Politics and Farming

Since this blog is about Sandy Plains Farm, I feel that I should talk about what the farmer, Russell, is currently doing. Besides tending to chickens, horses and the land, Russell is running for the honor to become a county commissioner here in Polk County, NC.

Election day is fast approaching and his campaigning is geared up into high! Last week he participated in a forum and as a mom, I could not have been prouder. He was well spoken, used a bit of humor and stated his opinions and hopes for Polk County in a clear manor.

He is the "young guy" in what you would normally see a more seasoned person doing. He has been campaigning for months now. Yesterday was the first day of early voting and I was very humbled to put a check mark by his name!

Holding the door for Mom to go vote!

Columbus Farm Festival

Sandy Plains Farm had a great time today at the Farm Festival. Like anything else when going somewhere offsite, there was a lot of packing to do!

We had a wonderful tent (borrowed from a good friend!), a table with books on raising all different animals, chairs to rest on, a table with Nester, our New Zealand buck, and a table with the Silkies and Peepers. Folks just loved the chickens!

Russell would take one or the other Silkie out and let the kids (and adults too) pet them. Many asked questions and learned a little bit.

Nester was a big hit too. We had taken the cage roof off and had a stool for the little folks so that all could pet him. He was the most perfect rabbit!

We sold a lot of eggs and even a few aloe plants that had just been re-potted.

We also had a "mini hay baler" on display. We had grass clippings and a sign that said you could make your own bale if you wanted. It didn't attract much attention. I was surprised at first until someone asked what a hay bale was. Oh.

It was good to get home.

The layers!

The 26 laying hens stay busy all day. While not officially located at Sandy Plains Farm, they are an important part of the farm and live "uptown" at our small farm where the house is. I guess that needs a name too, so I will dub it "The 440"!

The girls are a group of 4 Rhode Island Reds and 22 Americauna hens. The first thing in the morning they are let out of the hoop house, fed a scoop of layer feed, and then they begin their morning wanders. We have found that leaving their water by the barn/garage is much easier to deal with, no lugging the waterer to the coop. Since they are out all day and are only in the hoop house at night, they can trot right over to it at anytime. And the dogs like to drink out of it too!

The picture shows them having their morning "crack". It is the custom that at about 8:30 or so every morning, they are thrown a cup of cracked corn. You just can't help but smile when you see 26 chickens come a trotting and a clucking to you for their big treat.

We have 5 nest boxes that are located just inside the former carport. It has long ago been taken over by hay storage for horses and is now home to the brooder box and other "stuff".

The girls roam the 3 acres all day. They are great at picking through the horse manure, getting chased by the cat that thinks he can actually take one of them down, clean up any goodies that the rabbits have dropped and until very recently, liked to redistribute the fall garden plants. They were very disappointed to find that they were no longer allowed access!

We try to collect eggs all during the day as it keeps them cleaner and less chance of someone breaking an egg by sitting on them. It is a satisfying feeling to carry a dozen or so eggs into the house. The eggs are all different colors, no white ones at all.

They get a late afternoon scoop of feed and then like all good chickens, put themselves to bed. We go out and shut the hoop house door as they softly cluck and coo goodnight.



Traveling Birds

Since Russ has had the coops with the meat birds, they get to take a hike every morning. They get very excited when they see him coming and will come to the front of the coops.

Can you tell which picture is taken before the coop is moved and which picture is the ground after?

They are thrilled to have fresh pickings! Bugs, worms, grass and they will even have more chicken feed. A bunch of happy birds!

The First Chickens

It has been a few months since the chickens arrived. Well, first I bought 3 Silkies, why I don't know. But they are supposed to make good brooder hens. Of course when I got them I was hoping that they would all be pullets (hens) but we really didn't know. We do now. I have a rooster that when he crows, sounds like a cat with a very bad cold! He is getting better at it though. I didn't want a rooster at all but he isn't too loud so I guess he can stay.

Silkies with Peepers!

Shortly after the Silkies, I went and bought 5 Rhode Island Reds. With no cage ready, I put them in a dog crate for the ride home and then transferred them to the movable coop that Russ had just finished building. No place for them to roost but they were safe.

RIR - not happy about things!

The next Sunday I again found an ad on Craig's List for Americauna layers. So the Silkies were put in a tiny little cage that we had sitting around. Then we headed up to Lake Lure at 9 pm to get 22 birds with the fancy (not!) cage that Russ slid in the back of the truck. The couple that sold us the birds were very nice, and it turned out that the young fellow had apprenticed at Polyface! Holy Cow!

