Hen Housing- The Coop

Our swanky little ladies and their hunk of a rooster stay in our pallet build chicken coop. My husband, who is great with making things from basically trash, built this coop with about 50 hens in mind. They sleep in there during the nights to protect them from predators, like owls, weasels, and who knows what else. Featured in the chicken coop are 12 "laying nest boxes" that are made out of 5 gallon buckets, nailed on their sides to pallets. We put saw dust in the nest boxes so that the eggs come cleaner and so that its cozier for the ladies. Also in the spacious coop is a room, doored off as to store feed, and saw dust there. They also have a roost, and a chicken latter, even though only ONE of them uses the latter. During the day, we let them out of the coop, so that they can free range on our property- well not on our mud room porch- but they can go anywhere else. But no matter what, they always find a way in, so that they can have a nice fresh place to poop.... Not pleasant, but the children and I chase them off with the quote from the book, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom " Skit Scat Skadoodle Doot!"
And they usually leave with the rooster trying to protect them.

It's so fun to watch chickens. The rooster always makes the weirdest calls to his ladies, and they follow! Talk about submission! One minuet they are happily foraging, and the next minuet he does his call and they are all pecking at their wings, giving themselves a dirt bath.

Right now is the best time to raise chickens! Farm fresh eggs, friendly companions, and meat at the end of their laying careers are great!

Poultry housing- The Green House

When the baby chicks come to our farm, we keep them in the greenhouse. It is the most heat efficient place to keep them, since it is south facing and already being heated for the seedlings. We keep them in groups of 50-75 so that they will not over crowd each other. The first two weeks of their lives, we keep them in an 18"x40" box raised close to the top of the green house, because its extra toasty up there. This box is bedded with wood shavings. We put a small waterers raised up on a 2x4 so that the chicks will not drown in the water. We also give them small feeders that have slide on tops so that they can not stand on them. At two weeks of age, the chicks are moved down to the floor of the green house to a 24"x40" box with a heat lamp for 1 more week. We also put in two of each and bigger feeders and waterers. At week 3 we turn off the heat lamp, in preparation for being put out to pasture. This may be different for your area. You could put chicks out as early as 12-16 days old, but in our area, it is just too cold for them.

P.s. we only recommend this timeline for the Cornish cross meat bird breed. All breeds grow at different rates, and you all live in different areas, so research these things first.

Check out our next blog post on putting the chicks out to pasture!

Sprouts!!

We have been watching our little sprouts come up, one by one, day by day. Some of them took shorter then the time allotted on the package, very exciting! Others are taking longer then stated- kind of worrisome.

I am so happy to see sprouts coming up, it make me feel accomplished! We have been watering daily with a mist setting on the hose. It seemed that by mid to late afternoon, they were already getting dried out. So I started watering by hand with a watering can. They seemed to stay moist longer, especially since I covered the seedlings with clear food plastic. Now they are in mini green houses!! They are thriving much better!

When we started our seeds, we played about 2-4 seeds in each depth hole, just incase some were dead seeds. Now almost every pot has 2-4 sprouts! I was sad, because I didn't want to just through them away. I have transplanted some on the extra seedlings, but I am unsure if they will survive. With our newest sprouts, we are just putting the extra seedling sprouts on our salads- and it's very tasty!!!!!

Why Pastured Poultry?

Except from my cookbook Pastured Poultry Cookbook From Butchering to Kitchen Table By Paris Byrum of Byrum Family Farm
- coming midsummer 2013

"Why Pastured Poultry?

    If you have came this far and purchased this e-book, you are heading in the right direction! Pastured chickens are the alternative, to what our family calls “GMO infested bleached meat”. Our pastured broilers are raised without antibiotics, vaccines, steroids, genetically modified feed, fecal surroundings and artificial lights. Instead, they are raised in small groups with fresh air, non-GMO feed, with sunlight and a field to have forage, as that is in their natural diet. Raising our birds on pasture, allows them to have a well rounded diet, without sitting in their fecal matter all day for 8 weeks, thus without having to inject them with antibiotics to fight with the disease and ammonia in the air.

    This is a great alternative to the industrialized poultry business, who keep their birds in a confined house of thousands, with artificial lighting, fecal air, dead birds under them, and other sickly birds surrounding them. They then, because of all the sickness, have to vaccinate and give antibiotics to the birds to keep the numbers up. Chickens in confinement like this are under a lot of stress, and if they do survive, the meat is not nearly as tasty. Store bought factory chickens are processed by machinery, which inevitably while processing, breaks their sack of fecal matter all over the birds, and processing equipment. As a result, they must bleach the chicken, literally dip them multiple times into a bleach and ammonia solution, so that the fecal bacteria does not poison the consumer.

    As a consequence of how factory chicken is raised, I know I would not want to consume this chicken. That is why we started raising our own meat birds. We know how they were grown, how they were processed, and how they were taken care of. If you raise you own birds for meat, or are purchasing pastured poultry locally, then you are on the right track, if not, I hope you are gaining knowledge through this ebook, to convince you to do so. "





Pastured Poultry Cookbook, From Butcher to Kitchen Table , 1st  Edition
Copyright © 2013 by Byrum Family Farm. All rights reserved.
Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, reproduction or utilization of this work in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying, and recording, and in any information storage and retrieval system, is forbidden without written permission of Byrum Family Farm.
First Publication: March 2013
For more information on Pastured Poultry, please visit us at: www.ByrumFamilyFarm.com

Starting seeds!

