Pigs 'N Chicks

I realize its been a while since my last post, but there has been a whirlwind of activity around here. It all started last Monday when I and a coworker where talking about raising pigs, before I knew it I was taking ownership of two feeder pigs on Friday. The thought occurred to me "Where am I going to put them?" I did have a small catch pen to house them for a little while, but no permanent pig housing. Panic began setting in, I began work on a small pole barn for the pigs right away, Tuesday I spent all afternoon and evening clearing a wooded area for the barn and dry lot, and cutting and setting cedar posts, Wednesday I finished setting the posts, and started putting sides on the barn, it was about 6:30 pm Wednesday evening when I realized I wasn't going to make it, there was just too much work to be done and the forecast was for rain Thursday, so Thursday was spent in my raincoat setting up the catch pen to hold two rambunctious piggies which meant running two strands of electric fence wire around the perimeter to keep them from rooting out.

         Friday Michelle brought the pigs to their new home, they are Yorkshire and Landrace crosses. We made the decision to get two gilts (that's female in pig language) because we have read that they make for a milder tasting finished product. So, without further a do introducing Ham and Bacon

Ham and Bacon





As most of you know about 23 days ago I loaded up the incubator with 17 fertilized chicken eggs, (we wont mention the first time we attempted it) Well I have been attempting to candle them after day seven without any conclusive results, finally Friday I candled them one more time and concluded that they where all duds, but decided to leave them be for the full 21 days thinking that was Monday.(we won't mention my poor math skills here) Well, when we got home from church Sunday we heard a faint tweet, as we looked at each other thinking some small bird had managed to get into our home, I thought "Surely those eggs didn't hatch? They are not supposed to hatch utill Monday (Again, I stink at math) I ran over to the incubator and.......

When it was all said and done we had 10 brand new babies! Now if you remember we incubated these to have some fresh meat this winter, with that in mind I have told Michelle not to get attached, but I forgot to tell myself. Its going to be hard after watching them being born, but we have to realize that it is all a part of life, even that chicken you buy in the grocery store began as a cute baby chick just like these. We as a society have gotten too far away from our food sources, we see the nice packaging without conceiving that an animal gave it's life for you to eat chicken, in fact, lots of children and an alarming number of adults believe their meat is made in the back of the supermarket. When the day comes, I can say that I will not take it lightly, but with a solemn reminder of the sacrifice of each animal to provide us with a meal.



The Chicken Chores

Today is another beautiful early fall day in Tennessee.The mercury is holding at about 73 degrees, and there is a slight breeze,great day to catch up on some chores. We had rain Sunday and Monday Yay! Over 2 inches according to my rain gauge, thats good news, we needed a good rain, well good news except for the cotton farmers. The cotton is a little soggy.

        I ended up doing my weekly chores today instead of the normal day, Monday. Yesterday after i fed the chickens and collected the eggs, we just stayed indoors and enjoyed breakfast for supper as we like to call it. We had canadian bacon, which in my book is not bacon, but if im going to watch my fat intake (as the doc says) i guess canadian bacon is better than no bacon at all, biscuits, fresh honey, homemade strawberry preserves, scrambled eggs, and tomato gravy, made with a can of our tomatoes. Mm good! Wait I know what your thinking "tomato gravy?" but man is it good, I know what else your thinking " gravy? didn't the doctor  say lower your fat intake?" Hey, I'm A southern boy, what can I say? It's a sin to have biscuits, and no gravy!

                                                   The Weekly Chores

     Ok, back to todays chores. I started out cleaning the old hay out of the nest boxes, this stuff is like gold, it just needs to compost for a while because chicken manure is high in nitrogen and will burn your plants( yep, learned that lesson the hard way) So I put it in one corner of the garden spot to sit for a while. its mostly hay from the nest boxes and under the loafing shed.

Next I put fresh hay in the nest boxes, to which the girls responded by remaking their nests. I am a little messy with the hay, I just shove it in, and watch them organize it into a pretty little nest.

The roosters came over to inspect their work. My wife would say "typical male." but I digress.

