Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 12 April 2024…
Hey Y’all!
Good evening and happy Fast-Jet Friday from Air2Ground Farms! The fast jets today are the Mighty-Mighty F-15E Strike Eagle. This pair is flying low through the mountains of Wales, this week. The first two pics are proof that we, too, are actual astrological experts. Real space gurus. We were just off of “totality” and saw a 99% eclipse. It’s amazing how much light there is from 1% of our sun! The rain passed and today was a perfect spring day, sunny and 69 degrees. We have a few days in the 80s upcoming and the grass is about to explode! We’re all anticipating grazing season and no one is more ready than the beef cows! The new beef calves are doing very well. They are now out with the herd all of the time. When they are first born, they spend most of the time hiding. They are in a paddock with some woods so they spent most of the time out of sight. We’re up to 30 ewe lambs and 16 ram lambs with 6 new ones yet to tag. We have a few more ewes still to lamb. I expected a few more twins but other than that, things are going very well. We picked up 3 bags, each weighing1,000 pounds, of GMO-free Layer, Broiler, and Sheep feed today. The lambs aren’t very interested in their creep area yet, but as soon as we get them convinced that they like their feed, they will begin using the area. We’re now regularly getting 6 dozen chicken and a half dozen duck eggs each day. We sold quite a few dozen at the market last week, but not nearly that many! Happy continues to do well with her new calf and is giving between 2 and 2 1/2 gallons of milk each day. The big event this week was the beef chickens.
We made a new Salatin-style chicken tractor this week. The middle two pics are of the chicken tractors in the pasture and a couple of chicks as we moved them outside. We worked the majority of the day yesterday getting the new tractor built. The first batch of beef chickens is 3 weeks old and it’s time for them to move onto the pasture. We made a YouTube video today, to release tomorrow, of the move. As soon as we got them onto the pasture, we cleaned the big brooder and moved the next batch of 50 in. We then cleaned the small brooder and got it ready for the next batch of 50 that will arrive next week. We made new feeders and waterers based on the recommendation from Kevin and Sarah from Living Traditions Homestead. It’s a simple design using a 5 gallon bucket, lid, and plastic tray. They are simple to make and way cheaper than the commercial options. We think they are going to work very well. We’ve got 100 meat birds on the farm and are still in the very beginning of the season! By the time we butcher this first batch, we will have 200 meat birds on farm. Shelley thinks this is crazy, but even so, we’re convinced that offering GMO-free, pastured, local chicken is so much better than the alternative!
Monday’s Dust’er Mud podcast was about the fallacy of “keto” foods and how ketosis is a state of being induced by a high fat, low carbohydrate diet, not a food.
Cheers!
Psycho & Shelley
Cheers, I loved raising my own beef birds. They were amazing. We’re retired from the farm but it’s a great life. God bless you all!
Great read.