Sixty bales. That will do for a start. Straw is for bedding. Hay for feeding. In a mild winter like we had last year I did not need as much straw as the animals preferred to hang around outside. But we have calves due earlier next year so we need plenty of clean bedding on hand.
The straw is stored where the peahens live, so they were allowed out for a run. The grapes are looking good so I must not dally this morning, I need to get the pea hens back into their Peahen Palace before they find the grapes and eat them all up. They had a lovely day out yesterday though. Another month or so and then they are free again.
These naughty piggies, who were grazing in a field near by, saw me working with the broiler chickens and staged a break out. They lay on their bellies and one by one wriggled under the fence. Over to the ark they ran and played ring a ring a rosy around the little chickens house, grabbing the tarpaulin and shaking it as they ran around. The chicks went mad with fright. The sheep took flight and both the dogs were running to and fro not sure where to start the round up.
It took some time to sort everyone out and get them back where they were meant to be.
Daisy and Sheila watched from the sanctimonious height of mature behaviour and gravely shook their heads.
The chicks immediately forgot what had gone on and went back to eating. They are suddenly quite big birds. They have one month to go. I still think that raising chicken on grass for the freezer has to be the easiest and cleanest food enterprise so far.
The last two nights have been quite cool. Though we have had a very cool summer all up so I am not alarmed. The warmth will return. Summer is not over yet.
Have a lovely day.
your friend on the farm, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
59 responses to “Straw sent up the Clatter Box”
Well I did something this morning I haven’t done in a long time – I shivered! Only 45 here and not what I am used to at all, given it was in the 90’s the beginning of the week. Like you I am hoping Summer isn’t over yet!
That gang of piglets are getting quite organized aren’t they – I am sure they sit around discussing what trouble to get into next. Luckily chickens have a short attention span and got over it quickly. Have a lovely day!
It is getting cooler, but i am convinced or rather have convinced myself that it is just a dip in the weather, surely the warmth will come back. Poor wee chicks, having those little monsters running round and round their pen yanking and shaking the tarpaulin, trying to rip it off the ark. c
Those meat chooks do look lovely, they have such a different shape to egg laying hens, makes me wonder if they can they fly? Also are they just grass fed or do they get grain? The piglets look amazing but I find myself enviously eyeing the substantial wooden walls in their pen, such is my life of late! What fence do they wriggle under, not an electric one surely, can they be that smart?
yes they wriggle under the electric ones , yelping when they get a shock but carrying on regardless and then they wriggle under the deer fence.. too naughty for words. I am just hoping soon they will be too big for these antics.. ! c
I shift them first, then feed them grain next so they always eat up their greens first.. they don’y eat a lot of grain but we are fattening them fast so i can get them in the freezer before it gets properly cold. Plus i am getting desperate for some chicken! And yes they can and do still fly, though when they are older probably not. Very different birds to layers. Even their behaviour is different. c
There is nothing like fresh chickens!!! They make the best broth!!! I love the yellow jelly! The chickens from the market are never cleaned properly…grosses me out! I like my birds clean!!! Mine free range and get feed. They sometimes weigh in at 8 to 9 lbs!!! Tender, juicy and never dry!!! Even the breast meat is tender and juicy! Yum!!! 🙂
Life is never dull with young piggys on the loose. Daisy and Shelia are looking quite proper and above such behavior. You can almost hear the tsk tsking. Daisy looks to be in great shape and shiny coated. Shelia looks to be in great shape too, round is a shape right? Did the chick (kind of big to be called that) peck the camera lens after that shot? He has that “I gotta peck this” look to him. I see the corn is drying down and is probably starting to rattle and rustle in the wind. At the cross country meet Thursday I realized fall was coming when the front of me was warm (facing the sun) and my back was rather cool (facing the wind). I love fall, the warm days, the cool nights, the colors, the scents (except for burning leaves and soybean dust), harvest time. It probably helps that my birthday is in late fall too. lol It is looking as though we will get rain today. I hope so, as the lawn is a bit crunchy. What is left of the garden could use a drink too.