I save all my empty feed sacks, learned that from my neighbor Mike, the real farmer (I'm just a wanna be) these things come in handy for every thing. I have used them to store hay in, line the brooder box, to lay on the ground when I'm workin on a car, store stuff in them, provide temporary shade for rabbits, dispose of the occasional dead bird (learned that one from the neighbor too) I even save the little tags on the bottom as scratch paper, (learned that one from the neighbor too). I'm starting to see a pattern emerging here.

      After that I decided it would be a good idea to feed them, since one of them had not stopped pulling on the top of my boot since I got in there. Guess that goes back to my role as Cheif Chicken Chowline Operator (see workforce page for more info) For some reason when I hear that bird talk in my mind (that's another blog) it speaks with  a spanish accent and says"Yo quiero Purina" kinda like the Taco Bell dog.  I know, weird.

After feeding and watering them, I made my exit thinking "am I forgetting something? Nah" And about that time I looked back and saw the basket of eggs hanging off the corner of the shelter, DUH. Don't tell the boss hehe. (refer to workforce page for Michelle's job description for more Info)

A Moonlit Stroll

Well today has been another lovely day, a bit warmer, but all in all real pretty. My Thursdays are usually  spent preparing for Sunday's sermon. This week a passage in John Chapter 10 caught my eye, its the good shepherd passage. Its such a beautiful picture of our relationship with Christ, There is one verse that really stands out to me; when Jesus is speaking of "laying down" His life for the sheep He says "I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again". Wow, That's so rich. There was no power on earth that could have held Jesus on that cross against His will, it was not the nails that held Him, it was His love for you and I, not only did He have the authority to lay it down, He had the authority to take it up again, and that He did. Well to hear more I guess you will just have to come Sunday. After I got to a stopping point, I went outside to catch up on some mowing, and then settled down in my favorite lawn chair for some reading on my kindle while the squirrels played in the oak trees. Michelle and I went for a evening stroll around the pasture after supper. It was a great time to talk and just be together, it really doesn't matter to me what we do, as long as we do it together, I am so blessed to call her my wife. Well until next time, good night and God bless.

One thousand views!!! Thanks!

I notice as I write this post that we have reached 1007 views on our little blog. thank you so much for spending part of your day with us reading about our little adventures. Without you this blog would just be a diary so from both of us, thanks.

Beautiful Day

This afternoon was beautiful, there was a gentle breeze and a comfortable 81 degrees. As soon as I got home from work I went to buy chicken feed at our small (very small) town's hardware store. To my suprise the price had gone down about a dollar a bag. Things hardly ever go DOWN in price so it was a pleasant suprise. When I got back home and unloaded and put away the feed, the chickens where getting restless, it was as if they where saying; "Hey, food guy, your late!"Somehow they know when I make my rounds, and if I'm a little late, the natives get restless. So I fed them and  put new hay in the nest boxes. To which they responded by organizing the hay into neat little nests.
    Got the frame finished on the little chicken tractor, It didnt take long at all, and for a change it seems pretty sturdy. ( you would have to have seen my other projects to know what I mean) Whne I had finished that I stood there and admired my work. I get a strange sense of satisfaction from making something useful out of something most people would have thrown out. My mom says I get this farming, gardening, simple living from her grandmother.I remember my great grandma Bradford quite well, she died when I was eight but i remember her home quite well, in todays vernacular it would have been called a homestead, but to her it was just getting by. I remember she had every kind of fruit tree imaginable; apples, pears, plums, peaches, figs. she had all of them and she didnt waste anything. I think maybe moms right, maybe i do get this bug if you will from her. Maybe part of that strange sense of satisfaction is grandmommo looking down from heaven and saying, good job great grandson.
        I stood there enjoying the beautiful afternoon, watched the birds for a while.  I know some of you are thinking ; "This guy is out of his gourd watching chickens", and maybe some of you are right , I am a little out of my gourd, but i still love it. Maybe more people should spend their afternoons taking care of creatures other than ourselves, maybe their would be less violence and laziness in the world.
      I do love to just watch them scratch around and mingle, and cluck happy chicken sounds. I have noticed some of the birds have picked their favorite  rooster ( we have three) some hang out with big daddy ( our new Hampshire rooster) and a few others hang out with fat Albert ( rhode island red rooster) while others just Hang out by themselves. Brave, our other rhode island  rooster, we call him brave because he only has one tail feather left, tries to impress the ladies  with his rugged (if not down right funny lookin...bless his heart) good looks, and when that doesn't work he commences to chasing them around the pasture untill they get tired or he does, he is our comic relief. Well thats enough banter for today thanks for stopping by and reading the blog, Ya'll come back now, Ya hear. Good night and God bless.

