Chicken Herder

My volunteers and I just processed a round of beautiful broilers yesterday.  Right now you can get them fresh and unfrozen. This will allow you to do any further processing (quarter, make them boneless or skinless, etc) before putting them into storage…or just have the freshest possible chicken for grilling this week!

This round of chickens averages 5.25 pounds, with a fairly wide size range (from 3.5-6.5). The cost is $3.50/lb. I also have bags of feet and necks available for making the best and healthiest stock you’ve ever had. I usually sell them at the same price as the chicken, but for a limited time, they are $2.50/lb.

Use the Reserve Your Share webform or FaceBook me (FarmerSam.com), if you have any questions or want to schedule a pickup.

Blessings,
Sam

Here is a fun link:  http://www.naturalnews.com/032659_arsenic_chicken.html

If you are reading this, you probably don’t need more encouragement to eat food primarily from farmers you know, and whose farms you can visit…but it might help you evangelize a friend.

I can imagine someone saying, “Well, now that they’re removing arsenic from the chicken feed, there’s no problem in eating the chicken from the store.”  This person is not considering a few key questions.  1) If they’ve kept arsenic consumption a secret this long, what else is being hidden about their food or water consumption? 2) How healthy can an animal be when it is raised in a building its whole life, away from the sun, fresh air, and the option of eating grass and bugs?  3) Do you want to eat an animal that is medicated from the day of its birth (and likely given vaccinations as well)?  4) Should we pin our food security hopes on an industry that has proven itself to be unethical in its treatment of animals and humans?

I am sure there are more questions that need to be addressed, like the hidden costs Joel Salatin mentions in his writings…but these should get us started.

Here is where the young pigs were to have been living.  Fortunately, it was snowing Monday (when I was to take delivery), and so they have been delayed until Saturday.  Hopefully their lake will have receded a bit by then.

No deaths to report.  Well, none that matter.  Irony: with the flooding, I couldn’t drive the lawnmower to the back, so I had to carry their water by hand.

I may be having trouble keeping chickens alive this year, but I’ve had no problem at all raising mosquitoes.  With all the water we’ve been enjoying, there are swarms of mosquitoes around me almost every time I go out to work (which is often).  The only time I consider using Off!® is when I’m going to be working outside after dark – it’s just too many chemicals on me all the time otherwise.  As a result they are landing on and biting me constantly.  I’ve almost given up trying to swat them, it just eats up so much time.  With this controversial policy, you’d think that I would be swollen on all exposed surfaces, but surprisingly, I’m not.  Once I became aware of this incongrous reality, I paid attention, trying to determine what was working.  Here’s what I’ve come up with: Dr. Bronner’s magic soap (peppermint flavor), and Tropical Traditions’ gold label coconut oil.

For the last couple years, I’ve been using coconut oil to treat mosquito bites…and it certainly helps, but it doesn’t make them go away…just lessens the itching.  What is new this year is Dr. Bronner’s soap.  When I’m finished working outside for the day, I shower using Dr. Bronner’s soap (you can feel the essential oils tingling).  When I’m dry, I apply coconut oil to any bites I still feel, and so far, I’ve had no itching.  I’m not sure what is actually doing it…but the only thing I am doing that makes any sense (to me) is the soap/coconut oil combo.  Just thought I’d share.

Well, we had the worst flooding of the season last night.  In what felt like a gentle rain (yes, I was up at 4:30 checking on it, but determined it to be safe and so went back to bed), all but 14 of my 115 broilers were killed.

I know what you’re thinking, “How stupid are you, to let this happen again?”  The quick answer is, “I’m not sure.”  The longer answer is more complex.  I only have so much room, and our whole field is quite low compared to the surroundings.  In this flooding, well over half (maybe as much as two thirds) of it is under water.  Keep in mind that even just a couple inches is enough to kill young birds like mine. 

It appears then, that I should just get the chickens to that bit of ground that is highest.  The problem is, I’ve already used about half of it for chickens earlier this year, and cannot yet use it again without risk of the chickens getting sick and dying…or worse, getting sick and living (when that happens, they eat all the way to processing day, and then when I open them up, I find out they are not edible – the most costly failure of all).  The other high land is all the way in a corner and when the weather threatens, I cannot just move the pens to the high ground and then back out.  Chickens typically aren’t willing to walk that much, and I would probably damage them along the way.  Complicating this is the fact that the high ground at the back is exceptionally uneven; I would likely lose many to predators getting underneath the pen’s edge.

