Chickens Growing on Grass

Farm Life

by Getting Started with the Farm

 

Things are going great here on the farm!

Cow Cow on the move
Cow Cow likes the attention

Cow Cow is doing much better and getting heathier every day! Once his nutrition is under control, we need to move on to other things with him. At some point we will need to bottle break him and get him to drink milk from a pail instead of a nipple. He knows how to drink water from a pail, so you think this would be easy. Wrong. He refuses. If it is milk it must be consumed via nipple. There is no other way in his mind. Set the bucket in front of him and he will just continually search for the nipple. We will also need to get a halter and halter break him. He has a large pasture to roam freely and a shelter to bed in, but there will be times when we may need to get him from the pasture to the barn, or from point A to point B. We have some time before these things need to happen, but it is something I should spend some time researching now.

The broiler chickens are doing great! They are living life out in the pasture in their chicken tractors. They get plenty of fresh grass each day and fresh bugs to eat. They are getting bigger each day. I do not think we will have any problem reaching our weight goals for these guys. Butcher date is approaching soon (June 25th) and so far, we have only lost 4 birds. This is much less than we expected, especially being first timers! I believe it is typically expected to lose about 10% of your flock before butcher date. So, we must be doing something right! We are getting everything lined up for butcher day and are looking forward to seeing everyone at pick up!

Little CJ has done a great job of helping with the chickens. I am so proud of him! It is quite difficult to move the chicken tractors in that pasture as the grass is taller and much bumpier. The chickens add to that by being lazy. They do not move quite as fast as our larger egg layers. Those chicken tractors are heavy and with the birds not moving as fast when you drag the tractor, it can be very easy to accidently run over a chicken. For these reasons, Dad has been moving the tractors each morning. Then, Little CJ goes out to feed and water all tractors. Little CJ checks on them throughout the day and goes back out at 3pm to feed and water again. He is also in charge of checking on the egg laying birds during the day and collecting eggs. He gets up with Dad around 6-6:30am every morning and does his job without complaint. I cannot express how impressed I am with his commitment to help!

Alayna does not have such an interest in the farm yet. I was hoping she would with Cow Cow, but since he went all crazy that day, I am hesitant to have the kids go in the pasture alone to help with him. He will get bigger one day and I do not want them to feel overly confident and end up getting hurt. I am thinking of having her put her artistic skills to use and design something for us. Even if its just labels for the shrink-wrapped chicken. I want to find a way to include the kids on the farm, but I also want it to be something they enjoy doing and take pride in.

Jasper the donkey is doing great! He is very low maintenance. Grass, water, and an apple treat each evening is about all he needs to stay content. I do try to include the kids when giving treats in the evening. He is a little jealous of the cow. I have been spending quite a bit of time with Cow Cow up at the other pasture, and Jasper has noticed! If I spend too much time over there and do not give any attention to Jasper, he will run to the gate braying as loud as he can, ending in a big ole huff and puff! He demands I come give him some loving and I always oblige. He is a good donkey.

Jasper Smiling
Jasper smiling for the camera

The egg laying birds are doing great as well! The new coop is working great out in Cow Cow’s pasture and they get to free range in a large area each day. Today they rewarded us with 7 eggs! We only have 6 hens! Guess someone was working overtime! HA! The rooster is settled into his routine and is doing well with the girls. He is a talkative fellow and crows quite a bit during the day. They have a poultry net fence that surrounds their area to protect them from predators. It is charged by a solar powered battery that connects to the fence. Cow Cow decided they no longer need this since he was there to protect them and chewed through the battery wire. I have no idea how he managed to do this as the wire was live and would have been shocking him. At least CJ thinks it was Cow Cow, we do not have proof that it was him. Either way, thankfully, CJ can fix the wire so that we do not have to replace the battery. We will have to come up with a way to protect the wire from future chewing though. We may end up just blocking off one end of the pasture so Cow Cow can not get to it. We shall see.

All in all, things are coming together nicely here at the farm! It is not always easy, and things go wrong (almost always for me), but we are taking things one day at a time! We can do this!

Did I say we? I totally meant CJ… I will be in the house not dying via cow.

Hens in the Chicken Tractor

Chicken Tractor Build

by Uncategorized

With the help of my father, the first chicken tractor has been constructed and put to use. Frankly, my Dad is to thank for the majority of the construction; he built the major components in a modular fashion and then hauled them to my farm for assembly. A friend from our old neighborhood had 6 hens that had begun to eat eggs, so she gave them to us and there you have it.

Chicken Tractor Build
CJ and his Dad building a chicken tractor

Not counting the hours spent at my Dad’s house, assembling the walls and door, bending the conduit for the rafters, and tacking the hardware cloth to the framing, it took 4 hours to put together in my driveway. We are using a modified version of the Suscovich style chicken tractor. Ours has some additional structural support that does not add too much weight, as well as hardware cloth covering the entire structure. After 6 days being moved daily throughout my garden space, we have lost none to predators although the predators are certainly out there as proven by my game camera.

Chicken Tractor Build
CJ and his Dad building a Chicken Tractor

Picking up the chickens was an ordeal since, against my better judgement and Tanya’s advice, I sold my pickup truck and bought a Corolla. I was spending too much in gas (90-mile one-way commute) plus the truck was beginning to show its age mechanically. That being said, I really need to get another truck. We picked up the hens in Tanya’s van using a large dog crate (the wire frame style with a plastic tray for a floor). I expected this to be sufficient for the 1-hour ride back to the farm without damaging the carpet in the van, but I was incorrect. Fortunately for us, our friend loaned us a tarp to place under the dog crate and boy was it needed. Within five minutes of pulling out of their driveway the chickens had pooped all over the crate and the smell was horrendous. We had both sunroofs open, all of the windows down, and were mouth-breathing but it wasn’t enough. The tarp protected the carpet so at least once we got to the farm cleanup was easy, but we let the van air out for a few hours anyway.