Incubator Murder

I can see the headlines now; Man kills chicken babies. Ok well its not murder it was an accident so maybe its just chicken-salughter. Here is what happened, the incubator is in our utility room which gets hot during the day and cold at night, sure enough it got kinda cold in there and the incubator went down to 91 degrees. Now that may sound plenty warm bt not for hatching eggs, it needs to be 91, so we compensated and turned the thermostat up on the incubator. 10 hours later when i got home the incubator was 117! thats way too hot. So its back to the drawing board, got some new eggs and started over.
      Got some more work done on the chicken tractor these chicks are going to live in (that is if i stop killing them) I was able to get the vertical supports and two of the top side borads up, I know right, it looks like an upside down table with no top, but I'm going to be a chicken tractor some day (sung with my best Billy Joe Shaver impersonation)

Chicken Tractor

We have about 25 eggs incubating away in the Incubator, and the ones that hatch are destined to fill our freezer this winter. The bad news is I don't have a home for them yet. I cant put them with the older birds because they are just too young to be with those birds, so I have to build something that will keep them safe from predators and yet allow them to be on the pasture.The answer is a small chicken tractor in the likeness of Joel Salatins broiler pens. Just as everything else around here, cost is always an issue. I was able to salvage several 8 foot 2x4's from whats left of an old shed floor that I had torn down, they where slightly worse from wear havng several nails as well as some minor surface rot. After about an hour of removing nails and planing the board edges I  had some decent boards for building that didn't cost me a dime. Yesterday I was able to finish the base of the rectangular box, the dimensions will be 4 foot wide by 8 feet long by 3 feet high, plenty big for a few broilers.
        Today is the third day of incubation and we are hoping to be able to candle them in a few more days. Candling is the process of shining a bright light onto the egg to see whats on the inside. Chickens take 21 days to hatch. on the second day the embryo's have a tiny heart, by the third day it has a head and tiny wings and eyes, and by seven days it has all the features of a chicken only tiny and undeveloped.

I can't see anything yet, will check again in a few days

New Incubator

Incubator

We have been toying with the idea of an incubator for about a year now, and finally we where able to find a used one for a good price. I had to drive an hour to see it but it was worth it. It is a little Giant still air incubator with automatic egg turner. After letting it run for a few hour to make sure we could regulate the temperature properly, we loaded it with eggs last night. Now we play the waiting game, most say you can begin to see the embryo around 3-7 days so we wait. We are incubating 17 chicken eggs that are due to hatch in October, 21 days from today. These birds are destined for the freezer, hopefully by around thanksgiving they will be around 3.5 to 4 pounds which is the perfect size for the freezer.

New (to us anyway) Incubator

This winter, say around mid to late February, we will incubate another round of chicks to sell to the public. I found a farmer in our area that raises royal palm turkeys, as soon as i can come up with where to put them i want to buy three of them, a tom and two hens, we will also incubate turkey eggs next spring, these too will be mostly freezer fodder except for one or two to add back into the breeding program. So as you can see we have lots of plans for this piece of equipment. Thanks for reading our blog, and God Bless

