New Roof on the Egg Mobile and a New Ram

Today Bill and I finished up the roof on the egg mobile. We had to take off the old tarp because it was tattered after less than a year. We've been using recycled billboards now and they are so much stronger than tarps. Would you believe they sent us one that was our laughing chicken green? Kansas City Power and Light uses the same green. Who knew? Thanks guys! The words that show under the roof are "Innovative" and "Dynamic". Just the kind of inspiration I need to see when we go collect the eggs. Soon our new flock should be laying. Our market regulars will be thrilled. They've been lining up for the few dozen we bring and I hate to disappoint people when we run out.

Our new ram arrived on Sunday afternoon. Lewis and Janice Cox brought him to us and I am so grateful because we don't own a livestock trailer. He was especially enamored with Pearl this morning. Here is a picture of him whispering sweet nothings to her. The two of them cuddled all day. So sweet. The lambs should come in February. Oh, to hold a new lamb in my arms. Is there anything better? Sigh.

Blueberry the troublemaker.

Getting ready for church Sunday morning, checking on everyone before I go. "Baaa Baaaa BAAAAAA!" What is going on? Blueberry Muffin is tangled again in the electric netting and wearing it like a necktie. How do you catch a sheep without breaking a plastic net? As soon as I got close to her she started dragging it and raking it against the chainlink on the dog kennel. I caught hold of the net, worked my way to her and jumped on top of Blueberry. She yanked and kicked. I wrestled her to the ground and we both took a breather. We must be evenly matched wrestling partners. I eased her head and legs out of the netting and yes, she broke a bit of it, but not badly. As soon as she was free, we both stood up and shook the dust off. Some whole corn lured the three of them back into their night time kennel. I gave them a big flake of hay to chew on until we got back from church. The net could be untangled later. I was just glad to have found her before we left. She would have been baking in the sun with no way to get to the water or rolled tighter into the net. Thank you Lord for watching out for us!

One step forward, two steps back.

Here we are on our 18th batch of chicks this year. That means we've had over 2000 chickens live out happy lives here. Whew! That's a lot of chickens! Recently we've had a frustrating development. The last 7 or 8 batches have had migets in them. It started out with one small one running around under the big guys. We thought it was cute and kept her as a pet for a while and let her run around with the laying hens. Then we saw three and four in the next batch we received. Now we're up to 17 t0 20 tiny sized chicks to a batch and it's not cute anymore. We've tracked the situation, called our hatchery, sent pictures, switched hatcheries and still this is happening. Here are pictures of the last batch of chicks the very same day they arrived in the mail. You can clearly see a difference in size. The other picture is of two 4 week old birds from the same batch. These small guys just don't grow. ....but they love to eat! We've switched hatcheries once again to find a different gene pool. It seems many hatcheries get their eggs from the same source in Arkansas. Ideal hatchery in Texas hatches out their own, so we'll see if the big stuff really does come from Texas.

It's been so frustrating because the summertime is when we usually get our bigger growth and this year it just hasn't been there. The birds are still healthy, but dress out much smaller. I've even given some away on freecycle when they were too small even for our Mini catagory. Such is the world of farming. We let the last batch of chickens grow for an extra week and they did get big enough for some Mediums and a few Larges. The next batch we dress out on Monday looks like it could be a mixed lot. We'll see.

On a happier note, The turkeys are growing like crazy! They love to eat grass and I even heard a gobble this morning. Our list of customers wanting one is growing too. It was a scary thing ordering the chicks without knowing if they would sell, but God is blessing it. They are so much fun to raise. I may see if I can sell them next summer too.

The Trap

Okay. We're getting serious now. I lost my last duck yesterday and it's not funny. We think there are 12 chickens gone now. Haven't seen all the casualties, we've just seen the empty spaces in the egg cartons. A dozen eggs a day less adds up. This predator is costing us. So.....thanks to our friends John and Margie Knot, we now have the big trap set where the chickens used to be. We moved the egg mobile and as soon as we can inch it up towards the hot wire, we'll get an electric net around the flock.

The trap worked right away. Just like it was supposed to, but we forgot to tell the chickens that they are supposed to stay on the outside and whatever is eating them is supposed to go on the inside. Good thing we found her.

Just like Christmas!

Oh boy have we been having fun with new toys here on the farm! First we got our new carport over our processing area. What a difference. We processed Monday with a cool breeze blowing through the shade. Ahhhhh. Then Bill made a bunch more carrying cages for getting the chickens from the tractor to the processing area. We'll be able to carry 80 to 100 birds. You can see them stacked on the right side of the carport.

Last, but not least (my favorite) we got our first three sheep. Janice and Lewis Cox from Oak Lane farm in Lake City have wonderful breeding stock. We ended up with a Katahdin, a Katahdin cross, and a Florida Native cross. They are all ewes and will be ready to breed next month. They're getting to know us and we're getting to know how to be shepherds. They even know my name. When they see me with the feed bucket they say, "Maaaaa."

I love having them and we'll be ready to harvest our first lambs next year.

The turkeys have arrived.

Hurray for Thanksgiving! I love turkeys. They are the cutest! Even when they get big and funny looking their personalities make them a joy to raise. Today we received our first shipment. I've ordered 45 for the season, 15 at a time. They are raised with the broilers because the chickens teach them how to live. They have to watch the chickens eat to know where the food is. Yet they are constantly looking for something different to peck. Like my ring. If the market for turkeys is good enough, I'd love to raise them all season long.

The thief has been seen!

Lately we had some sad events here. Something killed one duck, then three more ducks. Not just for food, mind you, but for fun and left the victims lay in the grass. Then, the same something came in broad daylight while we were at church and massacred four chickens. Feathers were everywhere. The casualties were heavy. I was angry and filled with a feeling of helplessness. So much for our "vigilant" guard dogs. Worthless.

Bill took a walk into the woods the next day and spotted a very large raccoon running away. He must have developed a taste for our chickens and was coming in for more. We moved the Egg Mobile and we are taking the dogs down into the woods at different times during the day. We may have scared him off, but I dare not get complacent. The electric netting is going up as quickly as we can get the grounding stakes in the ground. It's amazing how much impact losing four layers has made on our egg production. Four less eggs a day adds up to more than two dozen a week we won't be collecting. It makes me realize how valuable each creature is to the whole system. On a happier note, Our remaining two female ducks are doing fine after getting over the trauma and have begun to lay. I set them up in a new house in the garden, but the first opportunity they had they waddled back to the old cage and put themselves inside. I guess that's were they'll be staying for now.