Foxhollow Poultry Farm

Just about over our last push to get our poultry schedule wound up for the year and then a break.........oh, no that's right we have to start planning for an increased schedule for next year.  We are adding another 20 acres for birds next year. This season has proven even better than I thought it might with the addition of  more restaurants to our customer base and our regular customers ordering more frequently. Heck of a good year.

The turkeys are going to market next Sunday and that will be our final meat birds for the season. We have made 2 trips to the processors already.  Can't wait for this to be over as it is a LOT of work moving the turkeys until they reach their final destination. Each turkey gets moved about 6 to 7 times from the field to the grocers shelf or customer's arms. I think I have lifted at least 7 tons this year already.That's a lot of turkey.

We are now Animal Welfare Certified for our meat chickens as well as our turkeys!! It always makes me feel good to achieve that certification as it indicates that we are doing a good, humane and sustainable job of raising our birds.

Follow us on facebook (foxhollow farm) and twitter (foxhollows) as well. The posts are much more frequent on those social networking sites.

Will post more after Thanksgiving if our arms don't fall off first.

 

This week  and next will be the grand finale of baby poultry started for the year on our farm. We will have 300 poulet rouge chicks hatching this week and 600 ducklings next week. The movable hoop housing on grass with electric netting has worked exceptionally well with a few tweaks. We were moving the houses every day or two, but the inside of the houses became too dirty even with the chickens in there just overnight. With the addition of straw bedding and moving twice weekly the process worked much better. Less work and better for the chickens! That combination isn't often true.  Day ranging is where it's at for us! Here are some new pictures of some of the three day old baby chicks. So cute!

Our pastured poultry hoop house is finished. Photos show the completed project with the electric poultry netting, and the chickens.  The chickens are about 3 weeks old and are really enjoying their new digs. The houses seem to be a good design, wind resistant, rain proof, predator proof, provide shade and are large enough to house our flock without being too heavy to move every day or two. I like this idea better than the Salatin type pens that are moved daily where the chickens are on grass, but caged. This design allows for shelter and protection, but also allows the chickens to range in the grass and dust bathe away from their shelter. All in all I think it is the best way for our farm's poultry to be raised. 

The best mother's day gift is probably a relative thing dependant upon the particular mother in question. My best mother's day gift was made for me this year by my husband. It is a hoop house that we will use to pasture our poulet rouge chickens with the addition of electric poultry net. The photo below shows the work in progress. Although it is now finished and will be loaded with poultry in a few hours, the photos do not show the completed house. We added tarps, automatic waterers, feeders and a door on one end. Will update it when I get more batteries for the camera. (Now I dont run out of film, I run out of batteries!) Here are the pictures.

 

We finally started working on our website. It was an easy process although it is not finished. The main problem I have is trying to get google to index it and list it. I have submitted the Url for their perusal and made sure that it was search engine optimized, etc, but as of yet (1 week later) it is not listed on a search. Any suggestions?? How long do they normally take to index a site? I am impatient I guess.  http;//www.foxhollowpoultryfarm.com.

We started cleaning out coops again and building some "rooms" or dividers in the broiler house this weekend. Some progress has been made, but never as much as we schedule. Things seem to take twice as long as we think they will.

Daylight savings time has caused some upset for us, but not for the chickens. They know when the sun comes up and exactly what time it is no matter what the clock says.

 

Happy New Year to all! Hope everyone had a beautiful holiday season.