Wednesday September 19

Well the past two days here have been marvelous weather wise. It's been a great two days to catch up on some of those chores I've been putting off. Took out a sumac tree that was trying to take over the shed, when I got that cleared I noticed a few more small scrub saplings that needed to come out before I knew it I had a pretty good brush pile built up.
I was reading an article today from Mother earth news online that talks about having a one acre homestead, the title kind of surprised me, could it really be possible to have a homestead on just one acre?
So I read on thinking it would pretty much just consist of a small garden, some fruit trees, some chickens and maybe a couple of raspberry bushes, but the writer had come up with a plan to have a little less than a half acre garden, a half acre pasture area for 1 milk cow and 1 sow, and a small area for a dozen chickens. I thought to myself "how ingenious".Now of course the Half acre pasture wouldn't be able to support the cow and the sow full time, so the author had it set up to where they would be in the barn part of the time with daily controlled access to the pasture. He. Also had the pasture set up on a four year rotation where once every 4 years the pasture would be the garden. Be also had as part of the garden growing fodder for the animals, as well as the sow eating the left over dairy. He even had income from selling a calf once a year and selling some of the litter or two of pigs after keeping a few back for your own sausage and bacon supply. So altogether out of This simple plan a family could haves all the milk they need, fresh eggs and chicken, meat, and plenty of vegetables to last much of the year, all on one acre. So that got me optimistic, if he could do all of that on one acre just think how much we could accomplish on three. It's got my wheels turning. Oh by the way you can read the article online by searching one acre homestead mother earth news

Monday September 17

It's been a rainy day today, we got a little over an inch between last night's and today's rain, I went out to gather eggs this afternoon expecting to only have a few, since it has been overcast all day and hens usually don't lay as well when there is not a lot of light. But to my surprise they laid 17! After I got them fed and collected, sorted, and cleansed the eggs I settled in my favorite chair with my kindle. It's a really good day to read, besides theres not much I can do in the rain. I posted another recipe on our Facebook page today(www.facebook.com/dogwoodhillfarm) you will just have to go there and check it out. Well I guess since some of you may not do the Facebook thing I can tell you it was a recipe for a "toad in a hole) I ended up making one so I could have one to post a picture of. I decided to feed it to our inside dogs; buddy and K.C. They love Cooked eggs for a treat. I guess I could have eaten it, but being so close to supper time I didn't want to spoil my appetite as my grandmother used to say. Buddy is a terrier mix (rat and something else) K.C (short for kindness and charity) is a chinpin (half chiwawa half min pin) they are both rotten but I had nothing to do with that, well maybe a little bit. Well Michelle will be home in a moment guess I better wrap this up, untill next time.

Saturday September 15

Well, we had a good night at the auction, I was able to buy some tarps, they where a little smaller than I was looking for but for $2 I will make it work. I ended up buying three. By the time I got home I had an idea of how to use them, some extra t posts, rope, scrap lumber( what i saved from tearing down the old rabbit building) and bailing wire to make my rendition of a loafing shed( a shed with no walls just a roof) except mine would have one wall. This morning michelle and I got up early and commenced to moving the chickens to a new piece of pasture, once we had the fence set up I went about constructing the loafing shed. I am happy with the way it turned out, it doesn't look like much. But hey, in farming form should always follow function. We got the chickens back in the fence and watched them go to town for a while on all that fresh grass. I guess this stuff is just in my blood. I am whipped, but I get a lot of satisfaction out of taking care of those animals, not to mention saving money in the process. Total cost of the little shed; 22.25 I only used 2 of the tarps and about a quarters worth of rope (also an auction buy)

Friday september 14

        Well it's finally Friday and I am off Saturday for a change. Didn't get much done today but we have a busy day tomorrow. We are moving the chickens to a new section of pasture in the morning, they have been in the garden for the past few weeks clearing out everything that was left and laying down plenty of fertilizer for next year. That's the neat thing about raising chickens on pasture, you get free labor, the chickens spread their own manure, they remove all the bugs, and they even till it up a little when they scratch around. This next move will be one of the last times we move them until spring, since our grass will go dormant this fall.

