They must be crazy

Well our latest venture has been raising some chickens for meat.  These guys have been an interesting experience.  We decided to go the traditional route and buy Cornish X chicks.  These guys are the same as you would see at a Tyson farm or any major producer.  They have often been referred to as a race car with feathers and I can see why.  The amount of feed these guys are able to consume is absolutely mind boggling.  We have had them out on our front lawn and we move the pens they are in on a daily basis.  This way we have 2 great benefits.  The first benefit is that there is no need to change bedding b/c it gets soiled with fresh grass each day that is a fresh place to fertilize.  The second advantage has been the lack of sickness.  We have not had a single bird get sick and we feed no antibiotics in their food.

In the next day or two I will let you know a little about our egg laying chicks and the difference in the two types of chickens.  So having chickens in a movable pen in our front yard has created a they must be crazy caravan of cars.  What are some crazy things you have done or what have you seen that made you go huh?.

What a fun ride it has been so far

We are off and rolling in our first true year on the farm.  It has been such a great experience so far and we look forward to many more rewarding things in the future.  As we get busier into growing season we promise to continue to update the blog weekly to keep all of our fans and customers up to date on the things happening around the farm.

Since we last posted in December we have had a lot of fun action happen.  We have started our first batch of meat chickens for the year.  They are out in their salatin style pen making a tour of our front yard.  I am all but convinced the neighbors think we are insane which is a good thing.  We also have 20+ new laying hen chicks in a separate pen.  They are going to be 100% organic as we have started them out from day 1 on organic feed from Countryside Organics in Virginia.  The feed is 2x as expensive but I know being able to give the kids these eggs is going to be better for them as well as the local customer base which craves organics.

We have had a few losses along the way.  While we were out in Seattle at a wedding we lost all but 2 of our laying hens which really set us back big time in the egg department.  We also lost our 8 turkeys to an attack from a raccoon (we think).  That is why we are out here on small acreage figuring all of this stuff out though.

It has been a blast doing what God has called us to do.  We get reaffirmed every day that we are where we need to be.  The latest affirmation came from our insurance agent.  We told him where we lived and he asked 2 or 3 times if the house had a lien.  I never thought about it before but this house sat on the market for almost a year.  I assumed people couldn't afford it or didn't want it.  The lien issue however reminded me that if not for our great realtor who got it removed this house would have sold quickly.  I think at least 6 people put in offers only to be dissuaded by the lein.  Our house is now lien free I am glad to say.

I will let Logan blog about her bank aha moment soon.  Lets just say she now believes this thing is going to be fun.

Brian