Another milestone today - the creation of our farm's blog. Getting here seems easy enough until you realize how hard it was to name this farm when Mom, Dad, and both kids have to agree. We probably could have put the names we were considering up for debate by our family and friends but to be honest I really could not take any more ridicule of my own suggestions. My ego just would not allow it. Perhaps someday when my self esteem seems able to handle it I'll share the other contenders. Let's just cut to the chase and say that the farm has officially been named. I am proud that we reached a family consensus on something that for years will represent the heart we have put into this homestead.
Heartland Hill Farm
Of course the farm naming and the blog are only small steps on this journey. We really need to introduce you to the first livestock to call Heartland Hill Farm home ~ the chickens.
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| Our original 50 meat chickens plus the free "rare and exotic". |
We started this past summer with 50 chickens we raised for meat. I thought the kids would enjoy them but what I discovered is I could lose lots of my own time just watching these fat little feathered creatures as they ate themselves silly and grew seemingly by the hour. Eleven weeks later and we had some seriously delicious and wholesome meat in the freezer. However, left behind was one lonely "rare and exotic" chicken we had named Micco.
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| Micco, aged 11 weeks, shortly after her brothers went off to the freezer. |
Micco was shipped as a freebie with our meat chickens and the only thing "rare and exotic" about her is that she's a hen instead of a rooster (which the company usually sends out). Raised as the only sister to her 50 brothers who never wanted to leave the comfort of their food bowls in the coop, she had no idea how to act like a proper chicken. Giving her away to another family who was looking for more hens was not a possibility with children that considered her a pet. The only option was to find her companions. One failed attempt with Craig's List and countless other outreaches to other chicken owners to try to buy a few hens proved fruitless. Then just as we began considering ordering more mail order hens (minimum order 25), my sister agreed to give us her seven chickens so they didn't have to take care of them over the winter.
In the dark of night we introduced one large white rooster, Big John, a quirky rooster with questionable intelligence, Black Beard, and a small white bantam rooster who is completely happy with his larger playmates and occasionally shows some gender identity issues as he will sit on the eggs. The girls included one large white girl (laying white eggs) that has moments of broodiness, another Easter Egger like Micco (sometimes hard to tell them apart), and two brown girls - one of which is laying a tan colored egg and the other which lays green. I could make some really uneducated guesses at their genealogy but I suspect that someone wiser would correct me and I think we have already established I have an ego to protect.
Concerns were high that our baby, Micco, would be the odd girl out but our fears were for nothing. She is happier than ever and is often the first one to run outside when I open the coop when she wouldn't dare venture outside before her friends arrived. The others have adapted well also and the egg production has been at least one egg per hen per day all winter long once I realized they needed a few extra hours of light more than we were already giving them.
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| Our newest babies in the nursery. |
A couple weeks ago, thanks to friends of ours, we purchased fifteen new chicks. Once again our garage has turned into a nursery. I don't know who thought hatching eggs in the dead of winter was a good idea but so far so good thanks to a couple of heat lamps. We're not sure yet how many of the chicks are hens vs. roosters but we will have to find homes for the roosters because our three adult roosters are probably all that our coop can handle without upsetting the balance.
So that's the introduction to our farm thus far. Hopefully in the very near future we can introduce you to the real stars of the farm ~ our alpacas! After all, they are the reason we started this journey to begin with. Until then, we will keep you updated on the farm progress and the garden plans. And if you're really hungry for more, check out the website my daughter is creating for our eggs:
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