We now have a nice number of layers. We have sold many dozens of eggs and I have even stopped buying cold cereal to have for breakfast as we have so many eggs. We even feel better!

Now for the meat birds. They are 8 weeks old today. Russell would be ready to process them but SOMEONE (me) bought Cornish and not Cornish Crosses so they are taking another couple of weeks. He moved them to Sandy Plains Farm a month ago and it is crazy to see how far the coops have been moved! We ordered 120 birds, so far we have lost 10 I think. Russ called them "little murderers" when they were in the brooder as they would smother and squish each other. The brooder is big enough and Russ put 2 lights in it, but they are pretty delicate when small. Now that they are out on pasture, they still run over one another but they can handle it now.

I will explain Peepers (picture above) sometime. Right now she thinks she is a Silkie and I don't want to burst her bubble!

Farm mowing

The weeds were 8 feet high but now it looks like a park!

You Can Farm!

As I write this first post, Sandy Plains Farm is becoming a reality.

My son Russell has wanted to farm since he first took Ag class as a freshmen at Polk County High School. After receiving his degree from NCSU in May of 2011, he came home to Polk County. He found that starting to farm with basically no land, and most importantly, MONEY, was impossible. He started to apply for various positions in his field of Agronomy. Some interviews, no jobs.

This summer I (Paula, the Mom) decided to take an 8 week evening sustainable agriculture class put on by the local community college and the Mill Spring Ag Center. Russ said that I didn't get out enough! I told him that I was taking it and he signed up for it too. Cool, going to class with my son, cough cough. Well, I have to say that it was one of the best things that I have done! (Another was moving to North Carolina in 1994.)

The first few classes were interesting, mainly dealing with gardening. We had started on a garden this year after not having one for 4 years or so. More on the garden another day. But hold onto your hats - the class that got us very excited was how we saw a different way that chickens could be raised!!!

OK, you may wonder why I am so excited about this information. Having lived in one of the counties in the Catskill Mountains for 20 years, you learn to hold your breath driving on certain roads. Chickens raised in huge barns, the manure spread on fields just as thick as frosting on a cake. Probably good for the local economy but bad for the neighborhood. I will not go on about that, but the memories are not the most pleasant!

A nice fellow by the name of Kirk showed the class how he has his meat birds in a thing called a tractor. Being an old farm girl, I don't like the term, a tractor is something that you drive and costs a chunk of money. I know this as Russ bought one this spring. Big, handy, but not something you can keep a chicken in! Anyway, Kirk also showed his processing station (yes, the chickens meet their end here, but after he thanks them, I am not being silly, he really does thank each one.) We also saw how he moves both the egg layer hoop house and the chicken tractor. No smell, the manure goes right into the ground, did I say no smell? NO SMELL!

I was hooked. Before we even left Kirk's driveway, I said to Russ that we, he, could do this. Kirk had told about this place in Virginia (Polyface Farm  polyfacefarms.com) and the fellow that owns it has written books on how to farm. I ordered a couple of books right away. One of them was about raising chickens and the other was titled "You Can Farm". When they arrived, Russell read them cover to cover. I have not seen him so excited since he graduated from State!

We have birds! I will tell more about them later. I feel they need their own story. We now have 110 meat birds, 26 layers and 3 silly little Silkies. Oh and one meat bird that we will never eat. More about her later too!

Now to the farm. Since we only have 3.26 acres of over grazed pasture, Russ was planning on using 19 acres that some good friends have. It would have worked ok for the chickens but he doesn't want to stop there, oh no. He wants cows, goats, pigs, you know - the whole farm animal thing. (We already have horses, thus the over grazed pastures!) One day about a month ago I was talking to someone about what Russ wanted to do and she said "Talk to my husband, there is 20 acres right behind the store here." So the next day Russ went and talked to the owner and he now has Sandy Plains Farm for at least the next three years! I will post some pictures of why I think it is the most perfect place for Russell's farm.

We have moved the meat birds to "the farm". Every morning we go down and move them 12 feet to new grass. I say we as Russ is still working on getting a coop mover so that one person can move the pens. Right now we use two hand trucks, one of us in the back (Mom) and one in the front (Russ). The rest of the "we" are the dogs. Russ has found that his dog Nugz is great at chasing the chicks that may sneak out when the pens are lifted up enough to move them. He will chase them and put his paw on them till Russ gets there. It is great to watch. Some mornings the dogs are so disappointed when no birds escape!