Chicken Meltdown

These are not nuclear chickens.

We had a chicken crisis this morning. Eugene came busting in the house after going out to feed he chickens this morning and declared that we were out of chicken feed. I asked if we were really out of feed or is this another exaggeration. He said we had about 10 pounds left plus what ever baby feed we have (50lbs). This was serious because we feed all organic non GMO feed to our meat birds and it generally takes 4 to 7 days for he organic farm ha makes our grain to get an order ready. If we do not use his feed we will be faced with going to TSC and buying medicated grain milled with GMO corn and soy and we will not use that crap. It is important that our pastured birds get high quality, GMO free, antibiotic free, locally raised and ground feed

Right now the oldest pen eats about 15 pounds a day and the younger pen eats about 7 pounds (but eats more and more each day) so we have enough feed to last maybe 3 days for both pens. Not a good situation at all.

So Eugene calls up the Filbruns to order more feed and gets the machine and leaves a message (they have not called back). A very calm message as if we really don't have a feed crisis going on and it's okay if they don't call back for a week or more. This is after freaking out on me about the feed. I guess, if they don't call back tonight I will call back and leave a more frantic message or better yet get a real person.

I pour us some coffee and we sit and get calm. Eugene says that the older birds seem big enough to butcher. I say I will call up the Kings and see if they can change our appointment from next Thursday to this Thursday (tomorrow). So at 7:15am I call them up and talk to Marlyn King and she says okay we can bring them up a 9am. Great, one problem solved

Now this means we do not have to feed the older pen after 9am as we find the meat quality is better if they fast the last 24 hours of their lives (they get fresh water and pasture, but no grain) and the Kings say they are much easier to clean without a bunch of food in their crops and stomach.

So we have the feed crisis put on hold for a few days AND we will have fresh pastured chicken in time for memorial day sales, a nice TV Bonus. Especially since I sent out an email newsletter Monday saying we would have birds in time for memorial day because I misread the calender and thought, for some reason, May was a week longer than it is in reality making memorial day a week later.

After the crisis was over Lauren, a woman that has been apprenticing all spring, came out as scheduled and we hoed/weeded about 10 beds in the already hot at 9am sun. Eugene dealt with irrigation, helped with weeding some than prepped several beds and planted one of them in potatoes.

After that we ate lunch at 3pm and took a much needed nap. After I am done here I will start on making a curry and riata for dinner.