Hellos and Goodbyes....

 I embarked on a journey in January with the arrival of my first batch of chicks. I had never raised my own chicks before and, in my style, I jumped head first into the deep end. Over the course of a month I put nearly 70 chicks in brooders. My plan was to sell half to pay for the hens I would add to our laying coop.
This weekend I attended my first chicken swap. I've been very anxious about selling my birds.  I took 25. 13 Silver Laced Wyandottes and 12 Golden Comets. I also had 3 roosters that I was selling for a fella who let me use his crates. I had no expectations. I took the advice of a good friend and made up signs that showed a little info about the breeds as well as their hatch date and when I expected them to begin laying. With the help of a couple great friends I got set up, took a deep a breath, crossed my fingers and waited.....

My set up at the swap

My information sign for the Wyandottes.



and for the Golden Comets.



We had fliers set up for the amazing Adam and his custom built houses and I did a little card with my contact info.



To my absolute delight, I sold everything I had, save 2 Wyandotte roosters, in an hour and 15 minutes. I was completely floored. I couldn't believe how quickly I sold out.
Yesterday 20 more young hens made their way to new homes and away from our little piece of the Earth. I was a bit sad to see them go, but only for a moment.....


Because this guy showed up!!
Say hello to Edgar.

While Edgar is likely destined to be a fine supper, for now we are so enjoying him. He's absolutely beautiful and there's nothing quite like the sound of gobbling turkey in the  morning.

I suppose that is the way of farm life, you say "goodbye" while knowing that the next "hello" is just around the corner.

The most amazing chicken house!

So a lot has been going on here with the changing of seasons and the coming of spring! Warmer, longer days, growing chicks, sprouting seeds, mud puddles and the lovely sound of nature coming out to play after a long winters nap. I promise to give you updates on loads of things in the days to come, but for today I must MUST give you a tour of our ladies new abode.
We have been blessed with the most amazing gift. We've recently befriended a family that lives nearly across the street. By miracles chance, the mama is wonderful and she and I have become quick and dear friends, our husbands get along and our kids play well together too!! I know, it's the trifecta of parenthood!! While my hubs is always willing to try his hand at constructing my current wishes, this neighbor papa has a bit more know- how and has been so incredibly gracious at sharing that with us. One evening sitting around the kitchen table I told him of my dream of a mobile chicken house. I wanted it to be big enough to hold 50 layers, have an open bottom so I didn't have to clean it as much, and be totally movable with hubs 4-wheeler. He didn't roll his eyes at me one time! There were sketches and ideas tossed around. Then there wasn't much more talk of it.
On the eve of my birthday, well after dark, I heard a strange noise outside. I found my dream chicken house coming down the road behind his tractor! It was the prettiest parade I'd ever seen!



The new mobile coop with the old barn in the back ground.

He stenciled above the door for me!! It's mine all mine. And my nest boxes are accessible from the outside.

I mean have you seen anything so pretty in all your life?! so I may be a tad overzealous about a chicken house.

He made the floor wire so the clean up is minimal! It just falls right thru and fertilizes the fields. Then it's moved onto a new spot after a few days.  

This is a smaller version he made for himself! He's decided he enjoys the chicken house business and has started taking custom orders.

*read this in your best crime show/infomercial voice* If you or someone you know is in need of housing for your chickens please call Adam at 304-676-3782. Seriously, if you live in the Eastern Panhandle of WV or surrounding areas he can build whatever you need and even deliver.

A sunny day with the ladies.

We've been blessed with more and more sunshine and slightly warmer days. Yesterday I decided to take my camera along on my afternoon rounds and thought I'd share some of my favorites of the lovely ladies that reside on our little piece of earth.... just because.

 

This was the first day these chicks had been out of the brooder. I am trying to go against the norm a bit and allow them outside time while they are still really young in hopes that they will forage a bit.

I hope you enjoyed meeting some of our chicken friends! Soak up sunshine today if you can and take a look around, spring time is coming!! Happy Wednesday!

Tiny glimpses of spring!

Has anyone else become caught by the blahs of winter? We've been plaqued with sickness, both the little and big people among us. I've found myself feeling a bit stagnant. Just not super motivated to do much of anything beyond the regular day to day.
Well, that's all a changin'! It's March!! Oh yeah. Around here that means a few days sprinkled with sunshine and warmer weather. It also means seed orders, baby chicks and more time spent in muck boots.

We've decided to up our laying flock from the 8 we had in August last year, to well, a whole bunch more. We currently have 22 in the laying coop. We have 24 in the outside brooder in the barn and 23(ish) in brooders in the garage. Why yes, I have lost my mind. Oh, did I mention I have 25 more on order for delivery next week? hehe

 

So here's the plan... Raise the chicks to ready to lay age and sell 1/2 of them to cover the cost of the half we keep. That makes sense right? I'd like to finish out with about 50 laying hens.
We have become friends with an incredible couple who live just down the road and the man half of said couple is building me a mobile hen house. Yippeeeeee!!! I mean seriously, diamonds and fancy clothes don't do it for me. You want to make this farm girls heart swoon? Build me a chicken coop!! My hubs is helping and I am beyond thrilled. I promise pics once I get to see it.
I am going to be swimming in eggs by summer. If you still buy your eggs from the supermarket and think you are getting a comparable product revisit this post on understanding what your carton actually means.