The start of a new year brings the promise of a new beginning. I can imagine abundant crops blooming, chicks hatching, ducklings digging in the mud, and turkey poults following their parents around the yard. In reality the gray cold dreariness outside has got me to sit down and get the ordering of seeds and livestock done for this year. I must admit it has also given way to helping me daydream a little bit about the garden plan for this season. I can imagine the dark earth, the smell of it as it heats up. I can imagine the seeds having been planted weeks before, starting to grow and flower. Notice I didn't say I was thinking about all of the work that went into the garden in this daydream. All of the gardens I plant start as a daydream sometime in January when I know I must order seeds for the next year. I must admit that the gardens in my mind are exceptionally perfect and fine. Not a curled leaf, bug bite or bug is found. You would never see a garden so perfect anywhere, not even in a seed catalogue. The daydreams do not include the real life adventures like we had in 2008, of torrential rains, consequent flooding of corn fields and shallow roots on all plants which became weak and spoiled for water, late frost, later freeze, blight on tomatoes, potato bugs, cabbage loopers, caterpillars and even a small but very destructive tornado that went through our farm and garden. The tornado removed part of our chicken house roof this year and killed quite a few of our layer flock. Then our processor closed before we could get our chickens inspected to sell to customers. Boy it was a tough year at the farm. We like to call it a year of character building. Do we have enough character yet??? As I order the seeds and create the farm plan for 2009 I see none of this. I simply see the hope that lies in every seed and every egg to be hatched for a bumper crop year. My husband calls me Mrs. Sunshine.  We have to have a sunny disposition to do what we do.

 I have finished our order for seeds for crops to be grown for the next season. The list is long after considering everything that has been requested by our customers. We have added some new and some slightly experimental things as well. We have also added a couple of acres into production so we can provide more volume to our customers. We will be offering State Inspected quail for sale in late June or early July. Poulet Rouge chickens will be harvested about mid June. We will be starting ducklings in the spring for fall orders and we have added a lot more heritage and standard turkeys for Thanksgiving due to the large demand we had in 2008. Hopefully we can fill all requests for turkeys this year. If you are interested in a turkey you might drop us an email asap so we can put you on the list.Our new flock of Animal Welfare Approved layers is scheduled to start laying again in the spring so we will again have those beautiful, tasty eggs that you all say you miss so much. We should have pullet eggs (the tiny ones) starting about April. The quail are still going strong with egg production now. Thanks to all of our customers for their support and praise for 2008! Here's to a fresh new start, promise and hope of a new year, and to the gardens in our imaginations. We wish you all the best that the new year can bring.

Christmas is coming. Time is zooming by at a sonic rate. One more farmer's market to do. December"s coop drop off. Quail egg and Jelly tasting at the Gateway Market. Broilers to go to the processor. Several birthdays. Gifts to buy and wrap. Two christmas meals to cook, cards, decorating........whew! It makes me appreciate the time I spend out in the chicken houses, where I guess you could say it is a type of quiet serenity somehow amidst all of the cackling, crowing, gobbling, flapping, and honking. The animals all have their regular routines. I guess I find comfort in that. Every morning it goes like this in the broiler house. I knock on the door, Cy Snoodles, the Tom blue slate turkey gobbles and drums, the geese start their noisey cacophony, the rooster crows. I open the door and am greeted by Two Feathers (a three year old ameraucana hen from our last flock that became the favorite hen of all the roosters in one day and consequently had only a handful of feathers left before I rescued her from the little beasties). Two Feathers flies up and lands on my hand. Shadow the little black cochin bantam does his dance for me and follows me around for attention until I pick him up and talk to him for a minute. The 6 week old broilers all come to me for today's treats of corn, veggie peels, or scratch grain. This morning something is different. Goldnplump, our buff cochin is sitting on a pile of 50some, three week old broiler chicks keeping them warm. Makes me chuckle. Needless to say she can't cover them all and they spill out in a wide white circle around her. An occasional little white head pops out from under her buff wing and then snuggles back into the soft warm feather pillow. When she sees I have treats she comes over to get some as usual, but this time she is clucking and showing the baby broilers that this is a good thing to eat. Ha ! Like they really need instruction on eating! She snatches a piece of grain in her beak and delicately drops it in front of a baby chick. It is hilarious. I love to see this type of maternal behavior.

Our last batch of broiler chicks was mothered by our Peahen, Penny.  It is interesting to see that maternal instinct is so strong. It is a deep warm feeling that chases away any cold that this winter might bring. I might add that Goldnplump  is the quintessential broody hen in the typical Cochin manner. She hatched several geese last year for us. Our chickens got their Christmas presents early this year. They all got new heaters for their houses so they will stay cozy this winter season.                          

The geese are indeed getting fat but I might add that all of the turkeys, geese, chickens, etc are safe this year as we are dining on grassfed prime rib.Must get back to the whirlwind of the season's activities. Hope to post more again before the holiday, but if not, we hope you all have a super warm, happy holiday season!