Winter time

It's been cold here.   We were so ready for some cool air after the scorching summer, but now are rethinking it!  Maybe somewhere in between....70's?

The chickens are growing in numbers, but not necessarily eggs.   We have about 500 laying girls, but 350 of them range in age from 7 weeks to 16 weeks and not laying yet.  The shorter days have caused the laying to slow....right at the time demand is up for eggs for holiday baking.

There is a calf in the freezer and have a great supply of beef.

We obtained our Grant of Exemption a few weeks ago and are legal to process and sell our own chickens.   We have about 125 broilers right now in the brooder/pasture and are receiving 50 more a week.   We should be processing regular by the middle of January.  

And the really good news.....we've got rain and are happy that our tanks are finally filling and the earth and trees have had a good drink of water.   

We are happy and healthy.   Quite a good life to be thankful for.

Happy holidays to everyone.

Farm Girls

We love these two videos because they both say "Farm Girls Rule".  This is Ward's mom who grew up on a farm.   When she visited, he insisted she drive the tractor around.  Once a farm girl, always a farm girl.

And our granddaughter Jaiden, she has been learning to drive the tractor too.  Can't reach the pedals, but she's quite good at steering.

Company at the Farm

Always lovely to have company out at the farm.    Ward's mom Elsie and her husband Jim joined us for a week of good times and visiting.    Well....almost all good times.....Elsie fell ill with the flu a couple of days.   It is a bummer to get sick on vacation and away from home.

We did manage to get to the Oasis one night for a sunset, several days of eating BBQ and a tour and demonstration of processing at Slow Food Farm.    Mostly though...some good visting and touring our own farm.

Our chicks are getting bigger, but this morning came upon a scene of some cannibalism.   This is the only thing I don't like about chickens.   We've sprayed the ones who have been picked on with some antiseptic and bad tasting deterrent.    Getting ready to move the broilers into the pen.   Maybe they just need more room.   Likely they needed more food.   We moved a larger feeder into the brooder.

We ordered a semi load of hay to get us through the winter.    Such a bummer not to have grass at the end of the summer or the fall.   They say a 40% chance of rain this weekend....and we have high hopes.   Meanwhile, a semi load of round bales means we needed a hay spear.   The multitude of equipment and supplies needed on a farm never end.   We just hope we can get a handle on expenses the best we can.

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!  

I Dig Turtles!

No really I do...let me explain. ( Buy the way this is my first post - Jill has done all the previous posts and since its so hot outside I'm looking for things to do inside where its cool.)
Back to the story - since we have been so lucky to have this extreme drought, I took advantage of the drying pond (they call them tanks in Texas) to dig it out.  The main idea was that when/if it finally does rain we would have a nice new tank that was deeper and would hold more water.  When I was getting close to completing the big dig I noticed a blob of mud was moving.  It turned out to be this Alligator Snapping Turtle.  I cleaned him off and relocated him to our larger pond.

 

He was not too happy at first - he had this eerie low pitched hiss when you got close to him - you might be able to hear it in the video.  Moved another large turtle today but it was not a snapper.

Babies, babies, babies

Several weeks ago, I mentioned to my friend Jennifer from Slow Food Farms that we had several broody hens.    She offered some fertile eggs (she has a rooster...we don't) for the broody hens to sit on.   We placed a dozen eggs in 6 different nest boxes in the mothership and selected our cranky broody hens to sit on them.   We marked on the calendar 21 days and the journey began.   The whole process is fasinating, but there are some particular notes of interest.   The hens sit most of the day and night on the nest, only occasionally getting up to potty, drink and eat.  Ours seemed to get up first thing in the morning when the coop was opened.   The hens know to keep a certain temperature on the eggs.  When they need warmth, they fan their feathers and make a big fluffy tent to cover.  If the eggs are warm enough, they'll stand up a little over the top with their wings jutting out.   The hens are the best incubators, they turn the eggs and will kick a egg out that is rotten!   Finally this past Monday evening, we opened the nest box to discover a little chick!    Like two kids on Christmas morning, the next day  we scrambled out to see if there were more.    5 more!   Wednesday brought us 3 more chicks, and as of this morning, Thursday August 11th, there is one little fluffy baby in there.    We are very excited that our first hatch has brought us this many chicks so far.   And with great probability, we will have a rooster and can start the process all over again soon.

In addition to baby chicks, we have a new calf on the farm.    And it is a HE.   After the incident with the vet, we carefully checked the sex on our new miniature hereford calf.    We knew her mother Betty was expecting.....she looked like she going to explode with milk the past few days.    It is a hot dog day of summer to be giving birth, but the calf looks healthy and beautiful.   And like Ward says...we have another mouth to feed.    We have been feeding hay for many weeks now to the cattle.   We had them on a rotation of fields, but alas, we're at the end of the rotation and the grass on the beginning fields is not sturdy enough for them to come back.   So they are in an upper part of our property that has the last bit of grass and now a big hay ring.    This is the best area for them to camp out for awhile.  There are quite a bit of trees, and the shady glen was perfect for Betty to have her calf.   We're hoping in a few more weeks, the heat will break and bring the animals and US relief.