Chickens and Eggs

We are having success selling all the eggs our hens produce. That is why it's so hard not to get a large qty of hens and/or chicks.

We started with 20 laying hens and worked our way eventually last May to about 200 total.   Since that time, several have fallen prey to predators, a few have just died of heat or old age....and let's face it, the neighbors dog did us no favors when he took out over 20 of them in a few days.   Even our dogs have disappointed us with a few injuries and deaths.   Overall,   just when we think we have it under control though....we will find something else to worry about.

Currently, we estimate we have about 130 laying hens in total out on the pasture.   In the brooder, are 150 that we just ordered, plus about 12 we've hatched.    We have another 200 coming the end of October.   We also have 50 broiler chicks in the brooder.   Who doesn't love a baby chick?

We have tried to grow our numbers slowly to see what works best and have our lessons learned on a small a scale as possible.  Plus we are hoping to do broiler (meat birds) on a larger scale after the first of the year, so we don't want to overextend ourselves.  

This is a hard thing to do in actuality....not to purchase 1,000 birds and go "all in".   But there is so much infrastructure still to be done on the farm, that were are trying not to burn ourselves out and save a little time for each other and our families and friends.

Here's a picture of Ward putting in water pipe in the pasture.
There you go!

Where is the time going?

It's been awhile since we posted, but we've been busy!  Egg production has been slowing...don't know whether it's the heat, the hens molting or what...but we've been struggling to keep up with orders.  Hopefully a little cooler weather is doing some good.   We rented a trencher along with our friends from Slow Food Farm and Ward dug a trench of about 2000 feet for water pipe.  It took about 3 days at a snail's pace.  I watched him start the process, and several hours later looked out and it seemed like he was in the same place.  But somehow....he managed to get done!  YEAH WARD!   some of the pipe is in, and the rest is laid out.   We got 150 layer chicks and 50 broilers chicks in the last week.  Ward has modified our previous goat shelter to make a brooder and all are happy and chirping away.   We had our grandbabies the first weekend in September.  Whew...it's hard parenting!   But both babies were good and happy to go along with the feeding of chickens and cows....doing chores, taking care of animals.  both were natural.   We even got to ride in the back of the pickup together!  We have guests coming next week....Ward's mom and stepdad are flying in from Seattle.   Hope to show them some Texas hospitality.  Thanks for staying with us and we promise to update more soon!