Taking a little trip

You don't realize what it takes to go out of town until you have farm animals. Gone are the days when someone could come by and feed the dogs once a day. We think we're pretty scaled down right because we only have 3 outdoor dogs, 185 chickens, 10 cows, 1 bull, 4 calves, a donkey and her baby donkey. This is scaled down because the cows and donkeys are relatively low maintenance. They eat grass and their water tank has a float valve that keeps it filled whether we are there or not. But those hens....not only require food and water but you have to gather eggs. And you have to put the eggs up. And you have to keep records of egg counts, refrigerator temperature, inventory and of course clean equipment....in addition to making notes on the field, weather and other unusual conditions.

But you can get away if you have good neighbors. We waltzed on up to Oklahoma last weekend and attend my family reunion (GO AYERS!) The Gonazales' were there to feed the hens and pickup those eggs. Didn't make them do all the paperwork. Here's a picture of ONE of our refrigerators for eggs.

We also have some great customers. Right now besides individuals, we are supplying Green Gate Farms, Mother's Cafe in Austin, Brodie Mart and Sarah's Texas Pantry with eggs. Sarah's Texas Pantry is a great place to stop by if your in Hutto sometime. She has loads of Texas made items. Our personal favorite is the cheese dip. Yum! Her webpage is linked if you're interested in looking at the store. She has done a great job on establishing an inviting decor and is a great person to talk to about local, sustainability, etc. Stop in and check it out!

The Taylors on the Speaking Circuit

Ward and I were asked by Green Gate Farms in Austin to give a short little talk on our farm and chickens at their kids farm camp today. We sell our eggs through Green Gate Farms and they do some neat stuff out there....like this Farm Camp. They rang a bell to gather all the kids and they came running!! The very polite youngsters sat at the tables and listened and asked a lot of great questions. When we asked them questions...we were surprised how much they knew.

There was this one time....at Farm Camp....

Heat, heat and more heat

It's hot. This is coming from Jill the heat lover. I honestly think I need a break back to the mid 90's. Just for a little bit.

Well, we moved all the coops yesterday. We try to move them every month or so to let the hens try out some near areas. The coops have an electric netting around them to keep predators at bay. Frank sleeps in the pasture at night with the girls. He is penned and is really too young to protect anything, but we're hoping the barking keeps predators on their toes. Or paws. The hens can squeeze thru the electric netting and fly over it easily. So they are free to roam the pasture. This is why we still have bird losses here and there. Hopefully when Frank is old enough, he can roam the pasture and keep everyone safe. In the meantime, we've turned our donkey Annette and her baby Whiskas out in the pasture along with the cattle. They get along well, and Whiskas is enjoying the calves. I guess we're just throwing all we have out there hoping there will be so much activity predators will steer clear.

If you didn't notice, we finally got around to naming the baby donkey. She has whiskers on her chin, so it stood to reason that Whiskas was a good name. She is so tame, and lets us and anyone else give her full body rubs. She will even follow you after you finish and beg for more. Her mother is still fairly skittish.

We used our chicken processing equipment for the first time on June 13th. The picture on this blog shows the setup. It went fairly smooth as we tried to figure out the perfect scald routine and the plucker. Ward got a routine down quickly and we processed 23 birds in 2.5 hours. Not bad from field to freezer first time. Actually they are drained overnight in the refrigerator before we vacuum seal them for the freezer the next day. Our next batch of broilers comes June 29th. We are learning quickly that the hardest part is raising the birds in large numbers. Fortunately we have friends that are sharing their struggles, and they probably don't know how much we appreciate them imparting their knowledge and lessons learned to help us ease our way. We intend on having our facility ready and our grant of exemption to process for retail within a year. Wish us luck! we'll need it............

A Birthday Bash, New Calf and Lonesome Dove

Saturday was our grandson Andy's FIRST birthday party out at our farm.

The morning started off with a surprise, while gathering eggs I noticed our homely miniature hereford "Curly Sue" sitting under the tree with a calf. At first glance, I thought she was babysitting one of the others...but realized it was too wet and small. I called for Ward and after snapping several pictures it stood up and we discovered we had ANOTHER BULL calf! That makes us four of them now.

There were lots of our daughter's friends from Austin, along with several neighbors and locals. It was a fabulous time with BBQ hamburgers and hotdogs and refreshing beverages for the HOT afternoon.....a Pinata for the kids to swing away at, and great conversations. Andy was so dirty by the end of the day. It was hilarious, you can sure tell he had a great time.

Later in the early evening while just a few of us were left, a dove flew in and proceeded to land on our chairs, hands and heads. It was disarmingly friendly and after the last people left, we finally went into the house to get away from it. Surprising, it was still there the next morning. It landed on our heads and shoulders again, and tried repeatedly to get in the house by hitting the window on the side door. Eventually, one of the dogs and two cats were stalking it and we thought this story is not going to end well. But Melissa volunteered to take it home to Austin where her neighbor raises doves. With quick hands, Melissa caught the bird and we put in a box for the trip. Her neighbor gladly took the dove and said it probably a pet. Were did it come from? who knows....

Difference between our broilers and egg layers

Many people have asked the difference between broilers and egg layers. The broilers we are raising for meat are a cornish rock cross. We have several different varieties of egg layers...Barred Rock, White Leghorn, Rhode Island Reds, Black Australorp and Hy-Line Browns.

The meat bird grow quickly and are usually ready to process at 5-7 weeks old. Most notably is the larger breast area and their legs look like tree trunks. I've included a picture of the Cornish Rock Cross and the White Leghorn for comparison.

Hens and eggs aplenty!

Well, the new flock has settled in and most are doing good. I found one dead in the coop missing it's head. I'm going to chaulk that up to an owl. The coop is now a little more secured at night. I'm very proud to announce that a couple of the white leghorns I raised from chicks are laying! I am so excited every time I find one of those white eggs! One of the new flock hens has moved into the mothership with the original layers. I guess she felt more at home there.

We have made our first delivery to Green Gate Farms and are very excited to have some new
customers since our egg production increased so dramatically. They are going to be a nice fit, and are great people.

Our bull Gunslinger got out for the second time the other day. This time, he was down the road where he came across another herd, and another bull. We were able to wrangle him back home, but Ward has spent two days working on the fences. Patching the fence doesn't work, he's having to redo most of it. It laborious work and it's been hot. Hope Gunslinger appreciates how much we care......

I have misplaced my camera. I hope to find it soon so I can add photos. We wanted to show pictures of the meat birds versus the layer birds. The broiler (meat birds) are almost ready. Very exciting!