Wow - hard to believe the way time is flying past here on the farm. We are still adjusting to the switch in mid-July to the summer harvest schedule: 6:00 AM - 2:30 PM. This is avoid the hottest part of the day, and harvest the vegetables while they are still cool and crisp in the morning. It has been hard to get up at 5:30 everyday, but worth it to be able to go to town for a swim or have a nice long nap before dinner.
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| Derek with a Batch 1 chick in May |
In mid June, chores were switched up and I moved off of looking after the laying hens to helping Derek with the meat bird, aka broilers. This meant feeding and watering the birds still in the brooder, building chicken tractors so that we could put them out on pasture, and keeping a close eye on the flock. Once the birds were on pasture, this also involved dragging the tractors 2-4 times per day and moving the flexinets as needed (a very frustrating job on stony ground).
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| Building Chicken Tractors for the meat birds |
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| Adding the moisture barrier to the tractor frame |
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| The Final Step: Shade Cloth |
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| Derek tries out the new digs for his chickies |
Yesterday was the end of our posts as guardians of the meat birds. Not because it was the end of the month, but because as of yesterday, all of them are dead. Yay!
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| Batch 1 at about 2 weeks |
What? Not the reaction you were expecting?
I have to say I am beginning to understand why one of the joys of farming is the seasonality of it. Looking after 300 birds as they are getting up to 12lbs live weight takes a lot of work and constant care, especially in summer heat hitting nearly 40 degrees.
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| Chickens on pasture, enjoying the tractors and fresh grass |
On July 18th, the first batch of chickens (the ones derek starting looking after during our 2nd week at the farm) and some of the larger birds in Batch 2 went to My-Les Poulty for processing. This is a government inspected facility that the farm sends approximately 1/2 of their birds to so that they can be sold at the farmers market. The other birds are processed on the farm, using the same procedures but sold to friends and family at farm gate for a slightly lower price. We processed the second half of the chickens yesterday. What a day.
But over 200 chickens are now in the freezers and that means we didn't have to lock them up last night (Mom: believe it or not, Derek and I were asleep BEFORE 10:00pm) and we were actually able to sleep-in today (Sundays are always our day off, but we still have get up early to check on our animals before heading off for the day)! Of course, Mokah still wanted to be let out at 5:30. But being able to stay in bed until 9:00am was such a luxury today!
Tomorrow the chores will be split and traded so that Derek and I are once again assigned animals to care for.
I had a wonderful sense of accomplishment yesterday as we all sat on the back stoop, exhausted from the long days work. Adam had bought the crew cold beer for the end of the day (club soda and blackberry syrup for me!) and we all sat, stunned by how much had been accomplished. We had all feared that the day would go slowly and we would have to stop and finish the work on Sunday. What a relief to have made it to the end of that work day with a clean(and then scrubbed and disinfected) slate.
