Time flies when you're having fun...

Well, time sure flies when you're having fun!  It's been quite a while since I have last posted.  Summer was wonderful!  Busy, tiring, and wonderful. 

We had our first experience with the local Farmer's Market this summer.  Jeremy and I both had the opportunity to meet some great people, and some very interesting people, both farmers and customers.  I have come to realize that you cannot predict people.  You say nothing surprises you, until the time you think you have a situation nailed, and what do you know, you're surprised! LOL!

Not only was I able to sell our all-natural pastured poultry and wonderful fresh eggs (which that supply died out from hot summer weather), I also sold our friends grass fed beef! Also, local, raw honey, my mom's rag rugs (huge hit!), black walnuts, blackberries!  A little later on in the season I applied for my home processing license, which then I had the opportunity to make jams and jellies to sell at the market as well! I wish now that I had done that sooner.

Jam, I found, will make people stop and talk to you, and really take the time to see what you have to offer them.  Because I had frozen chicken in a cooler, that I can't display in the hot summer weather, I really needed to make sure I communicated with the customers...I did have a prop on the table.  It was a rubber chicken with a target on it, that my son found at the dollar store, I think it was a dog-toy.  It worked though!  A lot of little kids stopped to squeak it, and some asked how much I was selling it for.

I am not really sure exactly if I made any money at the market, but it was still a great experience, and I learned alot...I observed alot...I talked alot.   I guess that's part of the journey.

Off to the Market

It has been a busy and exciting past couple of weeks!  PJ's Poultry started at the Auburn Farmers Market this summer, and it has been a good experience so far!  Hot, but good.  This summer has been very warm and dry, but nice since we had a long and cold winter.  Sales have been decent, although, I am not really sure what to expect being the first year.  I do know one thing, I need MORE eggs!  They seem to be very popular.  This situation my change, as we may be purchasing more layers soon.  Not confirmed, but I am thinking that's the way we're leaning...I have to apologize to any of my eggs people that have been picking them up from my home, I hate for anyone to miss out wonderful fresh eggs!  Hopefully, you can come visit at the market!

Not only do I have our chicken and eggs for sale at the Market, but also grass fed beef from our friends farm.  We have had good response to this as well.  I know I sure like it!  There are so many wonderful items at the market, and I think I have a new found love...Fingerling Potatoes.  It sounds silly, but they're great!  I put some on the grill with olive oil, salt, pepper and granulated garlic, and about 15-20 min later, yummy yummy in my tummy!  I could've eaten them all myself, especially after lovely, little Amos (family dog) ate my hamburger off the counter, but that's another topic.  I am making some more of these little taters tonight!  Along with that I will be grilling one of our chicken, and steaming up some sweet corn that I got from the market, and some brocolli from our own garden!  I am making me hungry!  Now I am off to get my pickles done, garlic dills are popular here.  Enjoy your garden bounties this summer and hopefully all year!  TTFN!

Let's Talk Turkey

We have our Heritage Turkeys, Bourbon Reds!  We started a smaller batch for the first time around, not knowing for sure how much room they will take up as they get bigger.  I am so excited for Thanksgiving this year! ;)  Is that wrong of me?

Not sure if I mentioned this before, but the worst predator we've had so far is the family cat, so we shipped her off to reside on Gramma and Grampa's farm...That cat was just to smart for us, and really did a  number on our last brood of chicks, sooo, bye-bye kitty!

We had to fence in our egg layers too.  :(  They were starting to get distructive to our landscaping, so they have room to roam and scratch, it's just not a free-for-all.  I have to say, it's quite nice not having to dodge the chicken poop walking down the porch though!  Up next for the porch, a good pressure washing and staining!

Next week, on July 7th, I will be heading to the Auburn Farmers Market!  This will be my first run at the market with chicken and eggs, hope to see you there!

Fresh Batch

We now have a fresh batch of chickens in the freezer!!  Shrink wrapped and ready for your home (and belly)!  I am waiting on scale to arrive, I was a little slow at that purchase, ooops! :)  And I would like to report that I have already had some. The night they were processed I made chicken and bisquits!  YAY!!!  I guess that's one positive thing about this extraordinarily drap weather we're experiencing here in the NE, we can still make comfort foods without sweating to death...

I am really starting to get excited about the farmers market.  I hope it goes well.  I still need to find a few things for that operation, but I have no fear!  I have even roped Zarek into going with me and pitching in on the effort...woohoo, at least I will have some company!

On the other hand, I am fearing that my garden is going to flow down stream with this weather...The garden's plowed, so it's almost ready for planting.  And my seeds have started without any hang-ups, and I have horseradish and rhubarb moistly wrapped waiting for the dirt, but we've still got a ways to go...Although I truly love gardening, I am sure I will have more to report(gripe) about on that subject! :)  So, stay tuned!....hahaha

Green Acres!

So, last night, Jeremy moved the chicken coop that our meat chickens stay in.  We got our electro-netting fence up last night also.  However, we haven't electrified yet...it should be interesting to see them try to stick there heads through it once it is though. ;)  I am sorry, that sounded a little evil. 

