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| The chicks are now five days old and doing great! |
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| They live in this brooder. Cost to build: $0 |
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| Modest exterior |
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| We have not lost one yet. |
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| The layer hens now have a self contained water catchment system. |
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| Even though they are only a hundred feet from our doorstep this is a vast improvement. |
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We have five chicken tractors with a total of eighteen layers in them combined.
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| A chicken tractor is named so because of its ability to replace a traditional tractor by tilling, weeding, mulching, fertilizing and so on. |
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| These hens have been getting moved on our native drylands pasture at least twice a day ,,,,sometimes four or five! |
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| Hens on a diet of leafy greens, sprouted wheat berries and barley, and organic scratch, no soy whatsoever. |
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| These three hen tractors can on a good day produce three eggs each! |
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| Mike came out early this morning to load up ten hens and our 10 x 7 ft. tractor to take to a neighboring farm at the Real Food Nation property. |
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| Hens waiting for better pastures. |
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| Just two miles down the road, these ten hens will have plenty of pasture for weeks to come, eating up and tilling 70 sq. feet per day. We are attempting a cooperative relationship with other small farmers in ways like this that can benefit everyone and the land and animals bugs etc. |
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| We thought we could salvage some seedlings we planted in this bed in Feb. but the aphids were just everywhere...so hens to the rescue! |
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| It is so great to see chickens living in this environment and as farmers we have such great control of what they eat and how they impact the land by being able to move them on and off areas. |
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| Garlic bed closest to cistern, with plum and currant and chokecherry trees |
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| Another shot of that same garlic |
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| Currant |
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| Happy hens come running |
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| A-frame greenhouse with our three hoop houses and the cold frame behind them. We planted beets and cabbage in the cold frame today and last week planted chard and kale and broccoli raab and radishes in the hoop house to the left. |
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| Carrots we bought from Gemini farms |
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| Ginger carrots |
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| Once we added salt and enough water to cover all the carrots they went in the closet to ferment for a week or two. |
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| Fermentation closet; in there now is porter and red chile porter, apple cider and carrots, both ginger and garlic |
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| Pantry above the washer |
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| Burning scrap wood |
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| Flower beds made from hollowed out pine logs |
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| Happy hens |
