Quick Check-In

Coming from Missouri where winters are longish, cold and typically wet, spring certainly calls forth the possibility of a good cleaning~ it’s no longer cold, making the idea of opening windows and taking things outside to air a pleasant one. After a season of being shut inside with old air, dust and germs, it’s a necessary step in having a healthy home, as well.

Here in Texas, winter is short and interspersed with warm days… warm enough to open windows and air things out. And being a farmer one gets outside every day, warm or cold, wet or dry (precious few wet days this past winter!)… like it or not there are animals to care for and in our case, just a few cool season greens that I managed to get in the good soil of our now 4 season garden.

What we have here at Shades of Green Farm is spring catch up time… not because there’s suddenly more hours in the day (although daylight savings time fools some of us into thinking we do)… not because there is information to get out that we shouldn’t have or didn’t send out earlier (although there are some dates set that weren’t before yesterday)… no, this morning is spring catch up time because my cat woke me at 3:00 a.m. upchucking an over-sized snack of dry food nuggets and after hours of snoozing, I got up early enough to at least start this entry. ☺    (and now it’s two days later, as I complete this entry to share at least a snippet)

The ‘abbreviated version’ of what’s new and doing on the farm is as follows (I am not brief, so I’ll do what I can to give you a sense of life on the farm without taking up too too many characters of font):

1. We are now certified organic by Nature International Certification Services!!! We are purchasing our little round green and white USDA/ORGANIC stickers to put on everything. We are having our egg label redone to include the USDA and Nature International logos.

2. Our 235 laying hens are producing over 200 eggs each day, which we are selling each week at the Austin Farmers’ Market at Triangle Park on Wednesdays from 4-8 p.m.; at the Bastrop 1832 Farmers’ Market on Chestnut St., each Saturday from 10-2; from our farm by appointment; to TerraBurger, a new organic, healthy 'fast food' restaurant near the UT campus on Guadalupe (which we are excited to see them being used in the egg muffin breakfast sandwich and to see our egg case on their ‘source wall’!); and to Kay Wheeler, chef and caterer who sells her wares most Saturdays at the Bastrop market we well (she’s featuring our eggs in egg salad and spinach salad at her food booth at Round Top)… and we continue to seek venues for selling our good eggs from happy hens.

3. Our two cows have ‘dropped’ which means their calves are hanging low in their bellies and their hip and back bones stick up like they’re emaciated… and means they’re likely to give birth in 2-4 weeks. With the drought we have invested quite a bit of money in hay to augment the sparse pasture… and have learned quite a bit about how much they need and thanks to Betsy Ross’ recent visit, how much dry matter a chunk of our fields offer the cows and their steer calves (which become food this summer) and how to set up rotating pastures fairly easily (I’ve added setting up new fence lines to the To-Do list)

4. We are running low on our chicken pieces but have whole chickens left; we hope they hold out until our  next flock is processed. We have another flock of broiler chicks coming mid-April, “Colored Rangers” and “Poulen Noir”, again from JM Hatchery. With the incredible help from Judy and Dennis, we cleaned the brooder of last year’s litter (which is now helping trees and bushes grow) and are almost ready for Flock #6.

5. We’ll have fresh, never frozen chicken ready mid-to-late June and will let you know when you can come to pick them up.  If you know how many chickens you would like this spring and early summer, place your order now to reserve them. We continue to work on finding a way to have our broilers processed under certified organic circumstances, at which point we’ll be able to add that mark of excellence to this label as well. We also want processing to happen closer to home, to minimize stress on our chickens at the end of their lives… part of the reason for a delayed start this year when we hoped not to run out again. Ah, well, it will work out in time.

6. Our ‘home flock’ consists of Gail, our blind hen, living alone at this time (Violet was predated and now we’re getting a few chicks to become her new companions that won’t peck her); our 5 keeper broilers are Golda and Hillary, the dominant divas now almost a year old and Lucy, Ethel and Ricky from our last flock~ Ricky’s voice is horrific, unlike his namesake, while the gals are both beautiful in big-time rotund fashion; only 2 ducks remain from our 8—all others were predated—and living with them are 6 escapee layers from the large flock. All are happy, healthy and laying eggs (except Ricky, of course).

7. The dogs: Jordan who is “owner protective”, is almost 5 and has surprised us by becoming well-behaved (as long as you accept her self-appointed guard dog ways… useful out here); Aubie, our dumpster dog who turned out to be at least part Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, she’s been with us almost a year and continues to be a sweetheart and unstoppable chicken chaser (since she’s up all night chasing off critters, she sleeps happily enough in her yard or on tie-out during the day).

