Taking stock of chickens

The chicks arrived yesterday. The post office called to say that there were some chicks for me and would i want them delivered? Oh yes I said! (stifling my excitement that I wouldn't have to go to the post office to pick them up). They asked me to be sure the gate was unlocked. I gleefully said it would be open! Kristi happened to be at home that Thursday so she could prepare to receive them. This is the most birds we have ever gotten at one time. We are replenishing our laying flock. We have roughly 40 laying hens and they are supposed to lay about 281 eggs a year each. Out of 40 hens we get 10 eggs on a rare good day. lately it's been more like 3 to 6 eggs. Not good enough to be worth feeding them. So. In the cruel farm world that we live in, the existing hens will be kept around to supply us with a few eggs now and then and after 5 months the new chickens will come online and we'll be in production again. It's a hard cruel fact that in order to keep chickens they need to pay for themselves. If they don't pay for themselves they get bottled in quart jars. If we can get 5 dozen eggs a day at $2.00 per dozen that equals about $70.00 per week in gross revenue. Out of that will come about 70 lbs of laying feed per week at 13.50 per 50# bag. So roughly $18.40 per week in feed. We also give them some chicken scratch for a treat. They get about a cup a day of that so one 50# bag will last about 3 months. That's 4.50 per month. There's also water which isn't much, but isn't free. When the weather is hot we run a fan for them. When it's cold there are heat lamps. Both cost money. We give them calcium in the form of crushed oyster shell this helps them produce egg shells. So more or less we make a gross profit of say $45.00 per week. We also get egg cartons from Kristi's work. Her egg buyers save them for her and she recycles them. Works for everybody. So the chickens make a tiny profit. That's nice. Of course we still have to pay to feed them for the 5 months that they are growing up and unproductive. We lose money on the goats. Unless you take into account the savings on property taxes. That's the reason we got the goats in the first place. We took a rare weekend off and drove to South Padre Island near Corpus Christi Tx. We went to the National seashore and walked on the sand. Watched the waves and the waves of pelicans. I could do that all day every day if someone would pay me. The hotel offered up a bottle of Champagne. A perk due to living in fire ravaged Bastrop. A month ago nobody had heard of our town. Now everyone knows it because so much of it has burned down. On the drive back we went to the Aransas National Wildlife Preserve near Refugio. Wonderful place. Lots of wildlife. We didn't get to go in because the rain was coming down so hard you couldn't see the park. On the way out we had to thread our way through 4 dead wild hogs scattered about the road. We scattered the dozens of fat Vultures picking at the carcasses. Upon our arrival home we had another rare treat. Everything was perfectly normal with no unexpected deaths nor injuries and only one animal had escaped it's forced territory. A now 4 day old chick was out in the surround around it's pen.

Time to break out the winter clothes

This week, the high is supposed to be below 100 degrees for more than one day in a row. It's time to break out the winter clothes. Yeah, this is still Texas. We lost 10 chickens this past week to the heat. That's a lot of chickens. But these are old chickens, stockpot chickens, if you will, and perhaps it's time to replace the flock. Out of 40+ birds, we're getting _two_ eggs a day. In 106 degree heat, even with a fan that I put into the coop, we're still losing them.

We put Recoil back in his buck pen. Since I just had a seizure (out of the blue, no way to tell what happened, really, just did) and had to be taken to the hospital, we both felt it was best to keep the man penned. He's a danger to us in the best of times during his rut, so it's just safer this way. During the truly hot heat of this brutal summer, he's not been so 'hot to trot', but since the temps have come back down (just barely) below 100, he is showing more interest in his girls. And they in him, luckily.

The turkeys are coming of age and escaping their pen as often as they can, now. I think they do it just because. You know, just because they can. They are quite cute, though. At least at this age. And we are planning on keeping a few for breeding for more chicks. At $11.50 each for hatchlings, I think it's best to try to raise our own. And perhaps sell the extras.

The pigs continue to be a pain, but Mike loves them, so I suspect we will be keeping them around for as long as possible.

Mike bought an IPAD two weeks ago, and I mentioned that I would love to have his when he's finished with it or upgrades. So, of course, he went and bought me one just.. you know, because he wanted to.

It's hot and I don't think we're going to have a fall garden. I can't imagine trying to keep up with that and everything else, as well.

I am making soap this weekend to fulfill orders from my soap site - http://www.kristisoap.com (if you go, don't pay full price... mention the blog and you'll get a discount. And the shipping is all screwy. I will charge exact shipping). Mike's not feeling well, so I'm guessing he's probably not going to go for a motorcycle ride -- something I think he desperately needs to relax a little after these past few weeks.

It's the weekend. In this case, a particularly long one because of labor day. And we're both exhausted from the past two weeks' events (the seizure and Mike driving me around because I've been ordered not to drive for 3 months). And the funky anti-seizure medicine that makes me feel drunk. Those effects are wearing off, but it's been a very hard couple of weeks for both of us trying to get used to everything.

So we continue to continue. The goats are happy because we are finally getting everything down - keeping them from getting sick and just generally taking care of them better because of what we've learned by doing... Someone at work keeps asking me if they should get a goat. And I always say 'no'. You need at least a farm and at least two... they are herd creatures and need their peeps around just like everyone else.

It's early. Need more coffee.