An Introduction to Our Chickens

Hello Everyone!


      We hope you've been keeping warm! In our area, we've seen a couple snow/ice storms that have been packing quite a punch! The miserable weather doesn't permit putting off farm chores, however; it just makes them more challenging. In particular, we are constantly working to make sure the outside animals have plenty of fresh (thawed) water, and are keeping warm via a series of heat lamps and plenty of bedding. Alas, some of them (here's looking at you, ducks) insist on waddling about in the elements regardless!

      In our last post, we mentioned some of the things we were going to be doing in preparation  for this market season. Even though it's January, the planning begins now. We have been discussing new ways to track inventory, some workshops we might want to offer during market, and ways to get our hands on a trailer so that we can avoid renting a UHaul every single weekend. We are also planning the management of our flock of chickens, which will be today's primary topic.

      I am sure we all know basic information about chickens and eggs [insert bad chicken jokes here]. We aren't going to get into "what came first" debate because let's be real, dinosaurs came first, and chickens are just distant relatives of the raptor. Trust us, they run around like them in the yard and it's hilarious!

Nate's humor at work, everyone.

      In all seriousness, we often get asked why we bother keeping chickens for eggs (or growing anything ourselves) when we can simply go to the grocery store. Most people do not have the luxury of walking out into their backyard and getting eggs for morning breakfast, nor are farm fresh eggs always accessible over the winter months when farmer's markets are much more limited around our area. And yes, farm eggs DO taste and look different than store-bought eggs! Store-bought eggs usually come from 1 or 2 types of chickens specifically bred to lay a high volume of white eggs. Since egg production is highest within a chicken's first year of life, these chickens will typically be slaughtered after that first year to make room for 'better' layers. The current regulations around high production egg facilities are such that chickens are only required to have 1 square foot of floor space in their cage, and enough height for the chicken to stand up and turn around, typically sixteen inches or so. All of their food is brought to them, denying their natural instincts to scratch, peck and forage. These standards fall woefully short of providing for any decent quality of life for these birds. Commercial eggs that are labeled 'Cage-Free' may provide similarly poor welfare standards for their laying hens. Companies can cram thousands of birds together in a large, windowless space and pass it off as 'cage free'. This creates enormous amounts of stress for the birds, who may resort to neurotic behaviors, self-mutilation and cannibalism. When you stuff a lot of chickens together in a small area without adequate ventilation, the smell of ammonia becomes overwhelming, the space impossibly filthy, and can become dangerous for the health of the flock. This is why, in these situations, you see a lot of antibiotics being administered to negate the effects of close quarters which in turn affects the overall quality of the product too. Most store-bought eggs are already several weeks old when the customer purchases them, with a pale yellow color, flat yolk and minimal flavor due to both their age and the nutrition provided to the hens. Our chickens, on the other hand, live in a completely custom designed 5'x'4'x5' coop with multiple nesting boxes and an attached 16'x16'x7' run featuring multiple perching areas and a couple other sheltered spaces to hide in and run around. More days than not, though, they are let out in the morning (sometimes to the dismay of our neighbors) to run through our yard and the woods. They return by themselves at dusk (no, we did not teach them to do that! It's their natural roosting instinct at play).  Because they are free to roam, they can forage for bugs, seeds and tasties. This cuts down on our feed and grit costs, and results in flavorful eggs that are golden to dark orange in color. Plus, free-ranging both our chickens and ducks allows is a great way to control our local mosquito and pest population!

      As you might imagine, we think our chickens are pretty great, and their eggs delicious. We began bringing eggs along with us to market last year, and found that many other people thought them pretty great, too! Our flock of fifteen, with several occasional layers or few-to-none layers couldn't keep up with the summer demand. This has caused us to rethink our flock composition, which is currently a mix of Barred Rocks, Brahmas, Leghorns, Delawares, Amber Links, Araucanas, and one useless Gold-Laced Wyandotte rooster. All of these chickens apart from the Leghorns are considered dual-purpose breeds; that is, they lay some eggs and are also good to eat. However, in order to attempt to keep up with our egg supply for market in the summer, we will need to switch our flock up and increase our number of layers as well as have these new layers ready to lay by June, likely then sending away the non-layers for processing in late August or September. Pullets (young female chickens) usually begin egg production around the age of 20-22 weeks, meaning we have to order them in January/early February- and even, then, these first eggs (known as pullet eggs), can be tiny. That means breaking out the chicken catalog now! 

