I'm a Believer - Broiler Chickens for Beautiful Grass

I grew up in Arkansas, and perhaps being as close to Missouri as I was a bit of the Show Me state rubbed off on me. Joel Salatin, Justin Rhodes, Jack Spirko; the list goes on and on of folks who talk about the value add of grazing broilers. I never imagined it would be as big as this picture is, it still doesn't do justice to how amazing the grass is where we had the broilers, just a few weeks ago.

The most lush, thick grass on my place is where the chicken tractor was. No weeds, jut tasty grass. If I wasn't looking at it with my own eyes I wouldn't believe it. I'm fully committed now to both the laying hens and further meat chickens. If I can just break even on the chickens, the benefits are amazing.

Thanks for reading.

Tractor Upgrade

The best $36 I've spent in a while on these LED Headlights from Amazon. After my buddy Gabe hooked them up I knew they'd be bright, but I had no idea how bright they'd actually be. It allows me to actually work confidently at night now. If you have an old tractor, and working at night sounds better than roasting in the midday sun, drop less than $40 and upgrade your ride!

Thanks for reading!

Raising Turkeys

All we heard about raising turkeys was about how dumb they are and how the tend to find new and exciting ways to off themselves. For whatever reason though, to date, we've had an easy time with them. The day we brought them home I pulled two of the three pullets out of the brooder and slipped them in with the turkeys.

The pullets, by simply eating and drinking, showed the turkeys how to feed themselves. A few days after picking up the turkeys we found two Buff geese on Craigslist and introduced them into the fray. The two chickens have graduated to the freezer with the rest of their brethern, but the turkeys abide. If you're going to get some turkeys having a couple of established (think month old) chicks to show them the ropes. Once they're eating and drinking, if you can keep them from running away or killing themselves, you're halfway home.

Final note, baby turkeys, are not cute. At all. Not even a little bit. You've been warned.

Self-Reliance and Resilience

So, if you've been working on your Homestead as a while, this post will be old hat, if you're new to Homesteading or about to head down the path hopefully this post is for you.

You're going to be overwhelmed for a while, but don't start another project until you've completed the one you're working on. I wanted to do everything all at once, but ended up with a lot of half done stuff, and no real production to show for it. As time has gone on we've added one thing to the next, function stacking as best we can. I'm beginning to see real, tangible benefits from both the chickens and the cattle on our land, and can't wait for the fall garden and the rabbit manure to add into our soil.

You're going to have bad days. The bull is going to walk through a fence and end up in the road. Feral dogs, or skunks, or hawks are going to decimate your chickens. Your brooder is going to be too small and you're going to lose chickens to snakes and smothering. Your pigs are going to dig under the pen in search of better accomodations. You're going to forget to turn the water off and come home to a pig version of a waterpark, twice. Your tractor is going to break, repeatedly. You will be ok. Ask me how I know.

The Homestead is a metaphor for life. There's a line from a Keanu Reeves movie, "Half of life is just showing up." The Homestead demands that you show up everyday. Rain shine, hot or cold, dry or wet, or any combination thereof. Failure is the greatest teacher I've ever had. I've had my share of failures in life; relationships, jobs, teams I was on and teams I coached but one few gifts I have is tenacity. No matter how many times I've been knocked down, I've gotten up one more time.

Keep getting up. Reach out to folks and ask for help. Learn from every failure and give thanks for every success. The good days eventually outweigh the bad. :-)

Final Thoughts on Freedom Rangers

Graduation Day for the Freedom Rangers

So the Freedom Ranger experiment went fairly well. Once we got them out of the brooder we didn't lose a single chicken. That's a big deal. Our big takeaway from the brooder this time was to double the size for the next batch and we hope we can cut down mortaility from how active the chicks can be. Between the Cornish and the Freedom Rangers mortality was a push, though with a larger brooder the Freedom Rangers probably would have won out.

In the end it comes down to efficiency, and the Cornish Cross win hands down. Even having fresh grass and being moved everyday, I couldn't see a noticeable difference in activity level between the Freedom Rangers and the Cornish. We butchered at just over 11 weeks, and the average weight of the straight run roosters was still considerably less than the mixed run of Cornish that we sent to the processor at 7 weeks.  With the Cornish ready to go to the butcher a month sooner, and doing so with less feed, we'll only be doing Cornish in the future.

Again, I can't say enough good things about Nealy Farms' feed over in Waxahachie, and Cobb Creek Farms that processed the chickens for us in Hillsboro. Both are first rate places in what they do. Thanks for reading.

Our Paddocks Are Finally Complete!!!!!!

Spring is, by far, our busiest time on the Homestead, and to my 3 regular readers I'm sorry for the sporadic postings since March. With the heat comes more time to write as we do our best to avoid the Texas heat outside.

Minus 3 strands of wire and 6 handles, we've finished our electric paddocks. The 2.0 joule energizer (AC plugged in inside the barn) has proven to be more than enough to convince the cattle to stay inside the paddocks. After accidentally touching the hotwire while working on part of the physical fence, I can understand why. I felt it in my soul. (And screamed like a little girl, to be perfectly honest.)

Even though we only started the paddock project back in late March, I've learned enough that I'd probably change some things if I had it to do over. I wouldn't do 3 strands again. That said I don't know if the Belties would be contained with a single strand either. I tried that on a few paddocks and though the bull and adult cows didn't abscond, both mornings I went out to check cattle I found calves in the adjacent paddocks. I know what you're thinking, "They'll go back in there right?" Apparently not. I think the dew that comes with morning made going back too painful, so I came out to bawling calves each morning.

The other thing we learned was the plan to pick up 3 strands of poly wire and move it every couple of days, while doable, was a pain in the keister. Running traditional wire is cheaper than the polywire, but the polywire is super easy to work with. Since we decided to make the rest of the semi-permanent paddocks with traditional galvanized wire. As I've said in earlier posts, the grounding component is the single most important part of the electric fence, and once we moved our grounding rods to our moistest soil we have had no problems convincing the Belties to stay home.