We take full advantage of stores that have delivery in our neck of the woods. Home Depot, Tractor Supply, Walmart, CostCo, Amazon to name a few of the more common ones, and they have things that you wouldn’t necessarily expect. We got our chicken plucker from Walmart, of all places. Last year I got a bunch of egg flats from Tractor supply – they were 99 cents a dozen! A flat holds 2 and a half dozen eggs and that’s what I use to take eggs to our customer, Tom the baker. It’s great when I come home and there’s a package in the driveway. It’s kinda like Christmas! Sometimes it’s not that much fun, if we’re getting brewers yeast, but seeds are always neat or plants or trees. Right now, we’re expecting a delivery of egg cartons and a delivery of baby chicks, ducks, and a goose!

I already talked about the ducks that we’re getting. I’m not sure if I mentioned the goose – we’re getting a male Tufted Roman. That is what our female goose, Roma, is. Tufted Romans are on the Livestock Conservancy’s critical list. So, it would be neat to be able to hatch some – if possible. We’re not sure how we’ll be doing in that department. Anyway~ we are also waiting for a batch of Red Rangers. When you do a Google search for Red Rangers, you need to make sure you put in the word “chicken” – or you end up with pages and pages of the Red Power Rangers.  Who knew?! I did find one photo of a Red Power Ranger who was fighting a guy in a very fancy chicken suit, but I opted to not include that here.

The baby chicks will be Red Rangers and they are broilers. Red Rangers are a hybrid chicken, bred for meat production. They are not recommended to be used for egg production as they are not vigorous layers. Red Rangers are very popular for farms which raise chickens organically, for meat. They tend to forage well – as opposed to the Cornish Cross. They grow at a slower, more normal rate than say the Gray Rangers, so the turn around time isn’t as quick. They do very well as pastured chickens, completely free ranged, or in chicken tractor situations, and they tolerate heat better than most meat birds. The Murray McMurray hatchery says that they reach their best dress weight at 80 days. We are hoping to have help with this lot, and the next, when it comes time for processing. We have joined in a “barn raisers” group that will help us to get through large farm projects, such as processing. The adults in the group are interested in giving their children some farm life experience – much like they had as they grew up. So— we’ll see how this works out!

Sue has been busy getting the brooding side of the coop ready for new littles. With the layers now out in the pasture, with their beautiful RCW, she was able to spend some time in the coop making some improvements, setting up lights, making the brooding table a bit more enclosed for the first few days so we can reach them if we need to address any health issues. She hung the heat lights so they are a bit more stable. Basically cleaning and readying for the expected delivery. I leave for Washington DC on Wednesday and they will probably come Wednesday or Thursday.  I think every thing is in readiness, we just need the delivery! Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

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Today’s Weather: It was a bit cooler today than over the weekend. Had our first few days in the 100’s°. We have a few more days of the same, peaking Thursday it looks like and then by next Monday/Tuesday we’re back down in the low 90’s°. That’s a bit more tolerable. The chickens seem to be keeping up in the heat, except that egg production has gone down some – as I’ve mentioned before.

Egg Report: Saturday –  1 duck egg, 33 chicken eggs. Sunday – 1 duck egg, 22 chicken eggs.  Monday –  2 duck eggs, 25 chicken eggs.