PayPal Button

Last night I added a PayPal button to the left hand side of the blog post. Here is a rundown of how purchasing a bird from us works.

1. Deposit
We cannot guarantee that we won't run out of birds. Last year we ran out of turkeys, we could have sold a lot more than we raised. With that in mind if you want a bird, your best chance to ensure that you get one is to put a deposit down, today.

2. Shipping
We don't ship. If you live local and are willing to come fetch your bird, then go ahead and put your deposit down.

3. Poultry Types
We sell two types of birds: Turkeys and Broiler Chickens. Broiler Chickens are fat balls of feathers and muscle. We are Free Ranging them for half their life so the leg meat will be a little larger this year than last year. The turkeys we raise are Mammoth Bronze and because we Free Range/Pasture them for the bulk of their life they will have equal amounts of dark and white meat.

4. Ready Dates
The Broiler Chickens will be ready mid to late June. It all depends on when my husband has time to process them. We will be doing a second batch of Broiler Chickens to be ready closer to fall so if you miss out this first time you will have a second chance. The turkeys will be ready before Thanksgiving. We will call you when we know an exact day and when you can pick them up.

5. Pricing

• Broiler Chickens (before deposit) are a flat rate of $15, unless it is larger than 6lbs and then it is $3/per pound
• Turkeys (before deposit) are $3/per pound. Last year the turkeys ranged from 14-22lbs (maybe some were  a little heavier too). When you come pick up your turkey, you also may choose which one you take home.
• The deposit amount is credited to you when you pick up your bird. So for a Broiler Chicken on pick up day your bird will cost you $5 (or more if your bird is huge) if you have put down a $10 deposit.

6. Taste

We did a taste test during our open house in March. I was nervous about it, what if our chicken didn't taste better? I will have a whole blog post dedicated to that experiment by the end of May 2014.

White Blanket

When we went to bed last night it was snowing. When we woke up this morning we were greeted with a small layer of snow on the ground. It's just enough snow to make things messy while driving, delay school, make snowballs for the dog to chase, and build a few snowmen. Its pretty much the best way to start the morning. 

Today Jason took the day off to process the broilers and the layers. The broilers have reached their full size and so today he will process all twenty-two of them. It has been a short nine weeks with these chickens. At times it's been a little rough raising them in the cold of the fall. A few times when we've gone down to tend them they've been a little chilly and we've needed to add more warming lights for them. 

We are culling over half our laying flock today too. They aren't keeping up their end of the bargain, by laying enough eggs to pay for their grain. We will keep the seven hens we bought this year in addition to Charcoal the Rooster, and Twig the Broody Hen. In the spring we will purchase more laying hens. 

We are keeping Twig in hopes that she will raise the new chicks for us. We have a neighbor who let their hen sit on a bunch of eggs for the appropriate amount of weeks, and then slipped day old chicks under her. She then raised the chicks herself. If that works than we can do the same thing with her and broilers too and raise meat birds any time of the year.

The ducks don't mind the snow. This is their second year with snow. They waddle around the barnyard looking for scraps and morsels. There isn't much for them to eat under the snow, but they persist. It's quite entertaining to watch them dig in the snow with their bills.

In addition to all the chicken processing Jason's Dad hit a small deer with his truck on Friday. The deer is hanging in our garage waiting to be made into ground venison. Looks like the freezer is going to be full this winter. God certainly provides!

Around Here

We've been keeping busy around the farm. Between picking up pears, peeling pears, canning pears, and eating pears we've been making salsa, playing with our turkeys, and receiving a new batch of broilers in the mail. Nothing like a little work to make your day go faster!

Stomper loves pears. He eats four a day when he's outside. It's a treat for me to watch him pick one up from the ground and just take a big bite. The pears have really cut down on the grocery bill! The turkeys really like the pears too. If we throw just one in they will chase each other to get it! It's pretty funny. I feel certain that one of the reasons God gave us animals was for entertainment purposes. We love to watch our turkeys run. Mom thinks they look prehistoric and I agree!

We bought a second batch of broilers. Our freezer has one chicken left in it, we are saving it for our Harvest Party in November. Mom has a chicken soup recipe she wants to try and it will be perfect for our harvest celebration!

This week-end marked the first day in preparing for a new adventure. Dad would like to try and raise sheep. The first step is to clear the field. We rented a bush hog and set aside two days to cut, trim, and clear the field. The men managed to clear about half the field. The rest they will work on as they have time. Maybe, just maybe, in a year we will have sheep!

List Making

Layers in their new yard 

"Easter Egger" 

...Pig Piling Turkeys...

Silver Laced Wynodette 

"Broiler" Cornish-Rock Cross

In March I posted about our to do list for the spring. It was a little lengthy and quite daunting. This is what our list looks like now!

• Fence in the barnyard :: there is quite a lot of debate on to what that exactly means. The only decided part, put up a fence near the road, and do it sooner than later. -DONE >> read about it HERE
• Move the ducks to this coop area in the dog house - turned duck house - turned chicken coop and now back to duck house. -DONE >> read about it HERE
• Move duck house and turn it into a chicken coop then build a fence around it tall enough so the chickens stay out of the daycare yard.  -DONE
• Decide where the turkeys will go. -DONE
• Move rabbits into Rusty's old stall
• Clean out winter chicken coop to put meat birds in it -DONE
• Get brood box ready -DONE >> read about it HERE

It feels incredible to have some much done! It took longer than we planned, but we all have other jobs to do other than our growing poultry farm.

I was thinking, as I helped Jason with the fence, about our failures and successes over the past year that for people who have no recent experience with poultry, we're doing pretty good. Last year we lost quite a few of our broilers in the first few weeks, maybe half all together before we butchered them. This year we lost one broiler and one turkey, I think that's quite an improvement.

We also have fences. I had no idea how much I would love a fence until we put ours up. We only have one more fence to go, for the turkeys, but we have a little time before it becomes a real problem. The real beauty of the fence and our preparedness is that next spring when we buy chicks they won't need to be on the porch!

Here is the next list:

• Butcher 5 Rabbits (so we can stop feeding them and because I really want to make rabbit stew)
• Move Rabbits
• Plant Garden
• Finish Turkey Coop
• Finish Turkey Fence
• Fix Chicken Coop to fit in the nesting boxes better
• Plant Garden
• Plant New Blueberry Bush

I am assuming that this list will take us through the next few months.

The other day Mom and I sat down and planned out the garden. Our inspiration is this garden from Better Homes and Gardens.

Source

This is what we came up with:

This is in an effort to plant what we can handle, not what we want to eat. We will also have a vine garden in near the poultry yards in the middle of the "L" shape that their fences make.

How is your Spring going?