·:[ high hopes gardens ]:·
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The loss of our local chicken locker threw us for a loop this year.  Instead of driving 20 minutes away and taking the chickens with us when we left, the closest other locker is an hour and 20 minutes away and we needed to take two trips, once to drop them off, then another to pick them up the next day.

The chicken raising business is perhaps the riskiest and least profitable enterprise we do.  Feed went up 25%, butchering cost doubled, and we used $70 in gas just to drop off and pick up the chickens at the locker.  I dropped them off on Wednesday and because of the longer trip to locker than usual and heat while we were waiting in line to start, we started losing chickens waiting in line.  I think we lost seven of the largest ones as they are most prone to overheat. Another person waiting with us had the same problem, but we were able to move about 50 of her chickens from her horse trailer to the empty box of the pickup.

The next episode was when Linda picked them up the next day - a storm had moved through the town before Linda arrived and power was out at the locker.  The locker owner understandably did not want to open the locker doors with the power off, because he wanted to keep as much cold in the locker while the power was off.  So more waiting while waiting for power to be restored.

We dropped about half the frozen chickens off with customers and kept the rest as a 50-50 mix between frozen and fresh for ourselves.  So this morning Linda and Emma worked on cutting up the chickens in meal-sized portions for quick winter meals.

We’ve been debating doing on-farm butchering, and the cost associated with the locker, the gas to drive there and the eight hours of time driving and waiting at the locker (not counting waiting for power to be restored) push us to think about that direction.

one year ago…”Milestones”

We had a nice day - no rain, but heavy rain and hail just missed us when a supercell passed to our north a few miles.

This is a look at the backside of the storm just after a tornado warning was issued. The whitish part nearing the ground to the left of the farmstead in the distance is what everyone was worried about. We were so grateful we were spared more rain or wind damage.

As the barn and chicken coop are sopping wet with manure and water and the first hay cutting has not yet been made, I improvised and found some bedding along the road! It was easy to pick up and I hauled five truckloads home from within a mile of our house for the barn and coop.

The chickens are enjoying their new bedding, complete with seeds to peck at for fun and nutrition!

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #76″

It was much heralded when Tyson Meats came out with a line of “chicken raised without antibiotics” last year. Pay very close attention to the wording of the claim. Americans, led by doctors who see increasing cases of antibiotic resistance in human patients, have become more aware of the importance of not ingesting antibiotics as a course of daily life, thus the press release from Tyson announcing the new line of chicken.

Now, Tyson’s biggest competitors have taken Tyson to court. First, for labeling their chicken “raised without antibiotics” because it infers that other chicken is not as good. There have been a number of cases of “food disparagement” mainly against organic or natural food companies whose mainline competitors claim that making a statement that milk is free of rBSt or free of antibiotics disparages other foods and the courts have been sympathetic and ruled against the labels. The organic meat company I had the privilege of serving on the board of directors ran into this when a few years ago we wanted to test every beef animal for BSE at the company’s cost and put on the label “each animal tested for BSE,” but that would have been big trouble because it implies that other meat is not safe. The USDA forbid us in this case.

I always thought that this was a law aimed directly at small and organic companies from the big food corporations. After all, virtually any marketing claim implies that one product is better than another. Take Campbell’s Soup “Mm-Mm Good” - doesn’t that imply that other soups are not good? Or doesn’t “Good to the Last Drop” imply that other coffees beside Maxwell house are not good to the last drop.? Or perhaps closer to Tyson’s case is that “Finger Lickin’ Good” KFC chicken claim means that other chicken isn’t. I think you probably get my point.

The only difference with the latest Tyson case was that it was a big company suing another company for food disparagement. Tyson’s main competitors Smithfield and Perdue have lost $10’s of millions to Tyson as a result of consumers running to Tyson’s new “raised without antibiotics” label. In the course of the lawsuit this bit of Pulitzer-quality deceptive language came out of Tyson’s regarding their “raised without antibiotics claim:”

Then during trial in federal court in Baltimore, Tyson officials acknowledged they also inject eggs several days before they hatch with antibiotics that are approved for use in humans. Dave Hogberg, Tyson’s senior vice president for consumer products, said it is a common industry practice.

Hogberg said injecting eggs with antibiotics did not undermine the “raised without antibiotic” label because the term “raised” is understood to cover the period that begins with hatching.

More consumers are becoming concerned about the use of antibiotics in poultry, swine and cattle because they and many public health experts think that it contributes to the rise of antibiotic-resistant viruses in humans.

So, watch the language carefully - injecting the eggs with an anti-biotic bath means “raised without antibiotics!”

one year ago…”Technical Communication Conference”

I wonder how many googlers will be very disappointed in viewing real chicks after searching for “hot chicks” in a search engine!

I’ve found over the years the most reliable predictor of unseasonably cold weather is the day chicks arrive on the farm. This year is no exception - we expect a low in the 20’s tonight and our county has a freeze warning and a flood warning - now there’s a combination that sounds like fun!

