Category: Animals - Page 4

Eggs from the wild

10 Feb 20242 Aug 2009 by Mike (tfb)

Four or five of the girls have been escaping every day, creating their own day pass, and doing a fair imitation of flying while they’re at it. In the morning, I open the chickenhouse door and barricade it with a strip of plastic fencing that leaves a 2′ gap at the top. After I leave, they hop up on the roost, propel themselves, furiously flapping, to the top of the fencing, perch there for a moment, and then head out.

I’m not sure if it’s always the same ones. There are 25 Shaver Red layers, and I haven’t spent enough time hanging out with them to really tell them apart. But I suspect it’s a gang.

They spend the day foraging far and wide around the farm, and return at night, waiting to be let back in. This has been going on for several days, since the meat birds left…

Today, Connor found a few eggs in a thicket they seem to like. Besides being a different color from all that exposure, the eggs are clearly getting SMALLER (they’re the ones in front). As varied and nutritious as their free-ranging diet may be, it’s lower in protein than the carefully concocted feed available inside. I guess that’s what’s up.

In any case, we’ll soon put up some kind of fence, cut out a chicken door, and they’ll have the best of both worlds: grass and bugs on the outside, protein-rich feed from the feed store inside, and a convenient place to lay. That will be our state-of-the-art in natural eggs for the next little while…

Chickens, frozen

3 Feb 202230 Jul 2009 by Mike (tfb)

There they are: 38 newly processed chickens, freezing solid in the chest freezer (39 minus the one we took to roast fresh). It’s the last stop before the table on what was a pretty fine meat bird run.

Like everything else on the tiny farm (and in life in general!), when you get down to freezing chickens, there are the details. What I noticed this year is the amount time it takes to actually freeze chickens solid. This wasn’t quite as apparent last year, when we started with under 20 processed birds. Here, checking out the new freezer’s manual, I loosely followed the advice against freezing too much at once. I put in half, around 20 chickens, for a few hours, then added the rest. I’ve also been rotating them—they freeze faster when they’re exposed—but after a day, they’re not all rock hard.

I have it in mind that the faster you freeze stuff, the better it is when you thaw it out: firmer, not mushy. Something about smaller ice crystals doing less cellular damage. Sounds plausible to me!

Luckily, the chickens came heavily pre-chilled from the processing house. Processing your own in any sort of quantity, I imagine you need a fair bit of refrigerator space to cool them down, or a walk-in cooler, or lots of chest freezers. Another thing to look into for…the future!

Of course, the whole freezing thing is another puzzle. It’s quick and easy, and works really well for all kinds of food. Newer chest freezers seem quite energy efficient: this 15 cu ft one uses 400 kWh a year, which is like keeping a 60W lightbulb on for 9 months (at current electricity rates around here, that’s about $50). Doesn’t sound so bad, and there’s room for lots more in there. Still, we’re trusting a lot to yet another plug…

FINALLY, there’s the sticker, another fine feature of commercially-processed chicken. The meat is Ontario government-inspected (a provincial inspector is always on-site, that’s the law), which is indicated by a little logo on the label. Plus you get the date, weight down to two decimal places of precision, AND a price-per-pound of your choice. I picked $4. These birds are for our own use—not for sale—but it’s always fun pulling out an EXPENSIVE farm chicken for dinner, as long as it’s priced kinda within reason…

Chickens to meat

19 Apr 202229 Jul 2009 by Mike (tfb)

The White Rock Cornish X meat birds are now…meat! Today was to-the-processing-house day. Up at 5:15 a.m. to get them rounded up for the trip. And it seemed to be a pleasant one for them. They arrived looking laid-back and content after a breezy 35-minute drive. This was gonna end up their “one bad day,” but so far, so chill.

To save an hour plus round-trip drive to pick up cages from the processor, we decided to load ’em directly in the trailer. The original idea was to cover it with a tarp, but I waited till the last minute (this morning at dawn) to fit it, and there was no easy way to get the tarp secure. So, a last-minute solution that turned out great: snow fencing and wire.

Three sections were cut from a roll, overlapped, and fastened with twists of light-gauge electric fence wire. Really quick, secure, easy. Perfect! At the processor, I helped hand off the birds right through the slaughterhouse door. And that was it: back at 5:30 p.m. for the pick-up.

The trip was smooth, but the end was still a little impersonal: in one processor house door, out the other. I hope to fill in that last killing step soon.