The test chickens are all hens and are actively laying eggs, which was not the original intent for these chicken tractors so I had to add in some nest boxes with the hope that they would lay the eggs in the boxes for easy collection. The chickens have other plans though. They use the nesting boxes as roosts and lay their eggs on the ground. Not a big deal I guess but I will have to build them a proper roost to see if that will fix the issue. So far, they have not eaten any of their eggs.

Completed Chicken Tractor
The Chicken Tractor is ready for its new residents
Flowers in Snow

The Time is Near!

by Getting Started with the Farm

We are getting closer and closer to the chicks arriving on May 4th. The chicken tractors have been built and are on the property waiting to be set up! They were built in sections for easy delivery. We still have some time to put them together as the chicks will be in the brooder in the barn when they first arrive. We should start preparing the barn soon and setting up the brooder as well. 

Red Clock on Grass
The time is near

We did check out the Oley Valley Feed Mill on chicken feed pricing and the gentleman there was very helpful and took the time to explain different feeds and what would be the best feed for our broiler chickens. I must admit… I did not expect there to be much to chicken feed! There were so many types and variables to consider: protein amounts, pellets or crumbles, types for specific breeds, organic/non-GMO or no, how early to buy the feed. It was much more informative than I though it would be. I am glad that I tagged along and was able to learn more about the feed. The gentleman helped us find the info we needed and offered to follow up with us the following Monday. I am sure we will be ordering from that specific store. The customer service was outstanding. 

On a different note, I believe I have been replaced as the official main chicken farmer here at Skyline Pastures… BEFORE I even began! That’s not going to look good on my resume! It seems the founder of Skyline Pastures (Charles Lafferty) has went behind my back and found a much younger able-bodied applicant and offered the position to this young whipper snapper! This young man goes by Little CJ! My own son has stolen my job! HA!

I found this out as I was talking to Lil CJ about the chicken tractors. I told him that they are quite heavy to pick up and move. I advised that If this becomes a problem for me (I have multiple herniated disks in my neck and the strain of repetitive lifting could potentially cause issues) that I may need him to help me. Lil CJ got very offended suddenly and exclaimed that Dad had offered him the job of taking care of the chickens and paying him to do so.  Well, well, the plot has thickened! 

All jest aside, I am so glad that Lil CJ has taken an interest in helping on the farm! I will happily give him the job! This is exactly what we had hoped for, for our children to be a hands-on part of this journey. The deal is that he will get up each day, move the tractors to fresh pasture, feed, and water them. He will be paid for his time with the exception that he has to put half of his earnings into a savings account. I will of course be there with him each morning to supervise and provide help if needed. 

This does dampen my hopes of becoming super buff, from lifting chicken tractors (providing my neck, didn’t try to kill me first).  I will just have to find other ways around the farm to become super buff that does not threaten to make my spinal cord explode. 

There are concerns from others that Lil CJ will not want to get up or do the job properly. He is only 13 after all. Teenagers are not exactly known for their willingness to get up early or work ethic. However, CJ has never minded getting up early. He often asks to be woken well before he needs to be up, to allow him more free time. He has done this since he was in elementary school. He knows that there are things that must be done in the morning and if he wants more time, then he must get up earlier. I do not think he will have an issue with getting up early and I will be there to supervise that he is doing the job properly. 

This should not interfere with school at all as he does cyber school at home and classes do not start until 8:30am. He will have plenty of time to take care of the chickens before classes. He does not have to worry about getting ready or catching a bus. It works out quite well for him. He will only have to take care of chickens and school for a month as classes end for summer on June 5th. We do not plan on having chickens during the fall when school begins again. 

I think this is going to work out well, and again, I am thrilled that he has the desire to help! Instead of being replaced, I will think of it as being promoted from Farm Laborer to Farm Manager. Does that mean I get a raise??? Not likely! I guess I will just have to be happy that death via chickens is not imminent. (I do not have to worry about Lil CJ dying via chicken… he is much younger, has no fear, and can run faster. HA!). 

broiler chicks in brooder

The Ball is Rolling

by Uncategorized

Things were set in motion today!  To give our farm the best possible chance at success I have resolved to do something every day to make it a bit better than the day before.   Even with no animals, the list of potential improvements is enormous.  Today I purchased the first batch of chicks from Moyer’s Hatchery in Quakertown, PA.  We pick them up on May the 4th (cue Star Wars chicken music) but the money is spent, so there is no backing out now.  I will spend the next month or so researching brooder designs and watching every video I can to learn from others’ mistakes so that I hopefully avoid high mortality numbers.  Many of the farmers I follow note that their highest losses occur in the brooder stage.  The chicks are fragile (must be Italian) when they are young and need the perfect temperature, the perfect access to food and water, and a complete absence of predators.  Not to mention that their bedding needs to be dry, fluffy, and constantly maintained.  These guys are going to keep us very busy.

The current plan is to use one of the horse stalls in the barn to build the brooder.  I will be sure to photograph and film as much of the build as possible so that anyone trying to do a similar setup can see what we did.  There is power run to the barn that should be sufficient to power the heat lamps.  Additionally, there is already a water spigot in the barn, and by May the freezing risk should be long-gone, so we don’t have to worry about busting pipes and making a mess.  We are very excited to get the animals onto the farm and start raising the happiest and best tasting birds possible.  I will work over the next few days to set up the store page of the site and then please go in and put a deposit on a couple chickens!  Without friends and family buying our chicken in the beginning stages of the farm the road will be much more difficult.  Thanks in advance!