Larsen Poultry Ranch - homesteading journey

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Oh, and the reason they don't freak out about losing a chicken or two a year is they have over 20? hens, various ages and both mixed breed and store bought. We haven't counted in a while so the only thing we know for certain is we have two roosters and a lot of hens. A bunch are older and probably freeloaders, but there's enough producing that when they really get going mom is taking dozens into work almost every week to give to her coworkers. They can't go through them fast enough. I have 6 White leghorns over there too, they are I think 2 years this spring and they produce 5-6 eggs per day.

 

[Bruce]

I have over 20 birds now too (with the 6 new chicks I got this week) but I don't consider any of them sacrificial even when they stop producing. And besides you KNOW the predators will take your best layers and/or favorite birds not the freeloaders.

 

[Baymule]

I think y’all are making fantastic progress. Walk your husband around and remind him of how it WAS and just look at how far you’ve come! Brag on his and yours accomplishments, sounds like he needs a little encouragement.

 

[Baymule]

I have 9 red sex links and something black, supposed to be black sex links from TSC. One is definitely a rooster with a dusky barred pattern . If he behaves, he can stay. Flog me once and he’s gone. Poor little black whatever they are have been brooded and raised with their grossly over weight CCX cousins. In the next few days, the last 8 will go to freezer camp and the black ??? Will have the chicken tractor parked in the shade and no more fat greedy cousins.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Flog me once and he’s gone.

Good plan. We have a one strike policy in my family, put into place when I was 3 years old. We had brand new chicks and used the play pen method to integrate them with the adults. We had a nasty mean rooster at the time. I was in the chick pen trying to grab a chick (causing them to panic and run around of course) and finally grabbed one. Just as I stood up holding the chick, in comes the rooster right at my face. He pecked me in the cheek about an inch below my eye. I'm very lucky he didn't get my eye. I started screaming and dropped the chick and parents came running. I ended up with three stitches and when we came back from the doctor's dad chopped the rooster's head off and we ate him for dinner. Since then we don't tolerate aggression in roosters, one toe outta line and we either eat them or take to auction where someone else will likely eat them. I still have the scar on my cheek but it has faded over the years.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Hubby making progress this morning, he rented a trencher! He had set up the irrigation pipe for the orchard as PVC but laid on top of the ground temporarily, now we can get it in the ground. Plus get water faucets set up in the driveway zone and towards the garden. This will make a huge difference in the yard and we'll be able to green it up a little bit to help decrease the fire danger. I believe he is also going to trench where the electrical is going to run down the driveway even though we don't have the conduit or wire for that yet. I want to get the gate up and working! I'm tired of random people driving into our yard, makes me think they are going to take stuff.

I wonder if we can run a water line towards the temporary garden/rabbit zone? The permanent rabbit barn is supposed to be down that way. Hmm, gonna go bug him..

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

And hubby hit the water pipe to the house... He went back over the trench to make it a bit deeper and the very first spot he started by the house has the water line apparently about 24" deep. No water to the house till that gets fixed. Sigh.

 

[Ridgetop]

Aaah yes! Those renovations that will "just take a couple of days" but end up lasting weeks, months, or years as more damage gets uncovered, discovered, caused . . . .

When we bought our place here 33 years ago, DH assured me he could fix everything in 6 months. I am sure he could have if he didn't need to work, if his employer didn't call mandatory overtime, if we had known how much there was to fix (in spite of an inspection), etc. I learned to lay PVC pipe, do drywall, lay flooring, build cabinets, etc.

When DH got home after a 12 hour day, 6-7 days a week, he would put in 4 hours on the house, barn, etc. before dropping into bed. Luckily we were young, strong, optimistic (and possibly stupid?). Years of labor taught us everything though so now no home repair or improvement frightens us. And no real estate person can talk us into a purchase with "it only needs a little TLC"!

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Well, we turned the oops into "it was totally on purpose". We needed to hook the new irrigation pipe to the water, so decided to install a Christi box where he cut thru the pipe and do it there. That meant he didn't have to trench up to the house and the connection was on the "before" side of the pressure regulator, so the irrigation pipe should have great pressure.

How do we know it has great pressure you ask? Well, hubby glued the connections and waited about an hour before telling me to turn on all the taps in the house to flush out any dirt or air that may have gotten into the pipes. They were on for maybe half a minute, when I heard a muffled "pop" and then the water stopped. Yup, the pressure had popped one of the fittings and we had a small geyser in the yard. That was a fitting on the other side of the cutoff valve we installed to separate the new irrigation from the existing. Hubby turned that to off and turned the water back on. Then another fitting popped and he had to turn the water off again. He reglued the fittings and said we needed to wait until morning for water. Grr. We were already going to my parents for dinner, so they were kind enough to let us shower there as we were dirty and sawdusty from today's work.

 

[Baymule]

Trencher! Water pipes! How exciting! When we moved here, there was only 2 water faucets, 1 at the front of the house, 1 at the back. I had to drag hoses around daily. That got old.

We hired a guy to run power to the sheep barn and horse barn, plus water to both and to the garden. I am grateful every day for those water faucets. I insisted on cut off valves on every one. Guy was irritated and tried to tell me I didn’t need them, but I stood my ground. When we have hard freezes, I cut them off.