8. Emma the cat will be 18 years old this summer and is just now beginning to show her age… she receives constant compliments on her youthful appearance, but I know she doesn’t chase her mice around the bed like she used to.

9. Sue continues her work at Coyote Creek Organic Feed Mill (and the farm as well, to lesser extent); the availability of local organic feed is how we are raising chickens at all; the lack of availability of Sue here on our farm is a decided lack on both our parts; Sue treasures the time she does spend here.

10. jules continues her work here at Shades of Green and finds increasing pleasure in the daily tasks of walking pastures and caring for animals; she is eager to find her co-farmer and get more growth happening on the farm; she has written a full page of To-Do’s and is not done yet.

11. Our recent 3+ inches of rain has resulted in the greening of ground and trees…. exquisitely gorgeous after the long brown drought. It appears that all the orchard trees have survived except the pomegranate; we’ll lost several perennial plants, even a couple lantana which are native to this area but obviously needed more water than I gave them.

12. We hope to open new ground for a market garden yet this spring, with the goal of having fall produce to take to market… (back to that co-farmer notion; either that or committed community supporters to help on a regular basis) herbs that go well with chicken and eggs are one thing we’re interested in attempting. jules’ experimentation adding organic matter to the sandy loam on this part of the land resulted in good soil in our first garden… we’ll move some of this soil to the new location, lightly till/turn the wood chips and chicken poop from our Flock 5 broilers into the sod and fence the whole thing from chickens and deer.

There you have it… a not-so-brief overview update… and a haiku for you…

Loving our Green farm
In all her variations
Of leaf and effort

Appreciating the green spring,
jules

April Events Coming to Bastrop 1832 Market-- Including jules on the 24th

Greetings, folks! Dolores from our local Bastrop market just sent me this, so i am posting it and passing it on. Next i will post my long-time-writing 'quick update'.

jules

April events at Bastrop 1832 Farmers Market
1302 Chestnut St. by the railroad tracks
In the Market building at the back of the lot
512-360-4502
info@bastrop1832farmersmarket.org
www.bastrop1832farmersmarket.org

·         Saturday, April 4, at 1pm.  Seminar with Libby Pulley and Kay Wheeler: Meal Planning. Learn tips and strategies for planning healthy meals for you and your family. Free.

·         Tuesday, April 7: 2:30-6pm and Saturday April 11:  10am-2pm.   Celebrate Texas Herb Week, April 5 - April 11, 2009. The herb of the year for 2009 is Bay Laurel. Free handouts on growing herbs and herbal recipes.

·         Saturday April 11: 10am-2pm. Spring Celebration at Market. Fun for all--including Face Painting & Farm Animals Exhibit. Free.

·         Tuesday, April 21, at 4 pm. Seminar at Market: Backyard Chickens by Jules of Shades of Green Farm. Free.

The Price of Eggs

Our next step with the pullets is preparing for the onset of laying~ this means setting up systems to collect, clean, carton, case (box) and cool them (refrigeration)... it also means establishing our sales contracts which will be the means for dispersing the majority of the 90+ dozen our gals will generate. Don't worry, though, we will have eggs for sale by the carton for individual customers as well!

That raises an interesting question about the cost of our eggs... of organic, pastured, free-range eggs raised on a small sustainable farm such as ours. We know that 'yard eggs' are relished by many of the people who come to our community farmers' markets~ fresh eggs from chickens that get to forage are simply far better tasting and better for you, nutritionally and spiritually. The differences among all of us who sell yard eggs Include: diet, housing specifics, range, marketing and of course, price-- all of which reflect the focus of the individuals who raise and sell those eggs. When I think and write or talk about our values, it helps me understand why our approach results in the cost of the eggs we sell (which will run between $4.50 and $5.00 a dozen.... a bunch, isn't it?). Read on as I examine each aspect of egg production and share our orientation and approach... not to convince you to buy ours but to provide education about what's involved in our decisions about how to go about it.

First, food~ some folks feed only 'scratch' (typically cracked corn) and the chickens get this and whatever they find to forage; some feed pellets or 'mash' and some of these use organic feed, most do not; some add house scraps such as peelings from veggies, apple cores, etc.; some feed bread, donut and other 'junk food' type scraps. We feed a full-nutrition ration of organic feed and the hens get this plus whatever greens and bugs they find in their pasture. This is where our major expense comes in~ organic grains simply cost much more and we're providing virtually all of their nutrition through their feed; this may change in years of good pasturage, which this drought as not resulted in.