I hope you get some rain, it is a good time of year for the trees to get a good soaking. It is a mite chilly this morning. I was thinking about finding some gloves before I caught myself and reminded myself that is is STILL SUMMER! I am not a fall person myself. I look awful in orange and I get the shivers easily. I am a summer girl. It is either late summer or early summer, we are approaching late summer!! c
lol
Lovely photos taking me back to some of the many chores I had growing up. 🙂
Looks like i am still growing up!! c
Hi Celi! Your meat chooks look great! We ordered 30 Cornish cross to raise as meat chooks and they should be here next week. So it looks like we will be harvesting them around the end of Dec. They grow really fast! Will you do your own harvesting? It’s not so difficult. xo
No, I am not doing the harvesting. Not, No, Never am i gong to stand in the yard and chop off the heads of fifty chooks! Then deal with all the bits and pieces. Not to mention all the rest. Plus many of these chickens are going to the homes of some lovely families as pressies and trades, so I want them to be packaged. We are lucky enough to have an Organic Amish slaughter house not too too far away and my partner in this chicken venture will take them there. Those cornish hens grow even faster than these red ones, you will be amazed. Have you made a chicken tractor? though by the time they get out of the brooder it might be too cold. c
Hi! It isn’t all that difficult. You just hold their wings and have your hubby chop off their heads as there necks are stretched out on a block! Then hold them upside down til the blood drains out. We have done 100 at a time. The we put them in a vat of hot water to scald them not cook them til the feathers pull out easy…then I hold the legs while the feathers are removed by our electric feather plucker. After this is done we pluck remaining feathers out and singe the rest of the little feathers. Then they go into a cold water bath til we gut them. Then back in the cold water bath til we are finished.
Then we scrub them and make sure the body cavity is cleaned out properly and then let them air dry.Last of all we put each one in large plastic freezer bags and into the freezer they go! Easy as pie!!!
I know it sounds like a lot…but once you get used to it…it isn’t that difficult at all! 🙂
I woke up to fog horns in the straight! Oh boy I love foggy autumnal mornings. Your piggies look completely self satisfied and content. Bless 🙂
I remember the horns as a child, especially the horns of the boats as they came through the bay to the harbour on foggy mornings, that sound so resonates with emotion, how wonderful that you are close enough to hear.. I really do miss the sea sometimes.. it is like having an empty stomach, that kind of ache.. c
Me too….I grew up on the salt water…sigh…miss the smell of moist salt air!!! But I am happy living on the plains too. 🙂
I LOVE that pic of the chicken head on! Made me laugh out loud, such expression.
he is daring me to cook him! c
I have to confess that I hope the piglets stay naughty – they are very funny 😉
I am going to have to do something about keeping them in though, they should be dutifully eating grass not roaring about the farm terrorising the other animals! c
Plus, those antics won’t be so funny when they get to be big pigs! Still, they do make us laugh.
An exciting day for piggies and chooks. The maize (corn) I can see from my bedroom window looks pretty ready to me, but I don’t think they’ll harvest it until mid-October. One year it was so late they harvested in December.
Sh. The sun is shining.
Vx
ssshhh… c
What is with the piggies and their ring around the rosy game around the ark?
Terrible bunch.. c
Wow but the Hoekoes are sure on the grow… as are the porkers… and the corn is looking good for this time of the year as well… all looks good on the Farmy…
The corn has the same look as our corn…drying down, getting ready for harvest, probably sometime in October…maybe November.
Linda
✿♥ღ✿
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
C. Is it possible to net your grapes to prevent the birds from pilfering?
the pea hens are way too big to net out, and the majority of the grapes are on horizontal pergolas, they would just sit on the net, no problem.. c
Reading about your piggies I can see how the Little Pig for your toes rhyme came about! They are characters!
It is nice to see that straw and imagine calves bedding down in it. It’s a little reminder of how the seasons are connected.