We get asked a lot of questions by customers, neighbors, readers of this blog and other curious sorts, about the diets of our animals. Mostly they are regarding soy, antibiotics, growth hormones and corn. Some are from people genuinely interested in facts. Some are from people who’ve recently watched Food, Inc. and are looking to [...]
Posts Tagged ‘pastured chicken’
Agriculture Myth Busters: The Vegetarian Chicken
Posted in Livestock, tagged free range chickens, free range eggs, omnivore's dilemma, pastured chicken on October 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Chicken Processing Day Coming Soon – A Few Chickens Available
Posted in Livestock, tagged pastured chicken on September 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
We have set our next chicken processing day for Saturday, October 1. It’s about time. After the predator problems forced us to start over, we thought the day would never arrive. As it turns out, we will have a few chickens available that were not pre ordered. If you’d like to go to the store [...]
Spoiled by…Taste
Posted in cooking, tagged cooking, pastured chicken, vegetable gardening on August 8, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Over the weekend, Brittan and I exercised a very uncontrolled experiment by eating only processed foods. In part, we were taste testing some items to add to our emergency storage. Much of our storehouse is made up of dried or home canned goods. We also have two freezers and are about to add a third [...]
FREEBIRD
Posted in Livestock, tagged pastured chicken on July 25, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Meet Blondie. Blondie, is a one year old Dixie Rainbow. Technically, she lives in a pasture with 10 of her sisters. Her job, along with theirs, is to keep the pasture clean and provide nutritious, tasty, free range eggs. I say, technically, because Blondie has a wandering spirit. Let me back up for a moment. [...]
Murphy Strikes Chicken Processing
Posted in Livestock, tagged pastured chicken on July 2, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Holy Cow. We told you this was not the year of the chicken. The disasters lasted right up to processing. First, one of the elements in the scalder shorted out, meaning it took twice as long to heat the water as it should. Then the garden hose we were using to wash down the equipment [...]
Coyote!
Posted in Livestock, tagged pastured chicken, predator on May 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
From the Headline, you can guess we made a positive id on our predator this evening. He boldly stepped out of the woods about 7:45 p.m. and watched us putting away the chickens. I had a handgun with me, but it was loaded with buckshot for snakes. There was no way I was going to [...]
Requiem For A Bird (caution: Graphic Photo)
Posted in Livestock, tagged pastured chicken on May 24, 2011 | 3 Comments »
It’s over for this batch of birds. The predator came back last night, tore open a hole in the chicken tractor and killed 20 birds. I am in my office at work. Brittan is left alone to clean up the carnage. She is moving the few remaining birds to a safe house close to the [...]
The No Fun Spring Rages On
Posted in Livestock, tagged farming mistakes and foibles, pastured chicken on May 24, 2011 | 2 Comments »
While much of America has spent the Spring of 2011 wrestling with tornadoes, here in the burb our natural disaster is predation. The predator storm is still churning and touched down again over the weekend, with devastating results. B and I went to Florida for for a few days to attend a memorial service for [...]
Big Changes In Chicken Processing Schedule
Posted in Livestock, tagged pastured chicken on May 18, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
As regular readers and customers are well aware, we’ve had a tough spring with our chickens. We had high mortality during the brooder period, we lost several to predators and we lost some in storms. The result is, we have less than half the broilers than we planned. To add insult to injury, they are [...]
Talk about “FREE RANGE”
Posted in Livestock, tagged pastured chicken on April 30, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
We’ve had some trouble with electrifying our poultry netting this year. I think my charger has gone on the fritz. It couldn’t possibly be user error. We’ll just rule that out from the beginning. Whatever the cause, we’ve had some amusing and sometimes scary side effects related to the problem. Essentially, without the electricity, the [...]