Happy tiny glimpses of spring friends! What are you doing with your warmer days?

Let's translate your egg carton, shall we?

I've been given the green light by hubs to expand my laying hen flock this year. It's a very exciting time! Just yesterday I ordered 30 chicks that will arrive next week.
If you aren't sure about whether or not it's "humane" to ship hatched chicks in the mail, read Joel Salatins book "Folks this ain't normal". He breaks it down very simply (and it's a great book that I think every food eater should read). The jist is this, God made them that way. Mama hens have eggs hatch for a few days, since they are laid over the course of days they don't all hatch at once. Because of this, they have to sustain life under her until she takes all the chicks out to find food and water. So hatcheries can ship chicks the day they hatch and you get them by day two or three.
As much as I'm looking forward to having extra eggs to pass along to friends and family. I feel a little apprehension. Very often I find myself explaining why my eggs (and all local and pastured eggs) are better (and sometimes, more expensive). I thought I'd use this space to put some of that info together.

"Conventional egg production — that is to say, the vast majority of egg production in the United States — is not a pretty business. Laying hens are crammed five or six to a cage in stacked rows of cages designed for automated feeding, watering and egg-collecting. As many as 100,000 birds can be confined in a single warehouse, each bird with less than 67 square inches, about two-thirds the size of a sheet of paper, to call its own. The crowded conditions lead to cannibalism and other destructive behavior, so the birds’ beaks are cut off at an early age, a procedure that could be likened to cutting off a child’s finger tips, in terms of its impact on the animals’ dexterity and sensory experience. The industry favors windowless warehouses with prolonged artificial light to stimulate maximum egg-laying. When egg production drops off, food is withheld as a way of sending the birds into a forced molt followed by another round of egg laying before being disposed of.

The adoption of practices like these has paralleled the spread of salmonella as a bacterial contaminant in eggs — the reason you’re cautioned not to eat raw cookie dough or Caesar dressing anymore. Crowded conditions, genetic uniformity and the widespread use of antibiotics in industrial agriculture favor the development of new and potentially more devastating pathogens" from MEN article (see link below)
 

After I posted about my eggs on facebook last night I started to wonder how much "store eggs" cost? And what the differences are. So as I was walking thru the grocery store last night I stopped in to see. I was baffled. There were a few that were less expensive and a few that were more expensive, but none, not one, that was comparable in quality. So how can folks question the cost? Then it hit me! Bam! They don't know what they are getting at the store. The cartons all sport words like farm fresh, all natural, cage free, vegetarian fed. Do consumers know what those words actually mean? Do they think farm fresh means that they came from a farm with a red barn and a white picket fence? Do they think cage free means chickens pecking around rolling fields of green? Do they think chickens are supposed to only eat vegetarian?
 I found a good article in Mother Earth News about this topic and am going to use some of those points. Everything take from that article will be in italics.

Ok, let's get started. First off, none of the verbiage on these labels is really regulated, "although there are some third-party verification programs".

Cage Free- that means, simply that. They are not in cages. They live in big warehouses but are not required to have roosts or nesting boxes to behave as normal chickens do.  “Cage-free” does not mean outdoor access."

Free Range- often times that means that they have access to the outdoors, but doesn't mean they forage or even that there is grass. “free range” usually means the laying hens are raised in large flocks in big open warehouses rather than in stacked cages. They can walk around, flap their wings and preen their feathers a little. Usually means? huh.

“Certified Organic.” Production methods must comply with the USDA National Organic Program, including organic, vegetarian feed, no use of antibiotics and no cages. Debeaking and forced molting by starvation are allowed. Organic standards require producers to “maintain livestock living conditions which accommodate the health and natural behavior of the animals.” How much access to the outdoors this requires for chickens is still being hotly debated. At this time, on large organic chicken farms, it may mean nothing more than a small door opening onto a concrete yard.

“Omega 3.” All eggs contain small amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, thought to be beneficial to human health. Omega-3 levels in eggs can be raised by supplementing the birds’ diet with things such as fish oil, flax seed or alfalfa meal (or by simply allowing the birds to forage on lawn or pasture).

 

As I was finishing up this post I found this! Please check it out. It shows loads of labels along with what they mean. Super helpful.

 

Now, I'm going to get up on a soap box for a minute. If you'd rather not experience that please feel free to leave this page now. Good, you stayed. Folks, just buy local! Even if you buy your eggs from a family with 4 hens that only eat in their small back yard, you are getting a better, healthier product. Do a test, take a store egg and a pastured egg and crack them side by side in a pan. Eggs should have a bright yellow (even orange sometimes) yolk that stands up nicely, with a firm (not runny) white. Do you know what pastured means? You won't find it in the store, at least not yet.  Farmers who raise pastured laying hens usually have those hens in movable coops that they move from place to place daily or every few days. The chickens only spend the dark hours in the coop the rest of the time they are foraging in pasture. Pastures full of bugs, seeds and grasses. Because they are moved on a regular basis the chance of disease is lower and they get an abundance of naturally occurring food. You see chickens aren't vegetarian. They eat bugs, big bugs, little bugs, even mice sometimes.