Housing varies from living in barns to chicken houses to movable coops to making do outdoors-- all sizes and configurations of chicken houses exist.. most of us cobble together good, solid housing from whatever we have available or invent for the purpose. As long as there is adequate protection from predation (not easy to achieve around these parts) and weather extremes, and there's enough room for comfortable living and laying, likely life is pretty good for the birds. When housing is really filthy, as from long-built-up manure, disease or pests can set in, reducing the quality of life for the chickens and maybe the production rate as well. Our layer house is a 10' x 20' portable garage thing built onto a base made of 4" x 4" timbers and reinforced so it doesn't break when we move it. The main difference here is that we do move the house, so that the impact of having a bunch of birds living on the ground gets spread out~ chicken poop as fertilizer is a benefit if it's not too thick; moving on allows the land to regrow using that fertilizer, rather than having to heal from a major hit to the soil, which can take years following years of having chickens in the same spot. Moving chickens off their old poop keeps them healthier.

Then there is the range, the space chickens have to move around and forage in. For some, the chicken yard is tiny and unchanging; for many more, yards are provided that may change or be renewed in ways that keep greens and bugs available when it's seasonal (and some even garden and water to make a rich lawn-pasture in dry years like this one has been-- most of us don't have or choose to use water that way). Some folks allow their chicken to roam all around, like our home flock; this gets pretty nasty if you've got more than a couple dozen, since wherever the chickens roam, poop is deposited. Here, we set up large pastures using solar-powered electric fences that we move the house within until it's 'used', then we move the fence to start a new pasture area. We make sure there's a couple trees in each pasture, for shade and entertainment (never thought a chicken would get bored? oh, they do, and misbehavior ensures when you've got a bunch of bored chickens-- pecking eat other, pecking and scratching the soil to death, destroying property-- yep). Moving the pasture works like moving the house-- better for chicken health and earth health, too.

Marketing really comes into play based on how much of your income needs you plan to/ hope to meet from selling eggs. Most vendors selling eggs at the market do the good service of taking and reusing egg cartons from their customers; as long as the cartons are clean and germ-free, it's a great contribution to reduce trash waste this way and if you know who your eggs come from, you don't need a label to tell you. When you sell eggs in stores, the cartons must be new and the label is your way to tell consumers about your farm and eggs; this increases cost and is necessary for this type of sales. Selling to restaurants requires packing eggs in new flats and boxes but no label. Selling to institutions requires invoicing, delivery and related financial management. We'll sell our eggs to both individuals and institutions and don't yet know if we'll re-use cartons or not; if we have to buy new in any case, storing old ones  and making sure they're clean may be much harder than simply using new. We choose cardboard over plastic or styrofoam to minimize negative environmental impact, but we know the benefit of reusing the less environmentally friendly cartons.

So, there are many considerations in choosing your eggs for their good value... only you can decide what that means for you and it is not for me or anyone else to judge your decisions. If you want those eggs because they're tastier and fresh, or because if feels good to eat from happy chickens, the added expense of our eggs won't make sense to you. It's worth it to buy our eggs if you value, in addition, eating organic foods (no chemicals or GMO's and possible a reduction in digestion problems) and/or an approach to raising chickens that is sustainable for the long stretch, balancing the impacts of raising the chickens to benefit soil and bird alike. It's these values that shape our approaches... good taste, happy chickens, sustainable and healthy.

A New Year Begins

Still not a week into 2009. Life feels steady on the farm, with all the animals who live here seeming happy and healthy, including the humans. The pullets (young female chickens not yet matured to the point of laying eggs and becoming hens) have settled into their home and pasture-- finally!-- and we've lost no more for over three weeks. We have a solid rhythm for moving their house incrementally, so as not to go too 'far', which means we move the house every 3-4 days and just about 1/2-3/4 the width of the building, so some of the floor overlaps with the previous location. When we switched from following the feeding chart to following their lead, the anxiousness and escaping ended... another lesson learned. These gals talk up a storm when we approach and will mill about our feet as we move slowly through the house and yard (the only way to move with that many chickens all around!)... I'm enjoying them again and I'm thankful for that.

Then there's the ducks, having a grand time waddling around... we ended up with 6 females (ducks) and 2 males (drakes) so we'll start having about 3 and half dozen duck eggs about the same time as our chicken eggs start coming in. Don't yet know if we can keep both drakes; typically the ratio is 1 male to 6 females, so perhaps one will become a meal.