       We are going to build a PVC hoop house and cover it in plastic and place hay bedding to a depth of about three inches. I got this idea from Joel salatin's book "you can farm" he houses his layers in hoop houses in the winter and at the beginning of spring plants corn or other plants in the fertilizer Rich bedding. So that's what we want to do house them in there until early march and plant some vegetables in there.
     Tonight I'm on my way to a local auction with michelle and my mom, who by the way has become an auction junkie. Sometimes they have some good stuff and sometimes it's a bust. We have lucked out and got some farming items, but we will see what the have tonight. I'm hoping to find a good deal on tarps, but we will see. Thanks for reading our blog

Thursday September 13

Sorry its been so long since my last blog, we have been busy as little bees around here. The chickens are laying very well, we really didn't expect to get eggs this soon so we are ecstatic over their production level, today we had 15 eggs out of 22 hens. That's very respectable for such young birds.
To give you a good idea about our routine with the chickens; I get home around 3 in the afternoon come in and get the egg basket and the bucket of garden scraps ( mostly just okra now , we put in peelings and ends from various garden produce and feed it to the birds with their ration.) I weigh out their feed and put it in the feeding trough, and while they go to town I collect the eggs from the nests, at this point I check their waterers, inspect their overall health and head in to sort and wash the eggs. Once inside I rinse the eggs in a natural chemical free egg wash for 15 minutes; then rinse then off in cold water and dry them on a towel. Any that I find cracked or broken I make a note of how many and set them to the side for me or the dogs.( they love fried eggs.) I
then put them in cartons and mark with a date . That's pretty much it, takes about Half an hour.
The fence is coming along good, I have all the posts in place and starting on the corner braces and the gate braces I'm using a product my neighbor told me about called wedge loc, it works quite well. It makes putting in braces fairly simple.(I will include a picture) well thats all the time i have for now, untill next time

Todays haul



this is the bracing system i am using for the fence.



Corner brace up close

Pea-pickin' chickn'

Its has been a busy week, I just finished publishing a post that I wrote almost two weeks ago. So if you notice two posts on the same day, that's why. Our garden is winding down, the squash and cucumbers and the like are gone, and only tomatoes and okra remain. we planted three rows of zipper cream peas that never really got started good, we didn't even get enough for a good "mess" as we call it in the south. they went from green to dry because of the drought. I finally decided to run it all down and fence that whole area in for the chickens. there is plenty of grass and pea vines, not to mention weeeds in there to keep them busy for a while, and there are a few pea pods left over for them to scratch up. We turned them in there Saturday morning and they are in high cotton. (or should i say high peas?) the pea vines and grass are starting to raise back up after i ran them down with the mower, and they are having a good old time digging for bugs and other goodies. so even though my peas weren't worth a hill of beans to me, they are like buried treasure to the birds.

    I planted one cantaloupe plant this year, and as I watched it grow it did not have a single melon in sight. I almost pulled it out of the ground but decided to hold off. A day or two later Michelle and I where in the garden picking, She was picking tomatoes and noticed something that was either the biggest green tomato history has ever seen, or something else was growing amongst the tomatoes. sure enough it was a cantaloupe! a good 10 feet from the plant, there was just one runner that ran from the cantaloupe plant over to a row of tomatoes. I picked it today and cant wait to slice it up, sprinkle with a little salt, and enjoy. Sure am glad I didn't pull it up.

     Michelle is staying busy these days canning tomatoes, the shelves are starting to fill up and the vines are still producing, but we eat alot of tomatoes and we are hoping for around 40 jars, so far we have about 15, and i just picked a three gallon bucket full to overflowing. Maybe we will hit our goal. Thats all for now, thanks for reading.

    

Tarzan and the girls



Tarzan The Rooster



Hi everyone, thanks again for reading our blog. It's very exciting to see how many of you are reading our blog and where you are from. It's been a few days since I have posted we have had a fairly busy week. It all started Wednesday morning, michelle noticed that our water pressure was dropping when she watered the chickens. Not long after that the water just stopped, the well had just stopped. Of course I assumed the worst thinking that the pump had gone out. The next day a friend from church came out to take a look at it and found the problem, the pressure switch had worn out. We quickly replaced it and we where back in business. We where so blessed that our friend could fix it for us, it is so good to have a church family to help each other out.