Today my children and I started our garden seeds.
We mixed in a wheel barrow 1 part compost, 1 part peat moss and 1 part vermiculite. With this mixture we will be starting all of our garden seeds with this.

 We then took the mixture and put them in small starting pots, carefully. It took longer with the children, but the experience was great.

 We then took spray bottles, as to not over water the soil, and sprayed the tops of the starter pots. The children LOVED this part!

 Today we got started tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, green onions, and half of our early spring herbs for the kitchen!  To make it easier to plant some of the tiny tinny seeds, I used an eraser at the end of a pencil to make the hole for the seeds to go into. I then used the pencil to bang the seed packet over the hole, and counted how many seeds came out. You can also put the seeds in the palm of your hand and take a pinch of the seeds to plant into the hole. After placing the seeds in the pot, we sprayed the top of the soil again.

Remember, the key to family farming is that everyone takes part in making the farm run smoothly! My children are 7 months, and 2 and 3 (next month) and they are capable of doing alot of farm chores, it may take longer, but it is well worth the wait, to see them build self confidence and patience. Happy SPRING!!

visit us at www.byrumfamilyfarm.com  to order your farm fresh goodies, and like us on facebook www.facebook.com/byrumfamilyfarm

FREE BONUS CHICKS!

For every (2) meat birds you purchase from now until midnight April 18th you will receive a free baby chick

Free Bonus Chicks with your order of meat birds!

Free Bonus Chicks with your order of meat birds!

For every (2) meat birds you purchase from now until midnight April 18th you will receive a free baby chick! All top quality chicks, Random choice of sex and breeds. Will not be Cornish Rock. You must place your order for the amount you qualify for. If you place an order for bonus chicks and do not qualify you will not receive bonus chicks with your order of poultry . note: You will receive your baby chicks exactly 8 weeks before the date you chose on your meat bird order. Leave your contact information if you would like to make further arrangements. LIMITED AMOUNT- SO ORDER NOW!!!

http://byrumfamilyfarm.com/item_17/Free-Bonus-Chicks-with-your-order-of-meat-birds.htm

Customer Newsletter- Spring 2013

Dear Supporters:

We trust this newsletter finds you anticipating the change of seasons and the astonishing work of our Creator. This is our first customer bulletin. We hope it will be a yearly production to encourage communication.

Because of the fabulous response to the almost 300 broilers we raised in 2012, we are looking at raising them this year 2013. To be honest we had some incidences; in spite of this, it was a great learning curve. Since then, we have gained skills and knowledge to enhance and serve a better quality, superior bird. To resolve some issues we had last year, we will require pick-up on butchering day, this way we will have the chickens ready in a cool container, but they will be able to get into a freezer right away, to ensure freshness.

Poultry is extremely perishable. The best way to get the chickens, is in a cooler. You will need about 2 quarts of cooler space per bird. If it is a warm day, we suggest you bring some ice. If you are getting more than a fair amount of chickens, storage totes with ice work just as well. We butcher in the early mornings, so pick up time is from 1pm to 5pm unless otherwise arranged. We are looking into drop- off, co-op locations for next season 2014, so that it would be convenient for our customers to meet closer to their homes.

Another problem we ran into was our processing. With over 60 man-hours of processing time, we are examining other ways of processing options to reduce time, otherwise we can not justify the time. Also, because we are now raising chickens as a business, we will be needing to charge state sales tax, as well as bagging fees. Our chickens will be $15.00 this year, whole. This will cover shrink wrap bags, to ensure freshness and prevent freezer burn, state sales tax, state required labeling and the feeding and raising of the chicken itself. This price reflects the cost of the bird itself, labor, material expenses to raise the bird, and a profit.

The broilers of course, are 8 weeks old, range raised in floorless pens which we move daily to fresh vegetation. They are fed Non-GMO grain. We use no antibiotics, hormones or germicides and they are not vaccinated. Our chickens range from 3 to 6 pounds, with a 4 pound average. Because they are fed Non-GMO food and are not confined to such a small space, as opposed to the convention way of raising chickens, they are smaller birds, but are delicious nonetheless.

Please remember, you must order your chickens before slaughter. It is illegal for us to sell poultry after butchering, therefore when you order one, we are raising one pre-contracted for you in our field. Unfortunately, this does mean, that you can not come later in the year and purchase one from our freezer, due to what the law confines us to. Processing or butchering the chickens is a gift, an amenity, that we do not charge extra for. So please mark on the order form if you would like that done, or if you would like to take the chickens home to butcher yourselves.

You can order online at www.ByrumFamilyFarm.com starting April 1st, 2014. You can also stop by our booth at the Kootenai County Farmers Market on Saturday mornings, from 9am-1pm on Prairie Avenue in Hayden, ID starting on May 11th - October 26th .

Please accept our deep appreciation for your encouragement and support. Call or email us today with your questions, criticisms and advice. Thank you for your patronage.

Joyfully at your service,
The Byrum Family
208.664.9793
www.ByrumFamilyFarm.com