Our home birds now consist of the ducks (I guess, since the share the land with the others rather than being separate), our two rescued layers Gail and Violet and the diva gals- two broiler hens we kept from the spring flocks... we get 3 or 4 eggs a day from these gals and that meets our needs most of the time. We have kept a cockerel (who's crow tells us he's becoming a rooster) and 9 other broilers from our last flock in 2008- flock 5. Out of these we'll likely let 5 go and keep Mr. Beautiful, the big cockerel, and 4 lovely ladies... we're combining them in with the divas, who we believe will rule the roost rather than the rooster... but who knows how love and hormones will alter things in that coop? The story unfolds...

And our cattle... our two mamas and their two steer calves... now separated and weaning, with no more bawls and crying.. teats and udders are shrinking as they should, giving the mamas a break before they calve again in April. I have grown quite fond of our gals, who come up to the cross fence when they see or hear us, hoping for (and usually getting) a treat of alfalfa or a bale of hay. I stand quietly with them almost every day, and now I can touch them and stroke their necks while they eat their alfalfa... I get the sense they only let me for the big treats, since they still shy away from my hand if it's only hay they're eating. We have Pippy Freckle-face, who is bigger and darker and bossier, and who has, yes, lots of freckles on her nose and around her eyes. Our other mama is Penelope Bovine, whose color is similar to a penny and who sometimes seems too thin to me, although everyone who knows cattle comments on how good they all look, including her. Pip and Pen will be with us for many years, I hope, producing a few more gals who will fill out our small herd and many other calves who we will let go to become food or income. We call the calves 'boys' and try not to interact with them or get too attached, since come summer they will leave us and we will eat some of them... with great gratitude for having known them and knowing where our good beef came from. (For those of you interested in purchasing a side of beef in the summer, email me now and let me know; this year we're likely to keep a half for ourselves and sell the rest. I will explain later about how we'll arrange this, or contact me.)

The winter garden is tiny but providing us with lettuce and greens; the garlic is up and the broccoli taller; the seeds have sprouted but not done much yet. We use our rosemary, oregano and sage for cooking and that's a joy, too. Perhaps next year the garden will be a more significant piece of our life here; I need time or someone who wants to do the work of it and I don't have either at this point. We want to put in a few more fruit trees this winter yet... we'll see how time and funds flow.

I'm going to separate this part into it's own entry and follow with another, which is focusing on what's involved in raising chickens for eggs. I so appreciate the comments folks send me in emails~ I encourage you to write your comments here on the blog, if you'd like to share with other readers. Thanks for the encouragement with the writing.

Thanks to all our customers and supporters for making this possible. Happy Gregorian 2009!
jules and Sue and Shades of Green Farm

Up Before Dawn~ Work with Pullets Continues

It’s just before dawn… being up at this time is something I only infrequently imagined would become an event heralded without the blare of an alarm and groans of dismay… I am grateful for this change in the patterns of my life, grateful to see the wonders of dawn arriving.

The sky moves through changes—sometimes rapid, something creeping-- which begin with a barely perceptible lightening from almost black to iron-gray… then the iron shifts to steel, to overcast, to pale gray to almost white (when compared to the dark).. right about then the first blush of bright apricot tints the point on the horizon that marks where the sun will emerge… and dawn seems to hesitate, hangs there in slow motion, with the apricot smudge spreading out and becoming less vivid, becoming peach and yellow, spreading pale yellow north and south as the western skies begin the change from dark through ever-lighter shades of gray. Is it dawn now, when the yellow encircles to include the north in pale peach and violet and even the west is light? Or is not fully dawn until the blaze of the sun peeks through the dense branches of the wood that lies east and southeast of where I perch on my chair? The ducks tell me it is time now~ “Don’t wait for the sun, we can see and we are up and talking and want out of our house.” The crows begin cawing and then the hoarse sound of a young cockerel just beginning to find his voice, an almost-crow that was at first alarming and now amuses me and calls me to find out which young lad is trying to cock-a-doodle to the dawn. The sky is beginning to blue, it is light and I’m off to tend to critters on the farm… and more than an hour after the process began, the sun has yet to make its dramatic appearance.

Dramatic it was not, today; rather I looked up and saw the glittering light of the sun already half way up. Ah well, it is now a bit before 8 a.m. and I’m back in the house, typing as Sue makes us some scrabbled eggs (from Golda and Violet) mixed with pork sausage (from Rose’s Berkshire pasture-raised pigs). Another significant and truly awesome (as in awe inspiring vs. generic exclamation) change in life~ I know where much more of my food comes from and am aware of when I do not!

When it comes to the pullets, our efforts continue, as do our losses, although greatly diminished~ 4 more have died as we work to address the situation. First, we let the chicks back out for a couple days after the pile-up, and they ended up sleeping on their old spot. When we moved the fence to block them from the spot, they slept piled up against the fence~ no deaths but not a solution. We asked around and found out that once chickens are moved from their first location, they may never sleep in their house again, or it is difficult to get them re-patterned to do so; in some cases, birds die in bad weather because they don’t go inside.

