Final Count

Kelsi and I just finished final count. We have 38 of the 40 meat chickens we began with! Pretty good success percentage! That's 95% of the total made it to finish day. Kelsi also whipped up this sweet label on the computer tonight so we can label our product. We have sold out too, which is even better. I have our friend and egg customer John, coming over to help. Also, a gal I used to work with is going to bring her kids to watch and learn how and where food comes from. We are keeping 3 Delaware hens and a rooster for rebreeding purposes. Which means we are processing 34 chickens tomorrow. It's going to be a long day. 

Thanks!

Tomorrow......

..........is the 21st day of incubation, which means the 24 eggs in the incubator should start hatching in less than 12 hours!

We are also selling the chicks if you live local. Check out our craigslist posting.

The cardboard circle holds some eggs that have a special color or size that we want to keep. Two of them are pink! So we want to keep those eggs. The other one is just big and beautiful.

On a different note..... Tomorrow is chicken processing day. We will be doing over 30 organic hens and expect almost all of them to leave the farm within an hour of packaging. It doesn't get much more fresh than that! Stay tuned for a post conference on the big Saturday events!

Thanks for reading!

Poor Little Khma

Khma had to have surgery last Thursday to fix her luxating patella. This is her right after surgery.

She was very sad and would cry whenever we would touch her. It was awful!

But on the plus side, this is her today...

Even though she looks a little scared here, she is actually doing a lot better. She is hopping around on her three legs and appears to be pretty happy. Thank goodness.

For the first day she wouldn't eat or drink, so I went out and bought some baby food for her. Since she is doing so much better, I gave the rest of her baby food to Jules.

She was having fun playing with the bowl.

I'm surprised there isn't more rice on her nose!

It is amazing the love that I feel for these silly animals. 

They are really like my children. 

:-)

Sam the Bravest Rooster of All

Hmm... How strange. What could be in that tree?

Is that a chicken? I dont understand. Chickens dont sleep in trees.

Mom: Oh.. Hello there, Samuel. I have been wondering where you sleep at night. Im happy to see you at keeping yourself safe in the darkness. 

Sam: Hi Mom. I'm the bravest chicken of all and have the wings of an Eagle. I will protect the ladies from my 14ft high roost and alert them of any dangers.

Mom: Okay, Sam. Ill see you in the morning.

Chicks are growing up so fast!

For those of you who already know our dog Juliette, this may not be a surprise to you, but she loves baby chicks, ducks, geese, and anything else new on the farm. We have our hatching operation setup in the office of our house. Julies waits in front of the door at all hours hoping to get in.

This is the bin that holds the fresh babies when they are still fragile.

We gave them some play time out of the bin to see how stable they were with temperature changes.

Looks like they were pretty safe.

They grow up so fast! We decided today, that they were ready to go to the outside brooder box in the coop. 

So we gathered them up!

One by one, we gathered a handful and headed for the barn.

A safe arrival. They were very happy. Running around and exploring.

Jumping too! Top right of the photo!

Last couple in.

White chicken "Ummm.... Hello? Are you leaving us here? Don't you see that big fuzzy thing in the window? Take her please!!!!"

Julies loves the chickens!

We have 24 more eggs in the incubator now. As of 9/9/10 24 of 24 were fertile. They should come out on Sept. 25th. Very excited for this! I am really enjoying having baby chicks in the fall. It used to be that baby chicks were a sign of spring. Not at the Halpern Homestead! Chicks year round!

Thanks for reading!

Mike