A lot has been happening during the past few weeks on our little farm! Here are the highlights:
​

• ​Bees. After our only top bar hive failed to survive the winter, we made a difficult decision to give beekeeping a break for the year. Then, we were pleasantly surprised when we were contacted by a local apiary to house some of their beehives on our property. The 24 NUCs were delivered today, and are nestled in the back corner of our property. Even though they aren't our bees, it is nice to know that we will still have plenty of honeybees pollinating our flowers and veggies this year, as well as the most local honey possible!

​

• Ducks. The 8-week-old Pekin drakes were processed for meat last Friday. We decided to keep three female ducks as egg layers, but they won't actually start laying eggs until July or August. We are also brooding a handful of 2-week old female ducks to keep as layers.

• Geese. We successfully hatched 6 goslings from the incubator, and they are already 3 weeks old. We moved them out on pasture and they are happily mowing the lawn for us. The 4 goslings mow more grass in the same shelter as 25 chicks! We also have 2 more eggs in the incubator scheduled to hatch late next week. Also, Mama Goose FINALLY decided to go broody yesterday and she is setting on a clutch of eggs. We haven't checked, but there should be 6-7 eggs under her.

• Layer Chickens. Due to the late winter this year, the layers had to spend a few extra weeks in their winter coop. But they have finally been moved outside and are happily munching on grass and weeds, digging up worms, and chasing bugs. Yesterday, we also had at least one chicken decide to go broody (on the same day Anastasia the Goose went broody). We should have lots of baby birds wandering around in 3-4 weeks!

• Meat ​Chickens. The meat chickens are in the brooder and should be ready to be moved outside on Monday. These birds will be ready to be processed in late June. This is the only batch of meat chickens we plan to raise this year.

• ​Quail. We added quail to our bird mix a few weeks ago. Right now we are just eating the eggs, but once we are able to move them out of the garage and house them on pasture, we will have eggs available for purchase. At some point we will also have quail available to purchase for meat.

​​

• Turkeys. We will be raising traditional broad-breasted turkeys this year instead of heritage breeds (unless specifically requested). We will order the turkeys around Memorial Day, so there is still time to place an order.

Several important updates are included in this post. Please read in its entirety.

We are doing things a little differently this year. Due to a new summer commitment for our family (travel baseball), we only plan to raise one batch each of ducks, chickens, turkeys, and possibly geese. For some reason, it is difficult to find someone willing to take care of our birds twice a day, everyday, for no pay, while we are gone. ;) We are committed to raising our birds in as healthy a manner as possible, which includes moving their shelters once or twice a day, as well as constantly checking on feed & water, but we don't make enough profit to actually  pay someone to help us accomplish that goal.

Therefore, we have sketched out a tentative schedule for the season that works around our schedule and limits total processing days for us. We have a limited number of shelters available for raising birds, and as soon as we reach that number of orders (on a first-come, first-served basis), we will be sold out for the year. So make sure to figure in how many birds you would like for an entire year as well as your freezer/storage capacity when placing your order(s). To reserve your birds, please fill out the appropriate form(s) on our Sales page or call us to place order and then mail us this form.

Sales Page order forms:

• Ducks
• Chickens
• Turkeys

Obviously, these dates are subject to change based on a variety of factors, including the availability of chicks/poults, weather, and the growth rate of the birds. We hope to notify customers a couple weeks in advance of the final processing date. This year, we would like customers to pick up on the afternoon of their processing date, directly from our farm. We are limited in storage capacity and prefer to hand over possession of the fresh bird to you as quickly as possible.

TURKEYS
In addition, we are asking for a small deposit if reserving Thanksgiving turkeys. Our 8-year old son (who refers to himself as Turkey Boy) is in charge of about half of the turkeys we raise. He pays for the poults and the feed and takes care of them every day. Last year was a work-in-progress since the whole turkey thing was new to us, but now we have an idea of how long it will take heritage breed turkeys to grow out and we have a better understanding of how to process the turkeys. We will only raise turkeys for people who pay a $20 deposit, and customers will have a choice to buy heritage breed or the standard (white) turkeys. Heritage breed turkey poults are more expensive and take significantly longer to grow to a marketable size, hence the price difference.

SOUP CHICKENS
If we get a broody hen this spring or decide to buy straight-run layer chicks, we will have a limited availability of "soup chickens," which are essentially the grown-out cockerels (roosters). Since the cockerels will likely be 4-5 months old at processing, the meat will be a bit tough, but full of flavor, and will tenderize if cooked long and slow (like how you would cook chuck roast). Also, cockerels have large drumsticks but little breast meat. These soup chickens are a great choice for making flavorful, pastured chicken broth. Please indicate in the survey below if you would have any interest in soup chickens and we will contact you if/when available.

GEESE/QUAIL/DUCK EGGS
We are also hoping to hatch out a handful of goslings this spring. While the geese have finally started mating, *we have not received a first egg yet. Also, goose eggs are notoriously difficult to incubate, so even if/when we get eggs, we aren't sure if we'll have successful hatches. If we do, we will either grow out the goslings to sell as a traditional Christmas goose, or we will simply sell the goslings to people wanting to raise their own geese. We are also contemplating adding quail and/or laying ducks to the farm. Please indicate on the survey below if you have any interest in geese or quail for meat or duck/quail eggs.

*UPDATE: We found our first 2 goose eggs about an hour after writing this blog post!

Feel free to contact us with any questions, comments, or concerns about these changes.