On another note, they now have plenty of green to roam about and forage on.   I know it makes Jeremy and I both feel better.  It will be so much healthier for them to have a larger area to wander about.  This larger group will only be around until May 14th, then they're off to freezerland! YUMMY!  Then in four more weeks, we will have another 45 to send off, and so on and so on!

At some point we will be getting our Heritage Turkeys...I can't wait.  It will be something new and exciting to watch.  It also makes me excited for Thanksgiving...for the desserts of course. ;)  But before that happens we need to get that all set up.  The turkey will also have them on pasture. 

Green Acres is the place to be, farm livin' is the life for me...lalalalalalalala, sorry this song just came to mind!

Hey look! It's Hef!

So, back to reminissing about our Rhodes Island Reds for a minute.  One of those last season chicks sprouted a comb that was a little larger than the rest, and started hoo-hooing (as Hannah calls it). 
Now I had mentioned a couple times already that we like name the animals around here, so hoo-hoo-er earned is named. 
One afternoon when we were outside checking the chickens out, they had scratched a little nest in the ground, and all the Rhoadie youngsters were laying there in a pile together.  Right smack-dab in the middle was the little rooster and all the pullets were surrounding him...I thought to myself what a playboy! HA!  So then of course, I named him Hef...I really couldn't come up with anything more appropriate, or entertaining.  :)
Hef still reamains the big man on campus, and the only man on campus, which is more than enough.  Roosters are handsome, with all the fancier feathers and such, but he can get a little, shall I say, cocky?.  Really, he doesn't bother anyone to often, but be careful if you're wearing brighter colors, he gets a little puffed up then.  Ah, what an interesting journey....

Spring Cleaning

Sunday was an awesome day, we got sooo much done outside!  We got some rearranging done, and things cleaned up a bit.  Our latest group of chicks are out of the brooder box now, and are roaming about the coop with plenty of room!  Hopefully we can get them outside soon.  We are getting a new group of 60 by the end of the week.  Even though we might have snow this week, by Friday it should be a little warmer than it was a month ago.  We are going to be working at getting our fencing up for the egg layers, hopefully that will keep them out of the road, and our neighbors yard! (oopsie!)  We will also have to get some up for turkeys too. Once that's done, we can order some poults to add to the mix!  Gobble, gobble!! 

I have also found a handy little idea, recycling my newspapers into seedling cups...I receive weekly emails from MaryJane's Farm (check the link out if you'd like).  http://www.maryjanesfarm.org/recipe-project/project-20110321.asp .  I thought it was a great idea, and a lot cheaper than buying one of those plastic greenhouse trays, totally overpriced!!!!   Maybe someday I will have a mini-greenhouse, but that's a project for some other time, some other day! :)

Spring is in the air!

Thank goodness for the warming trend!  It might not be here in full-bore, but Spring is rolling in slowly, YAY!  Yesterday was a great day, sunny and on the warmer side.  Jason and I went around the yard collecting all the yuckies that ended up under the snow.  Some of them ended up there due to our lovely pooch, Amos.  Anyway, it was super to be out, and the chickens are definitely loving there days touring the yard!  Another benefit of spring, it cuts down on the consumption of their feed, as they forage most of the day.  I think I need to make a Chicken Crossing sign for our yard.  They like picking at the gravel on the roadsides. 

I also attended a meeting for the Auburn Farmers Market the other night.  I will be selling chicken and eggs, later on turkey too and hopefully throwing in a few veggies! I will be there Thursdays from 7 to 2!  That will be starting July 7th, and going thru the end of October. 

I have so many things that I would like to start doing in addition to my poultry projects...I have started making my own laundry soap, and it works great!  It's so cheap and lasts quite a while, and is eco-friendly!!  I would like to get into making soap.  I have been doing a lot of research on that, but haven't took the plunge yet...and sewing, been doing a lot of that lately!  Not just quilting, but sewing other things too, and getting consumed by it!  I have been reading a lot of blogs, looking at tutorials and all sorts of things.  They are really inspiring!  There is really a lot of talented people out there. 

Back to the animals, I really hope that we can start raising some pigs too!  Our family has had the good fortune of fresh meat this past year, and it has been wonderful.  It really makes me not want to have to rely on the grocery stores for meat.  Besides that fact that it has saved us a ton of money, it tastes soooo much better!!  We will see how things go...life is always a journey!

The Choppin' Block-Literally

 Earlier I had mentioned about our surprise meat chicken, Sumo.  We all were so entertained by him. Watching how he grew so much faster than the rest of the chicks was pretty neat...watching him eat was pretty neat too.  He liked to lay down and eat, and never moving far from the food even when he wasn't eating!  But unfortunately, Sumo was well overdue for the chopping block.  At this point, he was the size of a small turkey! 

Jeremy and I decided it would be best to attempt this first-time chicken butchering task after the kids were asleep for the night.  GOOD IDEA!  While I was getting everyone tucked in, Jeremy was prepping the area.  This consisted of a folding table, a pot of scalding water, a stump and a little ax...yup, that was it.