We installed 2”x 2” perches inside their house (and realized we would be wise to add little perches in the brooder, acclimating subsequent flocks to perching immediately); the pullets went inside and perched during the day and slept against the fence at night. So we put their feed and water troughs inside their house in late afternoon, leaving the doors open; then, after full dark, we carried them into their house crate-full by crate-full, carefully setting each bird onto a perch, side by side, tightly packed as they like it, and closed the door. We had already stopped trying to limit the feed rations to what the ‘chart’ told us; our birds acted like they were starving and were in a constant state of panic to eat… so right or wrong, we changed back to feeding enough so that a little bit of feed is left at the end of the day. This decision was confirmed by a very large egg production farm’s nutrition expert, who agreed with making sure they had plenty of feed during their growing period; he said if a restricted diet were necessary later, that could be managed by changing high calorie feed components to lower ones.

The next morning, Sue checked on them right at dawn, and filled feed and water; there were no dead birds which is what we expected given that they’d been moved when they were already in their dark-time stupor. Sue closed the cover to the side that faces their old location, so they couldn’t see where they might want to go and we kept them in food and water constantly, moving slowly and steadily; the pullets were very calm all day. That night Sue watched them settle for the night and they piled up along one long side, where the perches run the entire length; the birds still climbed and jumped on each other as they settled in, but were not frantic and in the morning, none were dead. Good start. Later in the morning, Sue opened the cover to the end and while we kept them in steady food and water and the pullets were calm, they did cluster at that end. That night they piled up more than the previous night, at that end of the house and not on the perches; the next morning there was one dead at dawn and another one found and taken to our hospital pen died later that day.

Still, we left the end open because they have to learn; we also kept up the steady stream of food and water, and kept them inside for the morning while Sue put up a very small chicken wire yard that opened only from the far end of their house and did not let them see their old location. They were outside and inside, with food and water left inside; at night (last night) they all went in and, unfortunately, piled up at the same end as before… not too much, though, since we had no more losses, at least so far. Today we enlarge the yard and move the troughs outside again… I worry about the degree of filth in the water, even though I know it’s still cleaner than many others keep it on a regular basis. I want to get the troughs outside and cleaned; also, the pullets have to learn to eat and drink outside and still go in at night… the next step in what we hope will result in a stable pattern of going in to perch and sleep and not pile up too much.

We have to move the house again and can’t wait much longer, but will slide it over not even a full width this time, using the fence to keep them from seeing or getting to the other half-width. We think we may have to use the chicken wire fence arrangement in an ongoing fashion, allowing the birds no access to where their house sat previously (and as much visual block as possible) and only moving the house to right next to where it just was. I’m praying this will work, along with foregoing the limited feed rations, to keep our gals calm and safe, healthy and happy.

I'll keep you posted, as we learn and grow our farm.

The Pile-Up~ Sadness, Loss and Learning

Well, it happened… we had a pile-up in the layer house and lost 37 young chickens. I’ve heard about how chickens will pile up if they’re too cold or get frightened and that the ones on the bottom will smother. I’ve heard about keeping building corners from being too tight for young chicks, curving the corners with wood or cardboard, which I’ve done in the brooder and which I also did in the layer house when they were babies, since we brooded them in the same house. They had always clustered together in clumps and after being concerned about it early on, it seemed like they found a good safe way to lay, since we’d never lost one before. Before now, I felt like I was doing a really good job on the raising of chickens… might not keep track of every detail, might not be so great at marketing and sales, but I raised birds up into healthy and seemingly happy birds.

It’s hard not to take this on as failure, even though Sue was very gentle in her telling when she found them last night, too many in one area and too quiet. She reminded me that we knew things like this can happen and now it had and it was no one’s fault. Really, I know this and while I am indeed very sad, I’m not incapacitated with guilt, nor with grief. (I am a bit incapacitated with a virus, but that’s another story.) Today I woke up pre-dawn and knew that I had to immediately get up and get those dead birds out of the layer house and let the other ones out before the living could defile the dead… a nasty notion and one which can lead to truly problematic behaviors for a flock of chickens to develop. I had everything ready, with gloves and wheelbarrow for the dead and feed in buckets for the living. Open the doors, wade through the streams of chickens and pour feed into troughs, then check the water trough and back to the house. I counted as I lifted each body and was amazed that 37 pullets could even fit into the corner they had crammed themselves into…and that doesn’t count the living ones on top of that pile. So sad, this loss of life… somehow it must be avoidable… somehow, not just to save the money we lost in our investment of time and food, but to prevent suffering.