So there we are, 39 free-ranged chickens, after what seemed to be a happy, active, fast-growing, 11-week life, are now government-inspected, weighed (average about 7lbs/3kg), packed in plastic, and pre-chilled for the freezer. This seems pretty close to sane meat production. Chicken dinner!

Weighing chickens

25 Apr 202214 Jul 2009 by Mike (tfb)

Booked a chicken processing date today: slaughterhouse day is July 29. They’ve been looking good all along, but now the White Rocks seem mighty…tasty. I keep remembering one of them hurrying by with a long worm trailing from his beak, then gulping it down. The last batch got nothing but feed. These guys have foraged for a varied diet, literally free-ranging (no fence!) for most of their lives. Feed plus bugs, plants, and whatnot. Should be a delicious combo.

On this, only my second flock of meat birds, I’ve noticed a new feeling for food animals. The first round was a novelty and a learning experience, now, it’s a comfortable routine. I observe the chickens with appreciation. I like them. I talk to them (although, not about much), hang out with them when I have time. I size them up as soon-to-be FOOD as I look out for their comfort, well-being and cheerfulness every day. There’s no pet-based sentimentality, instead I am grateful. The I-raise-you-then-eat-you feeling may sound harsh, but it feels…natural.

Weighed a few for the first time today, using a hanging scale and a trug (flexible plastic utility bucket). This can-do set-up works fine for spot checks. With the handles pulled together, the top of the trug is pretty well closed, so the chicken inside tends to sit still for a while before starting to look around…

At 9 weeks, most of them are around 7-8 lbs (3.6 kg). About 6-8 of the 39, like the one in the pic, are a little smaller. They’re around 6 lbs (if you’re checking the scale in the pic, the outer number is kgs, inner is lbs, and the trug = 2 lbs). All things considered, that seems good! According to the hatchery catalog, the White Rock average is 6.3 lbs (2.7 kg) at 7 weeks. I assume that’s with confinement and unlimited feed. These guys are out and about, exercising, and I let the feeders empty for 4-5 hours every day. The lighter weight seems to make sense. A couple more weeks and they should be White-Rock-plump, still healthy and happy, and…supertasty!

Chickens: ranging too far

18 Dec 20118 Jul 2009 by Mike (tfb)

These guys, the White Rock Cornish X meat birds, have free-ranged too far, making it to the edge of the veggie garden in the big field. Luckily, although it looks good in the photo, this all-lettuce mesclun is done, cut at least twice and now too full of damaged and crowded, stretched leaves to make harvesting for market worthwhile. So, the chickens are actually putting it to good use. But of course, they won’t stop here.

So far, they’ve been completely free to roam during the day. I count and shut ’em in out of harm’s way at night, and pop open the door soon after sunrise. If they found farm life dull, they could hit the road and head to town, just like that. Instead, they tend to wander further from home bit by bit.

I’ve been watching their circle of foraging territory gradually expand away from the chickenhouse. A few advance scouts lead the way, sometimes alone, or in twos or threes. Eventually, over a couple of days, more follow. It’s fun to watch the process, and they seem to appreciate the freedom (since they use it), but it’s still three weeks to Processing Day, and they’ll keep on exploring right into the garden. Time for some fencing action…

(In front, pieces of old hose and water pipe are being sorted out on a clear patch of ground.)

Farm eggs with hot sausage

7 Jul 20092 Jul 2009 by Mike (tfb)

A week after arrival, the 25 Shaver Red Sex Link ready-to-lay layers are starting to lay. That’s good. We’re up to 7-8 eggs a day, and most are just shy of Small (on the official egg scale), but the numbers are improving daily. Much watching and counting…you can easily get kinda obsessed by it all. Getting up to speed!

Meanwhile, after three months without, fresh-daily eggs are back on our farm menu! Today, my first taste: 4-5 small eggs, scrambled with olive oil and salt, topped up with chunks of semi-dry Hungarian hot sausage from the farmers’ market. Pretty good!

Extending the chickenhouse

27 Jun 200921 Jun 2009 by Mike (tfb)

First day of summer, and the day before the arrival of 25 20-week-old, ready-to-lay Shaver Red Sex Link CHICKENS. Clearly, time to begin building out their new home. It shouldn’t take too long! :) Working on and off through the day, the frame went up, and by early evening, the plywood flooring is down, the door is built (on the right) and even a first plywood panel is up. A little more work tomorrow, and we should be good to go. No problem!