This weekend marks the maiden run of the egg-mobile.  Just constructed our 140 square foot mobile hen house will be loaded with our layer this Saturday evening to take them to "greener pastures".  We will place the birds in the coop while they are roosting at night, then move them Sunday morning to a pasture adjacent to the cows.  They will spend the rest of the summer moving as the cows do through our pastures.  This ensures them green grass and fresh bugs daily.  Pictures of the coop should be available as my tech lady has them ready to upload.  The cows and pigs will be released to pasture next weekend as we are greening  up nicely.  We will be planting our first batch of sweet corn in about 16 days!  That puts us on target for Fourth of July corn.  Weather permitting of course.  We have plowed a couple of fields in order to get ready and the weather has been more than cooperative.  Our first batch of broilers are in the coop and we have 200 more layers started.  They will be ready to go in September.  We have started our peppers and tomatoes and should be getting some cold weather plants in the garden over the Easter weekend.  All in all, things are pretty well on schedule.  I, of course, am behind but will catch up to the train soon with the lengthening days.  We also seeded a pasture field on Tuesday night.  It was a no-till deal.  I seeded into the wheat I planted last fall after the corn was harvested.  The wheat will serve as a nice conver until the grasses establish.  They will also be available to pasture once the cows come back over this fall.    We are also expecting our first lowline calf on the farm in the coming week.  Hopefully before we go to pasture.  Broiler chickens are selling very well with only 75 remaining and we have not even processed any yet.  Place your orders before they are gone!  The plans for the butcher shop are developing.  Construction should begin soon.

Well, let me say that our layers were really coming along nicely.  They were gaining momentum with the lengthening of the days at the eggs were plentiful.  Then, just as quickly as the came in, disaster struck.  Let me start be saying that we take great pride in how we treat our animals.  Our layers have never been cooped in cramped quarters.  Since they were old enough to handle it, they have had the opportunity to range.  They roost at night, lay their eggs in the boxes, and then forage outside all day long.  That is the way it should be and we love it.  There is nothing like the sight of our girls hovering over our yard.  And they own it all!  However, they are vulnerable to predators.  Thursday morning, we were subject to attack.  Not by the sly fox or stealthy hawk.  I would be ok (not happy, but more understanding) with that scenario.  But our neighbor's dogs escaped from their dwelling and ventured up the hill to find our hens out and about.  In no time flat they had killed lots of them and would have kept going had Margie not been around.  She was about to leave for the morning when they attacked.  Upon seeing her, they left, but the damages had already been done.  Can I say that I was upset upon hearing that some of our girls had been attacked, but arriving home to see the chaotic scene was horrific.  They were strewn everywhere!  In the coop, out of the coop, none eaten.  They were just killed and disregarded for another.  While I love teaching, it is times like these that I wish I could have been around.  I guarantee the ending would have been a little different.  All told, we were out 40 birds.  These birds are more to us than just egg layers.  They are all pets. They are most likely treated with the same amount, if not more, of respect than the average pet.   I could probably never adopt from the Humane Society.  When they ask how many other pets I had I would say "just a minute, let me count them all.....well, we have 26 (that is the beef), then  7( they would be our hogs), and 8 (those are the barn cats), and ummmm 133 (those are the girls) and oh--2 (the dogs) I guess I have 176 pets.  But in about a month or so I plan to have at least 150 more.... The society would throw me out and put me on the black list as they have other willing and generous folks who have tried to adopt from them, but I am digressing a little..We love our hens.  To see them destroyed in this way was heartbreaking.  Furthermore, at this point they are irreplaceable.  We need to start from day old chicks to regain our loss.  That means  months of 3 dozen eggs a day  will be missed.  That is 630 dozen!  In perspective, with summer coming on, that is a huge loss for us.  However, we have ordered our replacements.  They should be here on March 22 and laying by October!
On a much brighter note, we shoud be all bred now.  I caught our heifer in heat the other day and she should take this time.  She will have a late calf, but we will give her a nice warm pen to calve in.  It will be just like a celebrity baby....maybe the paparazzi will show up!