      If you're wondering why we are ordering chicks instead of hatching them ourselves, well...Plain and simple, our chickens do not have a maternal bone in their body. We have let them keep eggs to sit on before. They have lost them or crushed them or, the one time they actually got a chick to hatch (they cheated and let one of our ducks sit on it, then snatched it back when it hatched) promptly lost the baby. We do mean lost- we never found it or its body. So, we choose to go the safer route. We go online to order our chicks from Meyer Hatchery in Ohio. They, like many other hatcheries, offer free catalogs with lots of detailed information and pictures regarding their stock offerings and policies. Ordering is great fun- in addition to function, we love picking out funky/unusual looking chickens! From customer interactions we had last year, we have found that people either want strictly white eggs, or insist that colored eggs are somehow healthier, or that white have been bleached somehow (they haven't) and so are therefore bad for you...with all these opinions, it is best for us to have a good mix of egg colors. Did you know that egg color is determined by the chicken's skin?
Ordering from a hatchery also allows for us to select the gender of the chicks. If you went to a farm store, you would find what are known as 'straight-run' chicks in those giant metal troughs- chicks that have not been assessed for their sex by professionals (yes, this is a real job someone has!). The option to select gender is wonderful, because we have had enough of roosters to last us a good while. In general, roosters don't produce anything independently for market and too many can cause serious fights over hens. Kylo, our current rooster, is utterly unhelpful in protecting the flock and spends most of his days strutting about, eating everything in sight and bullying our ducks. The several times a weasel has gotten into our coop, instead of protecting his ladies with his giant spurs, he simply ran and hid. He also likes to crow at 2am...repeatedly. But I digress. Once ordered, the hatchery chicks arrive up to three days after they hatch at the post office in a box and we simply go and pick them up. Chicks have the ability to survive 3 days with out food or water because of the remnants of the yolk still in their system, which gives us time to get them home and set them up in a brooder under a heat lamp where they can be warm and start growing. We will talk about brooders once we get ours up and going again!

Cheers!

Nate & Kaitlin at Farver Creek Food and Fiber Farm

An Introduction to Farver Creek!

     Hello Everyone,

             Welcome to the very first blog entry of Farver Creek Food and Fiber Farm!  We are a small but ever growing hobby farm located in S.E. Michigan. At this point, you may be wondering to yourself, "what on earth is a hobby farm?" While the term itself can apply to a number of situations, it essentially means that we have typical daytime careers and that our farm, at present, is a side project (hence the term hobby). Both of us have degrees in education- Nate in History/Social Studies and Physical Education, and Kaitlin in Spanish, Communications and Theater.  After a long and coffee-saturated journey, in April 2019 Kaitlin will also have earned a MA in both school and community mental health counseling, and wants to make the eventual transition into the world of private therapy practice. So by day, we are educators and helping professionals, but by night (and weekend), we are farmers!  
            The term farm typically invokes images of rolling hill and soaring red barns. Not for us...at least not yet. We presently sit on about 1.5 acres of land which backs up to a body of water that is graciously referred to as a lake. However, this is a perfect place to begin our adventure! We have a small raised garden for the fresh herbs. We have a log pile and flower beds for cultivating mushrooms. We have space enough for a green house and compost pile. And we have room for our chickens, ducks and rabbits, along with our 2 rescued cats and 2 rescued dogs.  We know we are not a very large operation, but we have large aspirations in where we would like to go. Ultimately we envision a working farm that strives to incorporate evidence-based natural, sustaining practices that operate in harmony with the existing ecosystem (more to com in future posts.)  Further more, we want to create this space to foster educational opportunities as well as serve as a holistic nature-based therapy practice for the surrounding communities.

          While we are still a ways away from full scale farming, we are anything but idle. This past year we were at  a couple of different markets; the Shelby Twp. Farmer's Market and the New Baltimore Farmer's Market. Both in our eyes were pretty successful. In particular, we sold eggs, fiber products such as homespun yarn, and all-natural jam featuring fruit sourced from local orchards, as well as fruits and vegetables purchased from rural growers and hauled into town. Upon reflection, we learned quite a bit about selling and marketing, and have gained a steady customer base.  So, our plan is to continue those markets this coming year.  Now that we have established our presence at both of these weekly markets, our primary goal this summer will be to maintain product levels while reducing our waste (last year we were rather overwhelmed with the demand for certain items yet underwhelmed with others). We are also looking to forge and solidify business relationships from additional local vegetable and flower growers to provide a wide variety for our customers. These relationships will also help us as we offer several onsite educational workshops this season, too. 
          Now that it is the New Year, and market season fast approaching, it is time to nail down our "plan of attack". While January may not seem like a busy month for a farming operation, we are selecting and ordering chickens and herbs we would like to grow, reviewing last year's figures, shopping for a new trailer, beginning stock production on fiber and jams, and reviewing/modifying our record keeping practices. There isn't much free time for editing during the growing season!

    Thank you for taking the time to read this- it's taken several days to get it just right! We look forward to cultivating this biweekly blog for those both who wish to keep up with our particular enterprise, as well as those simply interested in learning more about sustainable gardening, animal care, the business of small-scale markets, and the educational/therapeutic elements of the natural world.  Follow us on Blogger, Facebook and Twitter for future posts about our farm and other educational information! 

Cheers to a great 2019!

Farver Creek Food and Fiber Farm