 

Egg mobiles at Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm.

 

So if you drive past a farm and see a big funny shaped trailer surrounded by chickens stop in and buy some eggs, they will blow your mind!! I'm sure like me, you want to feed your family the best that you can. When it comes to eggs, you won't find that in a store. You'll get that from your local farmer, your neighbor or the folks down the street.

Babies.

Well, spring is the season of new. Here that has been new growth in the garden and new animals added in our quest to produce more of our own food, by way of chickens for eggs and goats for milk. This week we were greeted with what may be the coolest addition to date.... baby chicks! I mean seriously. It is so cool to watch how perfectly nature is created. God knew just what He was doing.

22 days before, one of our layers parked herself in a nesting box. Unfortunately, said nesting box was empty. No eggs. Yes, seriously. Secondly, we don't have a rooster so even if there had been eggs they would never hatch. So what's a backyard "farmer" to do? Well, we called friends and took on  5 of their fertilized eggs as foster eggs.  The length of time it takes for an egg to incubate was debated by the folks we talked to so we settled on a window of 18-21 days. We marked them on the calendar and crossed our fingers. She was dilligent. She sat and sat and sat. Getting up once a day for a quick snack, drink and pottty break then back on the eggs she went. (Motherhood is a labor of love across the board it seems.)

 I had started asking around about what we should do if they didn't hatch. After all, it had been  22 days. I was starting to worry. I was getting ready to get involved. (Don't ask me what that would be, I have no idea.)  Thankfully, it was all just fine. We were wishfully hoping for 2, or if we got lucky 3, of the 5 eggs we put under her to hatch. I was completely shocked when I finally got a look and there were 5 chicks! I know I've said it already, but I'm going to say it again, watching nature work is so cool.

 I am confident that nothing in the world will teach my children (and my husband and I) more about the beauty of this planet than sharing this piece we call home with animals. Our yard may not ever win any garden tour awards but I feel blessed that the animals and plants we share it with can feed our bodies, our minds and our souls. What is more beautiful than that?

Changes

I have struggled over the last month to find a way to share in this space. We've had a lot going on here. I know everyone has a lot, but for us, this is ALOT! I was trying to decide if I should go into detail about what's been going on with our middle little or if I should just skip sharing about it here. I have decided to share the brief version.
 At Everlee's 24 month well check in February we received and "unofficial" diagnosis of autism. (Only a developmental pediatrician can officially diagnose.) While this was not surprising to hear, I had a good idea for a few months and lots of hints from the time she was a baby, lots of changes followed that news. We immediately began meeting with early intervention therapists. As of this week, she has 3 weekly appointments and 2 bi-weekly. That's a lot. I am incredibly grateful that we have these tools available to us, I can't imagine having to figure it out on our own, but I would be lying if I said this has been easy. She is on a pretty intensive therapy plan for the next 10 months at which point she ages out of the program on her third birthday. Then she will go to a special needs preschool. Yep mamas, you heard that right, I have to drop off my three year old, non verbal, baby girl at school!! I have 10 months, I have time. I have my fingers crossed and pray daily that we will both be ready in time.

I could go on about how all of this has been a huge struggle, but instead I will tell you... I am blessed! Our family is blessed. This season is tough, but it will pass and we will move on to new trials and new rewards.

It was just announced that the number of children who will be diagnosed with autism in their lifetime has increased from one in 110, to 1 in 80. Everyone knows someone with autism. Be kind.
I have been so incredibly moved by the out pouring of support we have received by people. Thank you!

Other changes that are much lighter have been happening here too! We have added 5 laying ladies to our little piece of the earth. I can not believe how much our entire family has fallen in love with having these gals in the yard. I am overwhelmed with gratitude each time I open the door and find eggs waiting. It's so cool! It's a little like Christmas every day.

There is much planning here about how and when we will be growing/raising more of our own food. The garden has grown 10 fold this year. Last year my two raised beds were very sad. My pregnancy and new babe took priority. There were a few days of cucumbers and squash but then the bugs and weeds came and well, I am embarrassed. But this is a new year! I have moved those two beds, added 4 more and we have tilled a plot of ground that will hold corn, canning tomatoes (romas) and green beans. We have 2 beds planted with cabbage, Brussels, lettuce, beets, carrots, spinach and peas. It's all very exciting. It only took me 4 years of convincing but hubs has finally realized that we MUST produce as much of our own food as we can. Because it's better for our bodies, it's better for the planet and it's better for our wallet. I am looking forward to sharing with you the lessons we learn both through successes and failures.
We only get one chance on this planet, I refuse to be anything less than grateful for every challenge!