Another successful few weeks for the chickens. Last week we moved them off the baby food and on to their adult food, appropriately called Meat Maker. They have completely lost all their yellow fur and now have nothing but white feathers and some have spots of black on them. There are mornings when I bring out their feed and I feel like they have grown overnight! They are four weeks old today.At first, I was a little leery about moving the chicken coop around every day. It seemed like a lot of work and I was thinking it might be easier to just have a permanent coop instead. But after two weeks, I would be really hesitant to do this any other way. The pure volume of poop that these 26 guys produce is astonishing. If I had a permanent coop it would be a lot of cleanup. I move it every day and just rake a lot into the woods. The kids have been banned from playing in the section of our yard where the coop stays. At first they didn’t understand but after riding out with bike tires caked in brown they quickly got the picture! I now understand why they are saying that chicken run off accounts for a lot of the problems the Chesapeake Bay is having. My little coop is way smaller than Mr. Purdue’s millions! (http://www.wtop.com/?nid=768&sid=1454863)
On other farming notes, I spent a good part of last Monday making strawberry jelly for our family. I am hoping to have enough to get us through to strawberry season next year. It is very easy to make and freezes really well. I don’t have enough time, energy or money to have everything in our lives be organic but I am starting out with our major items – chicken, bread, jelly, milk.
We also did our first CSA pickup from Farmer Donna. This week’s box contained asparagus, lettuce, green onions and 2 dozen eggs. Her chickens are truly free range – I was afraid I was going to back up over one as we pulled out! It was all unbelievably delicious! I would highly recommend a CSA if you can find one in your area.
