An Unexpected Twist

They arrived as tiny puffballs just last November, but they are already more than half-grown.  225 pullets--or, at least, that was the plan.  When the little chicks were a week or two old and beginning to feather out we noticed that a few of the Anconas had larger combs than the other chicks.  Uh oh.  Sure enough, as the chicks continued to grow we became more certain that there were ten Ancona cockerel chicks among them.  

A curious Ancona Pullet

Now, the reason we had ordered only pullets is that pullets grow into hens and hens lay the eggs.  Since one of our goals is profitability, eggs are a good thing.  Cockerels grow into roosters--admittedly more showy than the hens, plus they make that amazing crowing sound.  But can they earn their keep?  You don't need a rooster in order to get eggs.  You only need a rooster in order to get fertile eggs.  There are many in the natural foods movement who believe that there is something better about fertile eggs.  More complete.  More the way it was meant to be.
  

An Ancona Cockerel surrounded by Black Australorp Pullets

I haven't seen the nutritional information of one versus the other, and maybe it would be an intangible improvement anyway, but I follow where they are going with this.  So, while it wasn't our intention to have roosters among our laying hens, maybe it will all work out for the best in the end.  Either way, there still is nothing like the beauty of a strutting rooster with his stunning crow--and that's worth the price of admission any day.

New Life for an Old Farm

When we first moved to what would become Morning Star Family Farm, we were somewhat discouraged by the state of the outbuildings.   It had been 20 years since the previous owners had used the outbuildings and, frankly, it showed.

The original outbuildings, as we first saw them, June 2010

We knew the buildings had life left in them--and we also knew that we had many uses for the structures--but that it would take a good deal of oomph to get the buildings back into working order.  Chickens were top on our list for desired farm animals, so we knew we wanted the Chicken Coop (the middle building in the above picture) to be functional sooner rather than later.  As a result, we decided to tackle that building first.  

Since the Chicken Coop (like the other two buildings) had gaping holes in the roof, the first priority was to replace the old shake shingles with steel roofing.  The work began in March 2011.  It was Robin's project, with help from Dad, friends, and our boys.  As all projects go, the further we got in, the more we realized that we had to do.   

In May, the Moen boys arrived and knocked down the old Machine Shed roof, preserving the original walls.  Our plan was to use the building as a workshop and garage, but the old gambrel roof, while beautiful, was simply beyond repair.  Of course, watching the guys knock down the roof with sledgehammers and then clear it all away with a Bobcat was well worth the price of admission.

Then in August, Robin and the boys removed the Chicken Coop siding and put up OSB, while the Moens continued their work on the Machine Shed, putting up new trusses, OSB, and, eventually, steel roofing.  Somewhere around September we realized that it would be necessary to replace the big barn roof before winter, or we would risk losing that big, beautiful, antique.  With school starting up, though, we also knew that we would need to call in an expert to do the job.  We ended up finding a barn restoration expert who not only installed a steel roof on the barn, but also replaced rotted beams and joists, and missing siding and floor boards so that now our one hundred year old barn has at least another hundred years of life in it.

Barn, Chicken Coop, and Machine Shed February 2012

It's still a work in progress, but in one year I think we've come a long way.  We have finished replacing the roofs on all three outbuildings and are in the home stretch for finishing the exteriors of the buildings, as new wood siding boards are going up on the Chicken Coop and Machine Shed as I type.  It's a project that will never end, but all in all, I think we've breathed a good deal of new life into this place in the past year.  And this is only the beginning.

Spring Promises

Spring brings with it many promises.  At our farm, the promise is of eggs.  On a cold morning last November, over 200 day-old chicks came to be a part of our farm menagerie.  It all began with an early morning phone call from the post office announcing their arrival, then a quick drive into town to pick them up and bring them home.  

Day-old chicks, fresh from the post office

Our chicks are comprised of three different heritage breeds: Ancona, Americana, and Black Australorp.  We chose these breeds because of their foraging abilities, their hardiness on pasture, and for the color of the eggs which they lay.  Anconas lay white eggs, Black Australorps, brown, and Americanas break the monotony by laying eggs of various shades from blue-green to cream-colored.  You can see in the photo below, that even at hatch each breed has a different look. 

Only a few days old, chicks love to bask in the sunshine

With each passing week, our chicks (now called, "pullets") grow closer to the day when they will lay their first egg.  So, as February plods on with its snowy days, there is a glimmer of sunshine in our barn as we look forward to the fulfillment of our spring promise of eggs.