Farm will be open from 2-5pm this Sunday with fresh Cornish Cross birds available right from the chill tank. This may be our last open day (we only have about 80 birds left for the season) until the turkeys have their ‘one bad day’.
The Farmer’s Markets are over for the season. We are both sad and glad about this…sad that we won’t see many of you for the winter, but glad to catch our breath for a bit. There is no better feeling for us than hearing back from you about our products- hearing ‘the yolks were so orange’ or ‘we used the bones and scraps for stock and there was a layer of fat this thick’ or ‘I need to stock up on sausage for winter’. Kind of makes you pity the farmers that are dozens of processing steps away from their customers- how in the world are they supposed to get better at what they do?
We are going to wait a couple of weeks on the egg drops as the girls are all about feathers right now and not about eggs. It certainly makes me question our decision to sell eggs for $4 a dozen when we get only a couple dozen a day after feeding 300+ birds; however, this production rate is my fault not yours. Most of the birds are neck molting- also called stress molting, which takes us back to mid-July when we attempted a 2 acre move with the girls. It was too much- when things go wrong here at the farm – we kick ourselves and think- ‘farming would be easy if it wasn’t for management.’ This is really true, we try and let chickens be chickens here and they repay us well if we just don’t push too hard. Hens have an unbeatable GPS system- they know where home is regardless of where we place the doops. When things don’t come together by night fall for the hens they stress out…drop feathers and stop laying. We know these limits better now and hopefully ‘management’ will not make the same mistake again!! It is wonderful to see the pin feathers coming in and the hens starting to preen with full plumage again….chickens are really amazing animals. One more note of eggs….we are thinking about Delawares to expand our flock for next year. This is a relatively new breed that was to be the ultimate dually- however, industry ended up splitting in half between eggs and meat and all the duallies have essentially been relegated to small timers like us. If anyone has experience with these birds please send us a note.
Anita is working on the turkey list and will be making calls early next week. Demand has been great for the turkeys and we look forward to being a small part of your holiday!
Hope to see you Sunday!
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