When we ordered our chicks from the hatchery they gave us a free "exotic" and that's about all we know about this guy. He has multiple Colored feathers, but the strangest feature about this young rooster are his green feet, yes I said green. He is a funny looking devil, but he is a good rooster, and a pretty one to boot. If any of you have ever raised young roosters you know this curious calls they use as they are learning how to crow. They sound something like Peter Brady when would sing with his voice changing. They don't start off with the usual cock-a-doodle-doo , it's usually a one or two note crow mor like er-r-r. But ole green foot has a certain signature crow that sounds a little like Tarzan swinging through the trees, so I decided to name him Tarzan

Saturday evening we decided to go to our neighbors u-pick blueberry patch and pick some berries. We had fun just picking berries and talking, it sure makes the picking easier when you have someone in the patch to talk to.

Pickn' in the garden

This afternoon I came home from work and the recliner was calling my name, but I knew If I sat dow in that recliner, I would have never finished the chores, the garden was in dier need of picking. I went straight down to the shed to get a bushel basket and started picking. I hit the cucumbers first. The slicing variety is really being affected by the hot weather and the drought, they feel a little soft but they will crisp up in the fridge... I hope! The pickling cukes are handling things a little better, but its just about curtains for the pickling ones, we planted them about a month before we planted the slicers. The squash is pretty much played out as we say here in the south. then  it was on to the three rows of tomatoes, and they are loaded. Probably picked a half a bushel basket full. Looks like the next few afternoons are going to be spent canning. We raw pack our tomatoes in pints and quarts, the pickling cukes are made into bread and butter pickles. The recipe I use is pretty intensive, we soak them in salt for an hour, rinse them off and bring the pickles almost to a boil before putting them in jars. It is an out of sight recipe, I have had so many compliments on them from coworkers and friends that I think I will stick with this recipe, it's worth the trouble.

Speaking of preserving, we also dry a lot of things from the garden. Our neighbors taught us a lot about drying food. We have learned how to dry Cherry tomatoes, squash, and all sorts of things. I've had a dryer for years and never used it, but after learning from our neighbors we use it all the time. My favorite thing to dry is hot peppers like cayenne. You just remove the seeds and membranes from the pods, and cut them into strips with a pair of scissors, and dry them. How long should I dry them you might ask? Until their dry, of course haha. That's what my neighbor tells me when I ask him and yet I still fall for it every time. But it's true, every dryer is different so just check your manual. Another thing I like to dry is basil. It's the only herb that survived my first attempt at an herb garden. It's pretty prolific stuff, I just dried the leaves whole and crumble them up in a spice container. By the way, the last time i dried cayennes I halved them, removed the membrane, and dried them that way, and just crumbled them up afterwards.

                                                                  Hogs on the brain

I've been thinking about getting a hog or two, I have the perfect place in mind for them , the old catch pen we used to keep a momma goat and her baby. We have plenty of garden waste to fatten one or two up for the fall. If any of you have ever ventured into raising livestock, you know the hardest part is convincing your spouse. Michelle is on board, it didn't take a lot of convincing to get her to go along, but of course she is married to me and is used to my hair-brained ideas. I guess she thought "it could be worse, at least its not camels or something" (note to self; where can i get my hands on a camel). I think raising then would be a good learning experience for us. Just have to make sure we don't get to attached to them. Maybe I will name them tenderloin, and bacon.

Creativity before Capitol



Here is the waterer in use.



I first heard of this phrase in a training class at work,like its some new idea, but it's not. Its been around a long time, Farmers have always been trying to save money by making something yourself or just making do with what you have.

