Last year I decided that I wanted to raise meat chickens. I'm not 100% sure when I decided that or what my inspiration was. If I'm honest, I'm guessing that it may be because of Justin Rhodes and when he did a big ol' meat chicken harvest that probably happened during their 2016 100 Days of Growing Food challenge. I believe that harvest was in late Spring possibly early Summer.
Anyway - I had it in my head that we would raise some meat chickens in 2017. It didn't happen not in the way that I had in mind. My vision was to get a batch of chicks in the mail (?) and bring them home and do what all the cool people are doing. Well, the Rhodes family and other homesteader types around the US. As it happened, last year was not the year of the meat chicken. Which is just was well I'm not sure that the timing was right. We did process our unwanted roos though, so we did do a super mini harvest last September.
Still, if this was going to be a thing, we would need to build a house of sorts.
Enter the Stress Free Chicken Tractor by John Suscovich. Not long after watching the GAFT video that featured Camps Road Farm I ordered myself the book and totally got excited about starting on a new adventure.
Fast Forward to March of this year - we built the Chicken Tractor! It's about time right?
Then in April I went to the Jenks website to workout the ordering of the birds. We decided to go with the Freedom Ranger - a slower growing bird (around 3 more weeks) than the Cornish Cross. My other reason for going with the Freedom Ranger is based on the fact that these tend to be a little more active and don't have nearly as many physical problems as the CC might have. Also, because they are a little more active I have read that they might have better thighs and legs and a more lean breast. Which is fine with me as we prefer thighs and legs.
Today was pick-up day and since the hatchery is not terribly far away - less than a hundred miles - we drove to pick them up. If they were shipped they would not arrive until the weekend and if I can avoid the post office, that's okay by me.
We left Starbucks at 9:30 and arrive a little after 11am. The gas station had food so we grabbed some lunch and waited for the chicks to arrive.
The Jenks van snuck in...we got our chicks and then we went home!
 |
| In the box and ready to go home. |
 |
| The new babies all settled in!!
My understanding is that they were hatched this morning - so they are still just a little fragile. They all had their little beaks dipped into the water and they are curious enough to figure out the food.
After letting them settle in a little bit they seemed to be all happy and zipping around in their temporary home. In a month they will be going out on pasture!
Operation Grow Your Food...
Farm Life is the Best Life!
|
No comments:
Post a Comment