Why did it happen? As I noted previously, we brooded these gals in the same house they will live in their entire lives. We brought the chicks (hatched the same day we picked them up) and put them into their house, under the two hovers I’d built to ensure adequate space under a range of heated areas. Their home was a circle of cardboard that expanded as they grew until only the corners were lined and the heat lights were turned off and then the door opened into a bigger world in a small yard, then into an even bigger world in their large fenced-in yard. Life was good and they were a happy clambering clatter of chicks… until the time came to move their house to a new location. This is necessary if you want to pasture chickens in a way that is sustainable and humane~ that maximizes the pasture for the birds (grass and bugs) and minimizes the impact on the soil and plants. Our pullet chicks had lived their whole 3 weeks worth of life in one place and we knew it could be traumatic to move them.

So, we put the house up on wheels and pulled it with the truck into a new spot about 50 feet away. We moved the feed and water troughs near the new location before moving it, since food and water are the most important items in their lives and are what they fix their attention on most of the time. By the time the first move was over, it was afternoon… the chicks were hanging out, eating and drinking, scratching and pecking and we thought fine. Then a tornado and thunderstorm warning came along at the same time as evening and when we went to close up these gals, they were huddled together in their old house spot! We tried ‘herding’ them, luring them with food, and scaring them… each time they would run back to their original spot…. An hour later Sue and I are wearing hard hats (in case it hails) and miner’s lights (to see in the dark), running back and forth with crates we fill with pullets from the old spot and empty into the new house… all 300 of them. The next day I kept them in their house with food and water and after that they were fine. Just perfect, no piling up, no panic, just getting out in the morning and being closed in at night after they walk themselves into their nice house.

Well, this time, we were sure to have the move done in the morning, giving them plenty of time to adjust. No difference. This time we decided to risk predation and give them a couple days to make the move (with a 4000-6000 volt electric fence on and the dogs out all night, not too much to worry about)~ nope, still sleeping on the previous location. So on day three, I put their food troughs in their house in late afternoon and lured them with food… they went happily in and ate and settled on the crates we were using as roosts until we put in the wooden ones. I though all was well, until Sue went and checked and was going to move the ones that hadn’t yet gone in (yep, they were lying in their old spot)…. And found the pile-up.

So we know why it happened but not why it happened this time and not the last time. And we don’t know how to move the layer house without making a crisis for the birds. We have had what many farmers would consider minor or moderate loss, significant sadness, and some learning… but not the key piece. This we haven’t read anywhere and don’t yet know. How do we move our birds in a way that works for us all? Stay tuned, friends, because we will figure it out and then we can help others avoid this sad event.

Here’s the PS to this entry… I just checked the pullets—after dark—and found that those who were inside last night are insight tonight, and the ones clustered in their old location last night are there again tonight. All seems calm and I’ll check in the morning for their condition… and pray there’s no pile-up or predation or any other loss of these or any of our other animals.

When Farming Feels Like Family

Sue’s flat-out sick and I’m trying to keep it at bay… cough, headache, fever, congestion… you know, that type of viral thing that makes it hard to stay up and work. However, Sue’s at work for a few hours because there’s work she simply must get done today. I just transferred frozen chicken from one freezer to another and collected eggs from our home gyrrls (what we affectionately call the hens that we keep just for ourselves—more on them later), and did this because it simply had to be done today… as did the feeding of our broilers and pullets and ducklings, as did letting them out this morning into their bright and chilly day. You know, I thought raising a child was the most ‘full time’ job I’d ever have… but, no… once she was old enough, if I really didn’t feel up to getting up and fixing breakfast, cereal would do and Jess could climb into bed with me or amuse herself in her room. Farming, on the other hand, is actually full time~ every day you have to do it, no matter how old the animals are or how rotten you feel.

Also similar to parenting is the surprising pride I feel that our ‘special’ gal, Gail, has become a hen. Yes, three months after her hatch sister, Violet, began laying her daily egg (100% of the time, I might add), Gail remained an undeveloped pullet. I was thinking that given the fact that she is legally blind (she can only see some shadows), her beak and head are somewhat twisted and we were concerned her innards might be as well… with all these concerns, it was just fine that Gail not mature. Then one day I bent to pet her and she “assumed the position”… a squatty, wings out to the side, ready for love look that I had no idea about with our first hens. In fact, when Beth, our first pullet to lay, first squatted down like that, I was quick to pick her up and reassure her I meant her no harm, of course not! Then I saw her do it for Mr. McNugget and saw his response to it and… oh! Sure enough, shortly after that she began laying. And now our little Gail (named after Sue’s favorite eye doctor of all time) has in fact matured and is now laying an egg every day. She’s not only okay, when our friend Rachel visited the other day, she immediately commented on her “Why look at that Gail! She looks fabulous!” or something like that… in any event, Rachel noticed Gail’s gyrrly glow.

