The key difference between having a farm, instead of merely land, is that a farm grows something useful. Since we are not so much farmers as engineers with land, we have not really done much to make the place a farm. I am taking steps to remedy this. The # 1 issue limiter is climate. While the land looks lush, we only get about 20 inches of precipitation a year. Worse, the wet moths are November, December, and the remaining winter months. Summer time only sees about 2+1/2 inches. The temperature in turn varies across the year from 100F or hotter to -20F or colder. Some years we don't get a full 90 days between killing frosts. This limits the wild vegetation to sparse weeds. After some consideration I have come to the conclusion that the animal most likely to survive on this ground are chickens.
The smart thing for me to have done is to go to
Polyface Inc. and bought and read their book Pastured Poultry Profits before I made any plans. Instead, the first thing I did was order some chicks from
Murray McMurray Hatchery. Actually no, I did some research on chicken breeds and their attributes. I figured the biggest challenge would be the cold, so I ordered Jersey Black Giants, which also happen to be the worlds largest chicken breed. I really should have built the brooder first, but lacking time and materials, I ended up converting the back of this old Subaru station wagon into a brooder. I cut a slot in the top of the brooder for the thermometer so it could be read from outside.
I Following the advice in the early chapters of the book, I put an inch of sawdust on the floor to absorb the ammonia from the bird droppings. This worked very well. I bought a cheap $20 thermostat and hooked up four light bulbs to it. I had to trim off a plastic stopper inside the thermostat to get it to go up to 95F, but other wise this also worked well. The temperature varied by 10F, but this caused no problems. I rounded up a mismatched pair of metal hopper feeders we had and attached them to the wall with a single screw. They also have a piece of 1/2 inch plastic water pipe attached across the middle of the feeding tray to prevent the chickens from scratching too much of their food out. A pair of water trays that screw onto mason jars fit in nicely. It was all ready for the chickens not a moment too soon.
A phone call at 7:30 AM from the post office announced the arrival of my chicks. All 26 of my ordered chicks plus one free rare chick arrived alive in their cardboard box. This is when I began to figure out that a car is the worst place ever to brood chickens. Solar heating will push the internal temperature of the car well over 100F in a big hurry. Opening the windows fixes that but the cats found the chicks in short order. they didn't get any, but I had to install a wire screen above the back seat of the car to keep the cats out. At the same time a layer of fine dust covered every surface of the car's interior. I'm not entirely sure whether the smell will come out either. I will not be using a car as a brooder again if I can help it.
According to the very helpful graph in the book, I began turning the thermostat down 2.5 degrees a day beginning on their fourth day here. After they were 2 weeks old, I turned the thermostat down 5 degrees each day. All the while I was building the chicken house. Hoo boy. That is a story all it's own. Stay tuned.
The key difference between having a farm, instead of merely land, is that a farm grows something useful. Since we are not so much farmers as engineers with land, we have not really done much to make the place a farm. I am taking steps to remedy this. The # 1 issue limiter is climate. While the land looks lush, we only get about 20 inches of precipitation a year. Worse, the wet moths are November, December, and the remaining winter months. Summer time only sees about 2+1/2 inches. The temperature in turn varies across the year from 100F or hotter to -20F or colder. Some years we don't get a full 90 days between killing frosts. This limits the wild vegetation to sparse weeds. After some consideration I have come to the conclusion that the animal most likely to survive on this ground are chickens. 
The smart thing for me to have done is to go to Polyface Inc. and bought and read their book Pastured Poultry Profits before I made any plans. Instead, the first thing I did was order some chicks from Murray McMurray Hatchery. Actually no, I did some research on chicken breeds and their attributes. I figured the biggest challenge would be the cold, so I ordered Jersey Black Giants, which also happen to be the worlds largest chicken breed. I really should have built the brooder first, but lacking time and materials, I ended up converting the back of this old Subaru station wagon into a brooder. I cut a slot in the top of the brooder for the thermometer so it could be read from outside.
I Following the advice in the early chapters of the book, I put an inch of sawdust on the floor to absorb the ammonia from the bird droppings. This worked very well. I bought a cheap $20 thermostat and hooked up four light bulbs to it. I had to trim off a plastic stopper inside the thermostat to get it to go up to 95F, but other wise this also worked well. The temperature varied by 10F, but this caused no problems. I rounded up a mismatched pair of metal hopper feeders we had and attached them to the wall with a single screw. They also have a piece of 1/2 inch plastic water pipe attached across the middle of the feeding tray to prevent the chickens from scratching too much of their food out. A pair of water trays that screw onto mason jars fit in nicely. It was all ready for the chickens not a moment too soon.
A phone call at 7:30 AM from the post office announced the arrival of my chicks. All 26 of my ordered chicks plus one free rare chick arrived alive in their cardboard box. This is when I began to figure out that a car is the worst place ever to brood chickens. Solar heating will push the internal temperature of the car well over 100F in a big hurry. Opening the windows fixes that but the cats found the chicks in short order. they didn't get any, but I had to install a wire screen above the back seat of the car to keep the cats out. At the same time a layer of fine dust covered every surface of the car's interior. I'm not entirely sure whether the smell will come out either. I will not be using a car as a brooder again if I can help it.
According to the very helpful graph in the book, I began turning the thermostat down 2.5 degrees a day beginning on their fourth day here. After they were 2 weeks old, I turned the thermostat down 5 degrees each day. All the while I was building the chicken house. Hoo boy. That is a story all it's own. Stay tuned.
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