The chicks came at an unexpected time, so being the good farmer, I just used whatever I could find lying around to help keep the heat close to the chicks. Linda says these chicks must feel like they’re “living in a van down by the river” due to their ramshackle accommodations (apologies to the late Chris Farley). There’s a piece of leftover metal siding, an old storm window screen draped with one of the circa 1972 draperies that graced our house when we moved in, another more modern screen with an old sheet, and a salvaged window out of an outbuilding.

I must admit, I’m partial to the genius that is the old window over the makeshift brooder as it keeps heat in, while offering a peep in at the peeps.

one year ago…”Starting to Plant 150 Trees”

We are at the height of the egg season. We do not supplement extra light in the winter to increase productivity, so the spring brings a natural flush of production.

This year, I’m going to try to freeze some eggs in ice cube trays for cooking later in the year when the flush of eggs trickles to a near stop later in the winter.

one year ago…”Fruit Blossoms = 3 Day Rain”

Today we got the phone call that our local locker that processes chickens is closing its doors to chicken processing.  Golly’s Locker in Maxwell is no longer an option.  That means if we want to have our chickens processed at a locker, it would be about 360 miles of driving to drive there, drop off, pick up frozen birds and back home.  We’re going to have to think about on-farm processing as an alternative.

one year ago…”Back on the Farm”

Today the feed truck delivered a ton of layer feed.  We have it mixed at the local mill.  It’s more economical than buying the bags at the farm store and we can keep the anti-biotics out.  When I was buying oyster shell at the farm store, I noticed that the feed prices weren’t up as much as I thought they should be.  Then I spotted the feed bags were now 40 pounds instead of 50 pounds! No doubt for “easier handling!”

At any rate, it sure is convenient to have the truck back right into the shed and unload into a wagon.  Fewer trips for us to town and we seldom have to worry about running out. It just so happened, that the truck was able to drive in on frozen ground today as the promised warm-up the next few days will undoubtedly lead to mud and big ruts if the truck came a couple of days from now.

one year ago…”Spring Getaway for Mark and Linda”

When the temperatures don’t budge much above 0, by the time we make it out to the coop, we sometimes end up with egg balls.

These frozen balls of eggs will end up in very scrambled eggs for breakfast the next morning. Yes, it’s still cold, and it did snow again.  Usually it has to warm up to snow, but not today.

one year ago…”Heatwave”

The rare breed chickens the girls purchased a few months ago are growing up! 

There’s really no way to describe them other than “chickeny” with their black, white and red coloring, long legs, and chicken strut. The bird in the foreground is a “Silver Campine” a breed originating in Belgium and came out of favor when the commercial chicken industry got off the ground after WWII and the industry standardized on a few breeds and left many of the other breeds behind.

one year ago…

In all the excitement of the past few days, I’ve neglected the “wild chick” story.  While we were getting the horse settled the girls saw a hen with chicks under its wings.  They were, as Martin described them, “wild chicks” as they were laid, brooded, and hatched without the aid of a nursery.

It’s the first time that a hen has brooded chicks, and we were in the dark that the hen had squirrelled the eggs away.  There are three of them, all different colors, so they may have different pappas.

one year ago…

Emma wanted a picture of the baby guinea keat and an adult.

She had her hands full, but Claire eventually got a shot!

one year ago…

We’ve got three separate batches of poultry brooding now - 50 more broilers in the old hog barn, and in one half of the chicken coop, we’ve got the fancy chickens and guineas.  The broilers can’t be with any others since they are too pushy and the fancy chickens and guineas can’t be together since they require food of differing protien levels.

So our solution was to stick an old piece of paneling in the ring to divide it up.  The paneling has come into many uses - we ripped all the sheets of the dark paneling off the walls of the house shortly after we moved in and I just stuck it in a shed and slowly have been finding uses for it in unexpected ways.

one year ago…

Claire and Emma pooled some of their money to buy some fancy and rare breeds of guinea hens and chickens. They ordered them from Sandhill Preservation Center, a place devoted to the continuation of rare breeds of fowl and heirloom seeds.

This is a Partridge Silkie. This will be a small, fancy chicken with feathered feet (you can already see the feathers on the feet!)

Now, I know some of the skeptics out there may think this may be a copycat attempt to cash in on the good fortune of the folks at Sugar Creek Farm who won a trip to Hollywood and Disneyland with the Chicken Little crew, all just for having a picture of a silkie on their blog! It’s a fun story and you can see part of the story at their site. The girls just liked this chicken and we can only hope that Chicken Little 2 gives us a call!

We think this is a Coral Blue Guinea keat. They ordered about 12 of each - so now there is be even more diversity on the farm!

one year ago…

Emma went to gather eggs, came running into the house to get her camera, and took this picture of a black and white hen sharing a nest box that just struck her fancy!

I just turned it into a black and white photo for fun.

one year ago…