       You can spend a lot of money raising chickens, I have known folks who spent hundreds of dollars on fancy painted chicken coops and then go out and buy expensive waterers and feeders that cost an arm and a leg. They even say look at all the money I'm saving raising my own chickens, when in fact it would take centuries for those eggs to pay for themselves. I have raised chickens for several years starting off with just a few hens, to currently raising 27. I have also spent too much money on products that either don't work well or don't last. I am afraid to add up what I have spent on drinkers alone. I tried the plastic ones they where a pain to fill and tote around, I shelled out big bucks for a metal one that rusted out in less than a year. When I bought this last batch of birds I wanted to buy a nice range waterer, so I drove on down to the farm supply store and got sticker shock. 50 bucks for one waterer, and I needed two at least! I don't know about you but that's a lot of eggs to sell to get that kind of money. So,  I went about researching how to make my own and stumbled on some that where ok, but not real practical.  I took those ideas and came up with my own. I took a 5 gallon bucket and drilled two 1/4 inch holes in the bottom of the bucket just above the bottom, I took a metal pan from the farm store that's big enough for the bucket to fit in with enough room around it for the birds to get a drink. I made sure my holes would be below the lip of the metal pan. I put a gamma lid in the top of the bucket so I could remove and replace the lid to add water. If you can find the bucket lid with the little screw on cap that will work too, but I couldn't find any so I used the slightly more expensive gamma lid. To fill it you simply take of the lid fill it with water and screw the lid back on, instant range waterer. The pans where $3.00, the buckets where about $2.50, and the lids where $6.00, for a grand total of $11.50 each. They work easier than any waterer I have ever used. Their easy to fill, easy to clean,and the the water is always fresh and clean and  the birds love them.

For a feeder we needed something that would hold the feed and any scraps from the garden or the kitchen. To my knowledge they don't sell any thing at the store to fit that bill. It just so happened that we had some left over PVC that is cut in half lengthwise, I would say that it was 6 inch PVC or so. The section I had was about 5 feet long. I originally had it as a feed trough for goats, but it works really well for the chickens. We can put their feed in it as well as all the garden scraps we have. The cost? Absolutely free, it was given to me by another farmer that didn't need it anymore but it has found a home here. 

Here is one of the metal pans we use as the base of the waterer

If you are wondering what I mean by garden scraps It's the peelings and end pieces of squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. instead of throwing them out we feed them to the chickens, they love them and they're good for them. Sometimes we find a cuke that we missed that is a little too far gone for us to eat, but to the chickens it is a real treat. They eat the seeds out first and then finish off the rest. This may sound strange to some, but this is the way people have raised livestock  for centuries, and it makes us feel good that nothing is wasted.

Here is one of the two holes i drilled in the bottom of the buckets. this is the first one i made and i made the holes too far up on the bucket,  its still works but not as well, it likes to overflow.

Pasture-ized poultry

Well it's about time I introduced you to some of the animals here on the farm. We have 24 young egg layers called "pullets" they are about 10 weeks old and have not started laying yet.


A few of the gals. Notice there are some bare spots still left from our drought

I call them "pasture-ized" poultry because we raise them on pasture much like goats or cattle. They roam about within their fenced in area called a paddock, which is just a small section of a larger pasture. The fence they are in is electric poultry netting which is a flexible fence that is electrified with a fence charger.  Don't worry the birds don't really get shocked, it is not to keep the birds in as much as it is to keep predators out. Here in west Tennessee we have coyotes, fox, possums, weasels, raccoons and owls that really love a good chicken dinner. We  recently lost an entire flock of chickens to the masked bandits (raccoons) and this system is a result of tough lessons learned. We move the fence every so many weeks to keep the grass fresh.



Many people ask me why we go through all this trouble, why don't we just put them in a coop. I chuckle a little when I am asked that knowing what I know about the benefits of raising chickens on pasture. I understand that for many people this is what they imagine when they think of chickens, or maybe they remember back to when grandma had the old hen house, and if thats what grandma did that's the only way to do it. But if we look back to great grandma she let he birds roam around the yard eating bugs and scratching through the grass.