The third issue is past performance.  Last year we never had any flooding during poultry season, and so I keep thinking that we can’t go from no flooding to multiple floods in a year.  And maybe this will hold true in the future…but this is no typical year.  According to Tom Skilling, this is the third wettest July in the last 140 years, and I believe him.

Anyway, all of that to say that this has been a rough year.  In order to make up for this loss, I’m going to have to charge $24/lb for the 14 broilers that remain.  That shouldn’t be hard, these are premium birds, after all:)

Finally, two floods and a date-change later, the chickens are ready to fulfill their destiny.  I and my faithful crew of volunteers (2 or 3 new ones this time) will be processing them this Saturday (7/3/10).  I am hopeful that we will have them ready for pickup around noon or one…but since this is the first processing we’ve done this year, it may be a bit later.  Feel free to call to find out if we are done, or just come on over and bring a lawn chair.  Depending on how much work is left and how many customers are here at the time, we may be able to do a bit of touring about the farm.  If you can’t this time, don’t fret…I’m planning on having a FarmerSam open house later this summer – after the pigs and turkeys are out and about.

The chickens will be cleaned, eviscerated and bagged.  I would recommend bringing an iced cooler in which to put your chickens.  I will have their temperature nice and low by pickup, but still, you want to keep them as cool as possible and get them in the refrigerator quickly.  For best taste and texture, you’ll want to store your chickens in the fridge for two days before eating or freezing.  Make sure to eat or freeze them within a week (I personally do this around day 4 or 5, just to be safe).

If you want feet, necks or liver, please let me know ahead of time, if possible, and I will do what I can to facilitate this.  They will be billed at the same rate as the chickens themselves ($3/lb).

Farmer’s log: earth date – 6/23/2010

This is what you call a narrow escape…or God taking pity on a slow learner.  I woke at 5 am, before the rain began.  It was still a little dark, and the meatbirds don’t like to be moved before the sun has been up for a bit, so back to bed.  By 6 am, when I woke again, the rain was coming down hard.  Lightning was dancing all around and I thought it was a bit foolish to go walking out in the wet field, so I drove my 4×4 out to them.  There was no water pooling within a hundred feet of them, so I went back in the house to do some of my online work for TEDS. 

Within a half hour, Celeste called to me from one of the rooms facing the field, “Hey, you ought to take a picture of this for a post and call it, ‘a near miss.’ “  This disturbed me, since I had just been outside and there had been nothing close about the miss.  When I got to the window, I saw that they were actually standing in water.  I rushed out and found them in water about 3 inches deep…deep enough that they didn’t want to move with the pen.  You’ll notice the trail of chickens in the second picture above…they just sat there and let the chicken tractor go over them.  In the end, I got them moved to higher ground, and I believe they’re safe for the night…though we have another flood advisory on.  I’ve gotta dig a pond….

It is with great sadness that I write this post. Starting on Wednesday night (May 12), sometime between 11 pm and 6 am, our field flooded. All the broilers are dead. There was no warning (or at least none that I was aware of), and our field has never flooded this much this late in the year (at least since we’ve been here). When I went out I was holpeful that one or two chickens might be alive. After pulling the first chicken tractor to land, I discovered I was wrong.

Celeste took some pictures of me trying to rescue the chickens. The white things in the water around me are the broilers. I picked a couple up (also pictured) to see if there were any vital signs. I later took a couple clearer pictures and one of Nora surveying the loss.

Our family garden also flooded. I do not yet know the extent of loss there. The next week will reveal more.

The bit of good news is that we just got our next round of broilers in as chicks. They are set to be processed on June 26, assuming fire doesn’t descend from Heaven and consume them.

The first round of broilers for 2010 will be available on May 24. They will be seven weeks old on that day, so I am anticipating an average weight around 4 pounds. The cost is $3 per pound. I am hoping to bring almost 90 to market, but I’m already getting orders in, so if you want some, be sure to reserve yours soon. I have already ordered the next set of chicks…they will be available on or around July 3 (just in time for Independence Day grilling).

Regarding processing: I am trying something different this time, namely, same-day-pickup. More details will be coming within the next couple days…stay tuned!