Sunday, October 17, 2010

moved to winter pasture

hmm, where does the time go? we finished egg-mobile3 and moved the birds from hoop-tractor1 into it, then we sold the birds from egg-mobile1 and only had to cull 10 of them. We tore out the floor to put the correct size wire in it (that was the first one I'd built), cleaned out the water tanks and put in nipple waterers instead of the plasson bell waterer. We also re-painted to make it as cheerful as em3. Then we moved in the birds from hoop-tractor2. Whew! Now I am working on eggmobile4. And none too soon, the birds have begun to lay already...

Also importantly we filled out all the paperwork to start selling our eggs to Whole Foods. We heard they put a laser thermometer on the eggs when they arrive to make sure they get there at 45 degrees. Kind of cool. I was very impressed with how they wanted to tour my operation before they would agree to sell my eggs. That is very cool. Some friends warned us that our egg price was too low. When I look at the feed bills from Modesto Milling, I am sure that they are right and that we are losing money just on the egg business alone. Next year we will keep good records and find out just how much we are losing and what price we need to be at to break even. For now, I just want to get people in Sonoma County to taste some real pasture fed eggs. Not just eggs from chickens that are let outside to eat, but eggs from chickens that are kept in clean, mobile coops and supplemented with free choice oyster shell, captured rainwater, and modesto milling organic feed. And are as beautiful and well presented as ours.

Plus, in our new winter pasture courtesy of salmon creek ranch, they now have a view...


2 comments:

  1. Just spent an hour looking at all your posts and photos and your farm looks amazing. I'm going to talk some friends into going in with me on buying some of your animals.

    Thanks for the blog, I know that you think it's not always the best use of time, but it's really nice to get to see the inside scoop on your farm. (I raised chickens when I was in high school so it's fun to see all the photos and I understand your woes about hawks!)

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  2. thanks for the encouragement Sarah! its not that I think its a bad use of time, its just that I find it hard to make myself do it. I feel like I have nothing to say, and then on the other hand enough time passes and there's too much that happened to be entertaining reading, it'd just be a list of things that we worked on. So I don't know, its no masterpiece, that's for sure. To be sure my top priority is caring for the animals and their pastures...

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