YTD Egg Stats

Total eggs in May: 149

Total eggs YTD: 619.  Divide by 12 = 51.5 dozen

51 dozen multiplied by an average grocery store cost of $3 = $153 retail value

Not too shabby for 5 hens!  I can't wait until the other 20 (yes, twenty!) hens start laying in June!

Bunnies!!!

The past few weeks, we've been breeding bunnies.  We have 4 does and so far we've bred:
Bunny #1 on 5/16
Bunny #2 on 5/23
Bunny #3 on 5/30

We will breed Bunny # 4 on 6/6. 

Bunnies have a 30-day gestation, so Bunny #1 should have babies on or around 6/15 and the next three weeks, we should have a litter from the others.  An average size litter is 6-10 kits.  Over the next 1 1/2 months, we'll potentially have around 40 more bunnies to raise, which will be for meat.  We've both only had rabbit in restaurants - we've never had it fresh, nor have we ever cooked it ourselves, so I'm anticipating some experimenting will need to be done.  Hope we like rabbit!

Egg count

30 eggs this week.

Building a brooder

We are currently in the process of building a permanent brooder for small poultry.  Our immediate need is for 10 turkeys we have in a temporary brooder in the garage.  The brooder will be large enough to have the heat lamp in it for warmth and also enough room for the birds to roam around.  Additionally, it will be slightly over 6-foot tall so Dan can walk around in it without stooping.  Here are Dan and Brian mid-project....

Gang #2

We decided that chicken gang #2 are old enough to go out foraging with the ladies.  We were curious to see how they would interact with each other.  And more importantly, how the rooster would interact with the ladies.  We decided to wait until it was late in the day to let them out, just to give them a taste, then at dark they went back into the coop.  We really didn't even expect them to leave the chicken run.  When the ladies were their age, it took them a couple of days to get the courage to go out.  Not so with this gang.  The door to the run was only open about 20 minutes before they started venturing out.  And they ventured much further, sooner than the ladies.  Here is their maiden voyage...

Egg count

26 eggs this week.

Chicken Tractor

This is a chicken tractor...

Today is moving day for our broiler chickens to their new home.  Dan constructed an 8x8x2 chicken tractor where they'll live out the rest of their lives.  Prior to today, they've been living in a brooder (a small enclosed area with heat lamps to keep them very warm).  However, part of the point of raising our own chicks is so that they can forage to eat fresh grass and bugs.  Factory chickens never have this basic opportunity.  Here are our 20 Cornish Cross broiler chicks going into the tractor...

The beauty of a chicken tractor is that it's fairly lightweight, so it can be moved by hand.  (No tractor involved, dispite the name.)  Half of the the tractor is chicken wire to allow for ventilation and the back half is covered to provide shade and refuge from rain.  The lid opens up so we can get in and out.  Each day or two, after the chicks have had time to dine on everything available in their 8x8 area, the tractor is dragged down 8 feet, where the chicks will dine on fresh grass and new bugs for a day or two, so on and so forth.  Hopefully the chicks will have a happy, healthy life and we'll have a tasty dinner.