And they just keep growing

Almost Easter already! The weather has been cooler than normal but it sure hasn't stopped the Cornish X's from growing. They are doing very good with the daily move. You can just about see them grow!



Five Weeks Old!



The Barred Rock pullets are just as pretty as can be. They are very elegant. They are so elegant that a rat, we are guessing, made its way into the coop and attacked a couple. We now have a couple of traps for their use! Poor little chickens.




Some nice looking pullets!



The little rat trap, yuck!

We moved another rabbit grazer pen to the farm. We took apart one of the coops that Russ had built last year. He was going to rebuild the chicken pen but then I asked if we could magically change it into grazer pens. So now I have to keep building more pens before the pieces get used for something else! Funny how that can happen.



More pastured rabbits!



I have to say that it is the farmer's birthday today! Happy 24th Farmer Russell!




Farmer Russ!

Holy Cow Chickens!

The meat chicks have been out on pasture for a week now. They are growing at a fantastic rate. They are into the daily move and seem to enjoy the grass very much!

The Barred Rock chicks are just lovely little birds now. They are settling in the routine as well.

The other evening I pulled into the farm driveway and saw several of the meat birds out. Oh no! At first I thought that something had attacked the coop so it was a relief to see that had not happened. Well, they had snuck out under a high spot in the coop was all. Russ was working so I had to wrangle 9 chicks back into the coop. I plugged the escape hole and all was fine once more!

4 1/2 weeks old

Moving Day!

Russ has moved the current batch of meat birds out to the farm. They left the brooder in carriers and settled right in the movable coops.



Loaded up for the move to the farm




Cornish X chicks tasting their first grass!





He decided to move the Barred Rock chicks too. They look small compared to the Cornish X chicks but they are flying around the brooder so it was time to move them to larger quarters. They were being admired by a hawk not long after they were at the farm! It was standing not 10 feet away from the coop when we saw it. Yikes!



Barred Rock chicks - not sure about this!



Russ bought a Feathernet fence and a new nifty fence charger. The charger works great! The horses have now learned to respect the electric fence again. The Feathernet will surround the hoop house for the layers. It will hopefully keep preditors away.



Un-rolling the new fence



New Feathernet fence



Using the fence tester



Bubbles, the mule, keeping her distance from the fence!



I took a display of what is going on at the farm to the Farm Day at the Ag center on Saturday. I have a couple of information boards made up, took two different cages with young rabbits, some bagged rabbit manure and some of the composting worms.

We had many folks stopping by to see our display and of course, many people wanting to pet the rabbits. I did sell three, one for a pet and two to become future breeders for someone. I had not planned to sell any!



Display on Saturday!



After the Farm Day, we took the rabbit grazer cage with three of the rabbits and unloaded it at the farm. There is so much grass there, even for March. They seem very content and happy!



Rabbits finally at the farm too!





Growing like crazy!

The new batch of meat birds are just over two weeks old and they are twice the size of the new Barred Rock chicks that are just a few days older! They are all doing good, thank goodness.

Cornish X's at two weeks old

The eggs are selling great! We try to keep some at our store and also have them for sale at the Polk County Farm Store in Mill Spring. We have been selling some chicken as well. We roast one every week or two and we are still so happy with how good they are.

Russ helped make the first pasture grow-out pen for the rabbits. I am thrilled with how it turned out! Now we just have to build a bunch more. Each one will hold about 5 or 6 rabbits and will be moved every day. The rabbits will be in the pens for about a month or so. I am still working on a time frame between weaning the litters and when they make the move to the pens.

PGP - Pasture Grow-out Pen

The worms! The worms are doing good as they are multiplying. I have them in bins in a room of our house that is located under our living room. That room was my office years ago, was transformed to a feed/storage room and now is my worm room!

I did make up some worm composting start kits and have them for sale at the Farm Store for now. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would be raising worms I would have told them that they were delusional!

Worm Composting Started Kits