So I have motherly pride in Gail’s becoming a young hen, and motherly fatigue from taking care of the poultry even when I don’t feel at all well. Now, how to I feel about our cattle? I think it’s a bit early to tell. You know, we have cows of our own on the farm now~ to be more exact, two pregnant cows and their steer calves. It was different when the cattle belonged to someone else.. much more emotional distance, even though Sue and I were thrilled when they calved and worried when it took a long time and much bawling to complete delivery.  Our cows will deliver in April, most likely, and we’re hoping for heifers, which are what gyrrl cattle are before they have their first baby and become cows. Boy calves are bulls and they stay that way unless they’re ‘un-boyed’ and then they’re steer… I think you catch my drift. If we get two heifers, we’ll have the 4 gals we want to make babies every year, so that we have no more than 8-10 cattle on the land at any given time. The steers will become food in the summer, and we are grateful for that—filling our freezer and providing income as well. Our newest arrivals came from Coyote Creek Farm and we’ve been waiting for them for awhile~ to have their calves, get pregnant and be ready to move. Their breed is called South Polls and we think they’re magnificent… our neighbor Otis told Sue that we have “some fine looking cattle there”… we’re so proud. Welllll then.... I guess I feel both parental pride and also some sisterly affinity to our cattle… I just know we’re glad they’re here!

Sue’s on her way home, waning fast, she said. Me, too, so I’ll close and post, then back to bed for another rest before the afternoon chores begin. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not complaining—I look out the window and see our two keeper broilers, Golden Freedom Rangers named Golda and Hillary… they’re just scratching and pecking and murmuring their soft chicken talk (okay, I’m inside, just imaging that last part, since I can’t hear them… but I know what they do as they make their way around the farm)… the cattle  are up here by the cross fence, flipping their tails at flies as they nibble the good grasses of our pasture… the ducks are as usual milling about like a school of fish… and the pullets… dog gone it! They’re back in the duck house, eating their food again… gotta go!

Sales are Taking Off and Chickens are Coming!

Well, my friends, there is much in the way of news on our little farm. After wondering if we would ever get to the point of having regular sales, we have just sold out of our chickens! Except for the 2 USDA chickens we are holding for People’s Pharmacy in Austin, I sold the last 3 today at Bastrop 1832 Farmers’ Market. We have less than a dozen of the locally processed chickens~ at least 5 will be delivered to places and people in Austin next week… and today at the market several other customers indicated they may come out to farm and pick one up. I love it when that happens, because I can then show folks where their meat is coming from, so we can feel good about it together.

[ By the way, in Texas a piece of state legislation that was apparently meant to support small poultry producers had regulations attached that contradicted that intention. Now, unless you have your own processing facility on your farm property, you cannot sell to stores, restaurants or at markets; you must have your poultry processed at a USDA facility. Part of our approach to raising food in sustainable fashion is not to try to do it all, but support existing small farmers by paying for them to process our chickens. It’s like everyone on the block having their own lawnmower~ we would rather not see resources used this way and would rather share and cooperate. And so we have some chickens processed locally and sold off our farm and the rest done at a USDA certified plant. After searching extensively for a USDA processing facility anywhere in the state, we found one~ yep, just one!~ that will take birds from other people’s small farms. We are incredibly grateful to them for taking us on at a challenging time for their family! I will maintain their privacy on the website until I hear from them that it’s okay to thank them individually by name. We hope that changes someday, so we can address another of our goals, which is to keep all our farm business as close by as possible, especially when it involves moving animals.]

Back to our news…. We’ve sold out but you will not have long to wait to be able to purchase  our chicken at the Bastrop Market and at our home.

We have listened to our customers and are striving to have smaller chickens available. In order to make a living from them, our goal is that they will weigh between 3.5 and 4 pounds. We also hope to have some of them cut at least in half, if not fully parted into breasts, legs and thigh sections. I’ll let you know when we know.

Chickens will be available starting Friday November 7th, 2008 and should remain available consistently available at least until spring, depending upon demand and our decisions about when or if to take another pause in brooding during the coldest month, January.