So, poor Sumo got the ax... a couple of times.  There was a little more to the story, but I don't really want to scare anyone, or offend them, so I will leave it at that.  After we scalded and plucked and cleaned and chopped some more, we had to put him in two different one-gallon bags, he was sooo BIG!!!  We got the job done. Although, I have to admit it probably wasn't the best way to do this.  I guess it's one of those live and learn experiences for the amature poutlry farmer.  And just for future reference, the rest of meat chickens had a much more humane processing than Sumo!

What to Do with Extra Milk

Not that this has anything to do with chickens, but I like to find interesting reading material.  I have always wanted to try making cheese, but I don't have a family milk cow, but I read this article anyway!  Check it out!
What to Do with Extra Milk

How's your freezer looking?

We will be getting a new batch of chicks within the next week !! Be sure to make room in your freezer by the end of April beginning of May!!!  We raise them to 10 weeks, they average about 5 lbs., roasting size.  Contact us to place your order! Thank you.

We've got Rhoadies!!

As I mentioned earlier, all the pullets, including Sumo (our Cornish Cross surprise) seem to be right at home in their coop, and roaming about their fenced in area.  So far, so good, no catastrophe's!  No eggs yet, still a few weeks before they start...
Jeremy, my husband is a hoof trimmer.  He trims cattle's feet.  He trims dairy cows mostly, with an occasional beefer in there, usually a show cow or one with a bad wart.  It's a tough and dirty job!  God Bless him!  Anyway, Jeremy makes trips to our local farm store quite frequently, usually a couple times a week to stock up on his trimming supplies.  Now, if I remember correctly, I think it was on a Saturday morning, he called me on the way home from someplace, maybe the firehouse, and asked if I wanted to get more chicks....OKAY!!  Twist my arm!  So, after he showed up, we loaded the little ones in the truck and went to pick out some more chicks.  There wasn't much left when we went, so we took the last 10 Rhode Island Reds that were there.  I know the owner had quite a few birds in and out of his store last spring and summer, chicken and turkeys, and I think ducks too! 
So, we were off on our way back home with a box full of Rhoadie pullets!  And just like the rest, we got them all situated in the brooder, and watched them for a while.  The kids get so excited over the babies; I guess we all do really.  Babies are just so cute!...

Chicken and Eggs. Which came first?

The little question that has been asked for who knows how long, which came first, the chicken or the egg?  Hmmm.   Well, for us, our home grown journey began with someone else's home grown journey. 
 A couple of years ago I started buying fresh eggs from one of my neighbors.  So much tastier than store bought, factory eggs, I decided that buying these fresh eggs was the way to go from now on!  Then I had a brainstorm (one of many, chuckle, chuckle!).  How hard could it be to raise some of my own egg layers?  Soooo,  I mentioned this little idea to my husband, who also took interest in this idea. COOL!  So, last spring we purchased our first ten Americauna chicks from our local farm & family hardware.  Everyone was excited!  All went well, and really uneventful while they were in the brooder.  Once they were big enough to move out , we took a ride to Tractor Supply, and what do you know, they had chicks there too!  They had different varieties than the local hardware, so of course, we had to buy some!  YAY!  We purchased 6, that was the minimum...figured we better stick with that this time around.  So we got those chicks nestled in to the brooder, and everyone was happy! 
About three days into this newer group of chicks, we noticed we had a little piggy on our hands, well not a Pig-pig, but a chick with a pig-type appetite.  Okay, no biggie! 
A week later, it was quite a bit bigger than the other five chicks, and this smaller group of chicks was eating more than the group of ten before them....hmmm?  Well, whatever, that's cool.  Hungry little chicks anyway.  Then the next week, they were all growing well, but still, we had one extra large chick, and it's legs were noticably thicker than the others...I mentioned before that we like to name the animals around here, so that chick had a special name.  SUMO...Yes, Sumo it is...and in the next few weeks, it became even more appropriate as Sumo started to waddle.  We had a cornish cross(meat chicken) on our hands, by accident, but we loved it just the same!  Sumo nor the rest went hungry...
So here, we have added a twist to our pullet journey....to continue later.  Thanks for reading.

PJ's Poultry - LocalHarvest

PJ's Poultry - LocalHarvest

Check out our listing on Local Harvest.org!  We have freezer chicken for sale and you can also place your orders ahead of time!

Day 1: Starting my Blog

Hello out there!  My name is Pam and I have a small-scale, family poultry farm.  My husband and I raise Freedom Ranger Chickens for meat!  We also have 19 hens who give us wonderful fresh eggs everyday!  We came into this "journey" a bit by accident, but it has really opened my eyes to just how great home grown meat and eggs are!!  We sell our eggs by the dozen, and our chickens whole.  Is this good for a brief introduction?

I have so much to share, I am not sure where to begin.  So, on that note, I am going to stop here and get more thoughts organized to post again tomorrow.