New Chicks

We’ve enjoyed the chickens and everything they have been doing for the homestead and of course all the fresh eggs. We knew that the first hens we got should be slowing down their egg laying so we made moves to go ahead and pick out the next layers for us.

We were pretty pleased with the last batch of meat birds we got from McMurray Hatchery and decided to use them again for the new round of hens. We love having the variety of colors and sizes of our current flock but ultimately went with a variety of brown egg layers with large/extra large eggs. We figure that will be the most bang for our buck.

We used our tried and true method of keeping them in a big plastic tote. They are on wood chips and we have a cover with a heat lamp or 2. They have plenty of room while they are bitty and we can keep them close by.

Once they get bigger and older, they go into the brooder box, on the porch, with a heat lamp for a little bit. The brooder got an upgrade this year with a fancy, bright green paint job. We needed to protect the wood and get some more use out of the box and this paint was the right price for the job.

We got them ordered just in time too. During the winter, the flock was down to laying just a few eggs a day. Once spring hit, they all started up again but then we noticed our oldest hens had slowed down a lot. They had been awesome layers for us but we wanted to keep up the higher level of egg production.

Once they outgrow the brooder box, they take a turn in the pen addition to the barn. They get more room to grow and can take advantage of garden scraps, just like the big hens.

We’re looking forward to them being good layers for us and having egg production high again.

Adding a New Garden Spot

The layout of our property has two really good garden spots that are about 25ftx50ft. They are near the bottom of the property. We have a third one that is on a hillside that is the same size and it is ok. The sweet potatoes loved it and we got a few watermelons. We are hoping a year or two with chickens on it will improve it .

We tried a spot on top of the little hill next to the orchard, for about 2 years but both years it failed or the wind got too bad up there and it destroyed everything that grew.

So we planted more fruit trees in that area so we would not be tempted to use it again. It works out well, because the very top of the hill doesn’t seem to like the orchard trees lots and this gave us lots more room to expand.

With the three garden spots, we are rotating our chickens to a new spot each year. So we really only have two a year we can plant on.

There is a spot between where the grapes start and the herb bed that could work. It is on a slight hill , and will be shaded the first hours of the day. So while it isn’t ideal, it’s what we have at the moment. Maybe it can be for lettuces or a long term bed for asparagus.

Eventually after the house is built and we know where all the water lines will we can have more options on where to put garden spots.

We’re still very happy with our process of using the chickens to improve the soil. It’s about as natural as you can get and while it does take some time, we love getting the eggs and just enjoy the chickens.

We got the new spot tilled up. Going to plant it this year. Will be interesting to see this year compared to the next when the chickens have had time on it.

Orchard / berry update

2019 was a good year for the blackberries. Unfortunately, we lost 2 plants so blackberries will be in very limited supply in 2020. We also lost 2 blueberry bushes. The ones remaining look pretty healthy and do have some fruit on them. Hopefully we can get a few before the deer or other critters eat them.

2020 saw the first time the peaches really started to bloom. It almost seemed like too many for their first year so we made sure to pinch off at least every other fruit, before they got too big. Sadly, this was a year of a late frost, right before Mother’s Day. It really wrecked the peaches. They all split and seemed like they were oozing their sugars. They basically stopped growing and stayed rotting slowly on the branch. We’ve been giving them to the chickens though and they seem to like the treat.

One of the pear trees did great! We got so many pears! They are not the prettiest pears but they tasted good.

We had a few little apples on one tree. We had several turn red but stay the size of a golf ball. We also have some issues with cedar rust on the apple trees. We’re still holding out for the apples to start producing. They could do with another year or two of growing before they really start producing.

It seems like were losing a different pear tree. We had another apple tree there the first year and had to replace it.

We’re figuring the highest part of the property maybe just isn’t a good location for the fruit trees. We’re not sure if it’s too windy or maybe all the nutrients in the soil run downhill and nothing good stays at the top. Also, a power line runs along the back edge and the county periodically comes out to spray under the lines to keep the plants down. Of course, we can’t tell the herbicide to skip over our trees so they certainly get some of that exposure.

Chicken move timeline

With getting ready to garden, a large part of that was getting the chickens ready to move. With the easy coop we built. Read more about it, below.

Chicken Coop

The net moves quickly which with the rotational chicken grazing plan. That is why we bought it .

The chickens enjoyed the move, at least we didn’t hear anyone complain, and within an hour the net and charger was set up and the chickens were in their new home.

With three 25ft by 50ft beds they have plenty of work to do . The plan again is to let them stay on one garden bed and plant on the other 2. With only doing this on one plot so far, we are already seeing improvement in our plants.

As you can see the chickens are already fast at work . Only a month in and they have already picked everything they wanted.

The only thing left for us to do is go in and knock down the things they did not want and then to start giving scraps, wood chips, and give them a compost pile to work .

The garden results this year were fantastic. We planted two sections – one that had the chickens on it for 6 months and one that only had compost spread by us on it. The chicken prepped garden grew over twice as fast and produced ten times the vegetables. We knew it would help, but the level of success was even more than expected.

With the limited land we have getting ten times more out of the same space just makes sense.

As you can see, it is time for the chickens to move again, to till this plot up and let us get to planting!

What happened in early 2020?

For GreenJournalHomestead? Nothing much new or different, really. We had our gardens, we added to the flock and really just kept doing what we already were doing.

We used some Christmas money to get metal barrels for the chicken and rabbit feed

Things were off to a very good start!

Meat Chickens

Once the barn expansion was done we started plans to do our first batch of Meat Chickens.

We ordered Cornish Cross, online from Murray McMurray Hatchery.

Chicks showed up happy and healthy with zero losses.

We ended up with 27 and did have one loss as an adult , and the rest went to the freezer.

It was an enjoyable process. They go from hatched to freezer in about 60 days so that is a lot of growing to do in a short time. We would like to add a way for them to be on grass to help the feed bill, but that will come in the future.

There were not as easy to process as rabbits, but pretty close. It is nice to have variety in the freezer.

As we said we ended up putting 26 in the freezer, with an average weight of 6lbs and a total weight of over 150lbs processed. The smallest was 3lbs 14 oz and the largest was just over 8 lbs!

After we have been eating these , it will be hard to every go back to store bought chicken again.

Barn Expansion

Almost as soon as we nailed the last board on the barn redo, we started planning a barn expansion .

We had talked about doing a round of meat chickens and needed a place to put them. We talked about putting them in the electric netting set up like our egg layers, but the place we like to purchase from were out of stock.

So because it is never a bad thing to have another pen area to lock stuff up in, we decided to build one.

The left hand side of the barn had enough space for what we were after.

The barn made it easier by already having one wall up, so we just dug the holes and made it semi level.

We went with the metal around the bottom just like the rest of the barn. We like the look and it helps with splash up form the rain stopping eventually rotting boards. Around the top was easy with some fencing wrapped around. The roof we put up the same clear panels as the green house and used some tin we had taken off the barn to give more light in the rabbit area.

Lined the inside of the bottom with rocks, to make it harder for anything to scratch out or dig in. Finished the floor with wood chips, added a door big enough for a wheelbarrow and it was ready for chickens.

We raised out 25 Cornish cross in the pen without much trouble. Only had one loss towards the end , not sure what happened. After processing we had over 150 lbs of meat in the freezer.

In the future we might do a round of ducks or maybe turkeys in the addition, we prefer to raise them on grass which will be the plan, but its nice to have a place to lock them up if need be.

The bonus is the deep bedding that is being broken down by having the animals in there, all the plants on the homestead will benefit from it.