Another opportunity for buying a chicken is to reserve one or more or our famous large chickens for the holiday season. We will hold back chickens for people who want a fresh, never frozen big roasting bird the Tuesday before Thanksgiving as well as the Tuesday before Christmas. If you celebrate another holiday at the this time of year, let us know and we will see if we can make it work to have a fresh chicken ready for you; it may be that we can offer a large roaster but that it must come to you frozen.

Contact us to reserve your holiday roasters~ send us an email, give us a call or come visit us at the Bastrop Farmers’ Market on Fridays and Saturdays. Only those who have reserved roasters will be able to purchase them.

Life Abounds on the Farm

As I write this entry, I can hear the sounds of night in autumn from the open windows~ crickets and cicadas ring out their persistent song; thanks to a small recent rain, I hear the calls of at least two frogs from the run off pond nearby; dogs are snoring on the porch after a day chasing squirrels and munching big new bones from Bastrop Cattle Company (who offer them at their market booth in all sizes)… and if I listen closely, I can hear the periodic chirps from Flock 4—160 one month old broiler chicks in their Pasture House, who have reached the age of becoming pushy with each other. In another moment I hear the peeps of the 10 day old chicks that make up Flock 5 who are still in the brooder not far from the house. It may not sound romantic or appreciative to name our chickens by their number of arrival on the farm, but this approach lets us know which group of chickens we’re concerned about when we’re talking or writing about them, and that’s really important to their well-being, especially in the middle of the night when we hear the dogs barking wildly “Something’s out near Flock 4!”. And given that another night sound often heard around here is the wailing barks of coyotes, I’m glad for our dogs and our quick identification when we run out to see after our chicks.

In addition to the 320 broiler chicks, we have 300 pullet chicks that are 2 ½ weeks old. With this flock we tried something new that is working very well~ we brought our babies right into their Layer House and brooded them on pasture. We put together one of those 10’ x 20’ portable ‘garages’ with metal frames and tarp roof and walls; we attached it to a base made from 4” x 4” timber and surrounded it with wire, to keep unwanted critters out and our chickens safely inside. I built two hovers which are low, wooden, table like structures that contain heat lamps underneath; we can have the heat from as little as one 100 watt bulb or as much as four 250 watt bulbs. We are now using just one light and keeping the windows upon most nights; the chicks are doing great and are ready to go outside… so, now it’s time to build their first yard, as well as roosts. These gals will be ready to lay their lovely brown eggs in the middle of February and we are looking forward to expanding our produce to include organic pastured eggs. We have several people who are interested in buying a few for their own home coops when they get a bit older. Because we use only organic feed (oh, we’re lucky that the only commercial organic feed mill in Texas, Coyote Creek, is just 25 miles away in Elgin!), our pullets cost more and will not be contaminated by petro-chemicals or GMOs. Eggs offer a much better return financially, so we’re trusting that this addition will allow us to keep raising and offering our happy healthy chicken meat as well.

Our practice flock of 16 Khaki Campbell ducklings are now a month old~ they’re doing well and are adorable! These babies move like a school of fish, with their quick, fluid shifts in direction… except that their waddling and chirping is more comedy that choreography. They are also the messiest eaters and end up being pretty stinky pretty quickly… still working out how to set up the coop in a way that will ease keeping the drinking area fresher, as well as their ‘comfy box’ which is a large thick cardboard box on its side and which holds in the heat and lets them feel snug and safe out there in the big world. Because their webbed feet are prone to injury, I’m hesitant to use the wood chips we put in the other houses, yet the shavings are expensive and get yucky fast. I don’t want to move the coop too often, since I am also working on a swimming pool set up that provides them safe entry and exit, even when they have one of their group panics and must rush back inside their comfy box… ah, a new learning curve, what fun! We will share these characters with another family who are also wanting to have some duck eggs; because we ordered the less expensive “straight run” we don’t know how many are male or female… we’ll be having a meal or two of young drake, which one of our friends is eagerly anticipating. If this works out and there’s a market for duck eggs (as we’ve been told) we may add a larger flock to our flapping farm family.

Last but not least, our cows and calves are coming home! We’re fortunate to have this wonderful breed called South Polls, and access to the bull at Coyote Creek Farm, from which they come. Huge gratitude to Jeremiah Cunningham, whose vision brought us the organic feed mill and whose farm values match ours so well~ thank you! Our cows are coming back pregnant and we hope these are females (heifers) to add to the herd. The calves were males this time, and are now steers which we will eat and sell when the time comes. We’re adding portable, solar powered fencing to keep their pastures from the chickens, as separate cows from calves when they wean. As time passes, I’m eager to work on rotational grazing that will add another layer to our sustainable farming strategy.

Now, I just have to find the time and energy to put in that fall garden…..