Here is the poultry netting and the charger that powers it



So why do I choose to raise my chickens on pasture? I thought you'd never ask. For one it's just healthier for the birds. They get plenty of fresh air and sunshine, they get all the bugs they care to eat, they get a free salad bar ( for those who have not read one of Joel Sallatin's books, thats fresh grass) its just a more natural way to raise poultry. When Michelle and I first began writing down our farming philosophy,one of the things we both felt was important was humane animal husbandry. What does that mean? It means let the goats be goats and the chickens be chickens. Chickens in the wild where not confined to poop filled coops and processed feed, they foraged for their food, eating bugs and grass and seeds. Now don't misunderstand me, we still feed traditional chicken feed to supplement their natural diet. The second reason is that the eggs are out of this world! Hold up a store bought egg or even a coop raised egg next to one that is layed by a pasture raised hen you will immediately notice the difference. The yolk is a bright orange color, the whites are so defined the yolk actually stands up on the whites. Taste it and you will have tasted the most flavorful, richest, creamiest egg you have ever tasted. Cook that egg in a cake or a pie and you will not stop getting compliments on how rich it is. There are even more unseen benefits, studies show that eggs raised in this fashioned are lower in cholesterol and higher in omega 3 fatty acids, why one might even say eating a pasture-ized egg is akin to taking a vitamin.




Our New Hampshire rooster

Those buckets are our range waterers they cost a fraction of what the store bought ones do and work even better

Farming in the rain

We have had a very dry June, so it is a welcomed sight to see the rains we've had in July so far. Today has been one of those rainy days with periods of no rain to misty rain to downright downpours. Most folks would just enjoy a lazy day indoors, but when you have livestock they must be cared for every day regardless of the weather. We have 26 pastured laying hens that roam about on a section of pasture enclosed with electric poultry netting . Every so often we move the fence to a new section of our small pasture. Today just happened to be the day they needed to be moved. The longer they stay in one spot the less grass they have for eating (which really saves us on feed costs) and the more manure is deposited on the soil, a little is good fertilizer, but too much will burn the grass since it is so high in nitrogen. We did our best to pick a lull in the scattered showers, but as soon as we moved the birds to the small holding pen and got the fence down the sky just let loose, it came a good ole gully washer. Our only choice was to work in the rain. We got the fence back up in record time and got the shelter moved and the waterers back in place and headed indoors. When we arrived in doors we had more work ahead of us. Our large garden is in full swing, there where cucumbers and tomatoes to can as well as apples and basil to dry.

Earlier this morning the neighbor and I went on a feed run. Since we both raise poultry we just made one trip between us. Picked up 100 pounds of chicken feed that will hopefully last us about a month if our pasture holds out. The grass is just now growing again after the dry spell. Growing good green pasture is becoming one of our biggest concerns now.
All this may seem like pure drudgery to some, but we absolutely love it. There is nothing like watching those chickens scratch around in that fresh pasture, or seeing a beautiful stand of sweet corn, or opening the cupboards and seeing jar after jar of homemade pickles,jellies, salsa, and tomato sauce that you made. This is why we choose to live on three acres and a dream.

What is three acres and a dream about

Three acres and a dream was created by my wife michelle and myself (Anthony). Three years ago we bought our home that sits on three acres of land. (thats the three acres part of the title) It has been our goal to one day be able to make a living right here on our small farm called dogwood hill farm. (that's the dream part of the title)
Well, now that you understand the title I can get to writing. Our goal is in 7 years to be living only off the income we receive from the farm. Right now we both have full time jobs in town . Why such a long time frame you might ask? Well two reasons; 1) in order to live of the farm income we need to be as close to debt free as we can. This means in the meantime we need to pay off as much debt as we can. There really is not that much, since we don't use credit cards. just a car note, a small personal loan from the bank, and of course our mortgage payment. We realize that we are not going to be able to pay our mortgage off in seven years, but we hope to make a large dent in it.
2) since it would be expensive, not to mention fool hardy to rush in at full production, we need to slowly ramp up the process. This way we can cash flow each enterprise instead of digging ourselves deeper in debt. There are other benefits of this progressive approach, it gives us a chance to make mistakes and learn from them while we are still working off the farm. Mistakes made at the peak of production could ruin our business. It's much easier to learn when the operation is small, and we still have our jobs to fall back on.
Well, I suppose that Is enough for today. Tune in tomorrow for the rest of the story