Chicken Farm!

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but I've been super busy working on a chicken farm for the past week! I ended up here a bit randomly (the place I was supposed to stay was full, so I got referred over here) and I've really been enjoying myself. Claudia and Daniel own Yellow Hill farm where they have over 1200 hens for their eggs, about 40 goats, and 10 cows (with a newborn yesterday). Then eggs are certified organic and free range and get sold all over town in the organic groceries, farmer's markets, and to restaurants.

All the chickens, save one, are brown hens and are upwards of 2 yrs old. some were inherited from another farmer, so we don't know how old those are and they just die of old age. I walked in one hen house yesterday to find a dead one and all the hens gathered looking strangely at it, cooing a funeral song. (or so I imagined). The old ladies (as we call them) don't lay as frequently, but they're not good for much else, so they'd just get killed off in a more conventional operation. I suppose it makes things a bit less cost effective, because they can be a "drain" on feed, but it depends on what you're looking for. They make delicious jumbo sized eggs which younger hens don't produce. And jumbo eggs are a hot item at the market - often they have double yokes or kids like the "dinosaur" eggs.

Egg work starts in the afternoon, around noon or 1pm, after the chickens have stopped laying for the day and have left their nests. We ride out on an ATV with a trailer to the two big chicken paddocks in the back of the property where it's a bit more sheltered from the weather that can whip through here. Gathering the eggs, feeding and getting water to the hens takes about 2hrs. We gather the eggs on trays from all the hen houses and also check around the bushes for the truly free ranging types. They have their favorite houses, so some will have over 100 eggs and others will have about a dozen. They get a wheat-based grain mix with plenty of good vitamins and minerals and occasionally some left over veggies from other farmers. [Everything has to be certified organic and everyone has to wear their gumboots out to prevent cross-contamination of stuff not on their farm.] There's plenty of grass around too for the hens to nibble on and this is what helps make their egg yolks so orangey-yellow. I learned that some farmers here put dye in their feed to make the yolks look super yellow. It looked a bit strange to me when I got here, and I commented to people that I'd never seen an egg that orange - turns out, for good reason!

All of the eggs need to washed and dried before they're packed. Some of the eggs we gather are just about ready to go - nice clean and brown. But others are coated in any combination of chicken poo, mud, and scrambled egg. The chickens are a bit cannibalistic, and will peck at their eggs if left too long or go downright bonkers if they see one cracked open on the ground. (Only one of the reasons egg gathering has to happen every day, in the early afternoon). The chickens produce an unbelievable amount of poop. Luckily this can be sold as well as fertilizer. Really strong stuff though; just putrid when it's fresh. Once the eggs are all clean and in their trays they get packed into boxes (6 trays of 30 eggs each). The cleaning and packing process takes about 3hrs I think for each days eggs. So we're already at about 5-6hrs of work, just for basic maintenance of the egg business.... without adding in the business side work, maintenance of their facilities, delivering and selling at markets, or what about tending to the goats, the garden patch, the cows, 2 dogs, 3 cats, or feeding ourselves. Needless to say, if you get behind it's hard to catch back up. We've been doing double duty on egg washing over the past week to try to catch back up from time off with markets and other obligations. Thank goodness I'm needed around here :) And with that... I have to go back to washing eggs.