Goat Eggs

Eggs have been disappearing at an alarming rate.  We used to get 10-12 a day. Now its down to Zero.  It started in May, oddly enough, this was also when we added some more members to our farm.  Snakes? Rats? Now we know. 

Chicks 2012

As promised, albeit delayed, here are pics from the arrival of chicks we got a few weeks ago. Beware: excessive cuteness below.

Straight from the secret 24-hour post office (no joke), our chicks arrive from the official Radio Acres hatchery, Murray McMurray. Chicks are shipped the moment they hatch, as they can survive for a few days from the egg they're hatched out of and stay warm from the other 24 babies in there.

Hello little ladies (and two men)! Welcome to Radio Acres Farm! 

Must make these pics large for the extra dose of eastery preciousness. eeeh. look at those sleepy eyes!

Setting them up in their new home...

Everyone loves the new chicks. 

Here's a list of the different types of chicks we got this round:

5 Pearl White Leghorns

2 Black Star

2 Red Star

2 Barred Rock

1 Turken! (for Kim)

4 Rhode Island Reds

2 Salmon Faverolles

1 White Crested Black Polish! (for me!)

1 White Faced Black Spanish

2 Araucana

2 Black Minorca

2 Cuckoo Maran roos (1 was free)

1 mystery rare exotic chick (thrown in for free as well)

We're excited about increased egg production in the fall!

Just in time for Easter

I need to post these pictures before our chicks grow into little chickens! We recently ordered 25 chicks from Murray MacMurray Hatchery... the "all heavies" order. These are 25 chicks that we are going to raise for meat birds (eating). But right now they're pretty cute little chicks, getting bigger each day.

We also hatched our first clutch of laying hens, from our very own chickens and rooster! One of our sweet little birds, Blue (now called Mama Hen), went broody so we stuck a bunch of our other eggs under her, and she sat on them for at least 21 days, and then they all hatched!

So now we have a lot of little chickens. I have two videos for you. One is Mama Hen with her babies. They like to cuddle up underneath her like Mother Ginger in the Nutcracker. Note also the tiny backwards leg stretch by one of the little chicks. So adorable.

The other video is a running "chick-cam" of our 25 chicks. It's long, so if you want a dose of easter goodness (of the hallmark variety, not really the Passion variety) feel free to watch as much or as little of this one as you like. There's some cute stuff in there. They have such funny little personalities.

And, if that's not enough, go ahead and click here for more precious chick pics.

post-party.

This weekend was our goodbye party for tom and bria. It was much fun, but also sad. They are packing up and moving in a flash, so it was nice to take a night and celebrate them, slow down, eat some tacos. Post party, we feel a little like this:

But, we have some great leftovers. My cast iron skillet is my absolute favorite item of our kitchen (better than a microwave). I highly recommend one for every kitchen. Very multi-purpose. Once you get a skillet, I highly recommend this cookbook.   Anyhow, using this pan, I cooked up the best breakfast taco I've ever eaten in my life.

That's some al pastor from Murphy's (favorite meat of the night, better than carne asada!), a corn tortilla,  and my husband's famous poached egg. They combined to make this wonderful post-party breakfast. 

Bria and Tom, you will be missed. Let us eat tacos together for many more years to come, despite what coast we're on. 

Poultry part 2

The hens have started picking up their laying again! I don't know if we blogged about it, but sometime in late summer they just decided that they wanted to stop laying. Out of 20 hens, we dropped down to 2 eggs a day. Now, I do know that hens are photosensitive and all that stuff, but we've had chickens for a few years and they had never slowed down that much. It was obvious that they had avian pox at the time, so we scrapped it up to the virus and assumed they'd pick up again sooner or later. Well, September came and went, as did October and November and we were still only getting 2 eggs a day at best. In November we slaughtered the turkeys and just before our farm counterparts left for their vacay we were discussing options for our ridiculously expensive yet non-productive laying flock. As much as we didn't want to think about it, I think we were almost resolved to culling and starting over in the spring. At least I was. Now, low and behold, mysteriously only 1 month after we slaughtered those darn turkeys, the flock is starting to pick up pace. It's the dead of winter and we just had the shortest day of the year, so I am throwing out the photosensitivity excuse. I think it was those big, mean, food hog turkeys! My two cents, I guess we'll never know for sure. The only thing I DO know for sure is that we got 5 eggs yesterday and 4 each day the two days prior. More than we've averaged in a long time. I can finally plan on making a quiche for dinner this week!

That was fast.

Our egg CSA is now officially full. We'll keep you posted if our production increases! Until then... you can still sign up to be on our wait-list and egg newsletter!

Got eggs?

We are just about ready to officially launch our egg CSA! If you are interested in getting farm fresh, organic eggs every week or every other week please see our "Want Eggs?" tab at the top of this blog! We have a limited number of spots, so be quick. We will also establish a waiting list and as we get more hens coming into lay we will fill it accordingly.
I suppose I should disclaim my use of the word organic- we are not certified in any way, shape or form. I do, however, promise that our hens are probably the best fed darn chickens around. I buy bags of organic whole grains straight from OBPeoples bulk department and mix their feed according to this recipe at Greener Pastures Farm. This is a great website for feed and chick starter recipes if you want to make your own. We also feed them Organic layer pellets straight from our local feed store. If they get sick, we treat them naturally with homeopathic and/or natural remedies such as raw garlic, colloidal silver, grapefruit seed extract and your standard over-the-counter homeopathic drugs. I found a great homeopathic poultry guide that I've got saved on my other desktop, so I will post the link to that later for those that are interested!

Eggs!

I am cracking up reading Sarah's entry right now! Yes, yes, it's all true. We counted our eggs way before they hatched, so to speak, and we did NOT have all of our ducks in a row. Ultimately, it all worked out fine. We have a lovely chicken coop, no roosters waking us up in the morning, and all of our hens are starting to lay more regularly. We are averaging 10ish eggs a day, never any less! With 20 hens in the backyard, we anticipate closer to 15 eggs a day at our peak. That means that they are almost all laying now, and the variety of color is awesome. We have a few ameracaunas that lay a lovely pale blue. The crazy chicken lady did some hybridization to produce a hen that lays an egg that comes out looking like a manzanillo olive. The browns vary in shades from a pale, pinkish tint to a deep, dark chocolate. Some of the ladies lay a beautiful rich mocha egg speckled with espresso.

It is funny, in all of it's simplicity, how gratifying it is to collect the freshly lain orbs everyday. I love to count them, to feel their warmth and to "oooh" and "aww" over their color. It never seems to get old. As Sarah said in her last post, hens are not new to us. We obtained our first few about 2 years ago and it has fulfilled me in the most enchanting way, as if I'm a child waking up to exciting gifts every morning. It's as if some seed that's buried deep within my soul is nourished simply by the act of being in touch with my food in this way. Reconnecting with nature. I know that it is so cliche, and I am sure that folks that are real farmers would probably laugh at it, maybe even wishing for an escape of their own some day. I think that people sometimes don't realize what a gift it really is that we get from these animals in every way. Be it as simple as an egg or as generous as their life, we forget to appreciate enough what it is they give. Unfortunately we don't often even make the connection. I feel blessed to be able to give my kids the opportunity to get back to this basic element of nature and food, to instill in them an understanding and respect of where this all comes from.

I logged on here wanting to blog more about the process of the farm, the steps that we went through and instead I find myself reflecting on some of life's "isms". I promise to post soon some photos of the process of building the coop, some pictures of the ladies and maybe a story of the first time we really connected with our food and slaughtered some roosters. As an ex-vegan, the only thing I can say is that I feel like I've come a long way!