AdAgrA 2021: Hidden Treasure

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Special Interests

Rob Norris

Plant Propagation by Cuttings

Chantee Fisher

Luke Fisher

Grafting Tomatoes

Seth Shaffer

Cover Cropping: A Tool to Rebuild and Restore Your Soil

Angela Boothby Frauenfelder

Anna Perea

Acquainting Agriculture: Grow to Know Him

Joshua Dysinger

Kelli Dysinger

Pastured Egg Production

Ashlee Skinner

Integrating Cover Crops Into High Tunnel Production Systems

I kind of had gotten the inspiration because earlier that fall, I guess, late summer, fall, we had done a bit of a farm tour through New England.

I guess we went up into Canada to Elliot Coleman's farm and some of the other farmers that you know are have made a name for themselves in farming and a few of them had chickens and it was something that I really thought was cool and I enjoyed the I enjoyed animals and so I thought it was something I wanted to get into so that fall 2013 in October I ordered my first my first chickens and I've had ever since you know a varying amount so it's been a little over 7 years I guess.

The Eggs can be a profitable addition to the farm.

They can increase your soil nutrition if you run them on your farm, on your fields, which we have done some, not a lot.

And they're a relatively low-maintenance animal.

They're a great animal to like get started with.

If you're, if you haven't, you know, had livestock or any kind of animal, they're a relatively low-maintenance animal to get started with.

They're also, you know, if you have young kids, raising animals is like a great way to, you know, learn a lot of lessons and just like, you know, taking care of stuff and having to do that on a day to day.

So, those are all some good reasons for chickens.

So, for starting out, purchasing your chickens, you got a couple options.

You got chicks that are like 2 days old they're shipped as soon as they hatch and then you've got ready to lay pullets they're called before they're laying and you know if you're looking like on Craigslist or something they you can get a varying in ages.

A you know average breed is gonna start laying around 5 months so I mean, there's people that raise chickens and sell them at 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, whatever.

But, you know, you either get your chick or you get 1 that's past that stage that you don't have to be dealing with the With that whole side of things Then how to choose your breeds we've got a slide on that in a bit and where to purchase.

So the pros, you know the background and the health of your hens.

They're fun to raise And you can, you know, if you're ordering them online, these places have so many different breeds and varieties.

Generally, if you're looking for older chicks off of Craigslist or something, you're going to find someone that's raising like the main breeds for laying, like a, you know, just a couple breeds.

You're not going to have the kind of selection that you have if you're ordering from chicks.

And then the cons are it it's relatively time-consuming.

It's a whole separate it's a whole separate system so you have to have a whole separate supplies and area for that which is not it's not a huge expense but it is just something that you have to have, you know, your heat lights and just chick feeders and waters and stuff like that.

And then you also, you'll lose, you know, it's a learning curve.

And even if you do it perfectly, you're still gonna lose, you know, a small percentage of your chicks.

And then the ready to lay hens, or really any pullet that's, you know, I would say they probably are considered pullets after like a I don't know 6 8 weeks.

It's to the age where they don't need the heat lamps.

They're not as prone to getting cold and stuff like that.

So if you get ready to lay hens at 5 months old, you got immediate eggs and there's less equipment that's needed.

Cons are that sickness can more easily be brought into your flock, and it's an upfront, it's a much bigger expense.

A chick, you're gonna pay between 3 and $4 for.

Ready to lay hen, if it's a healthy, good hen, I mean, you're paying upwards of 12 to $18 for, so your upfront expense is much less.

From my calculation, I have $12 into a hen by the time it's laying anyways.

But that's over 5 months of buying your chicks as your upfront expense, and then you got feed for the next 5 months, which may be easier to do than to drop $2, 000 immediately to buy your hens that are ready to lay.

So, I've done both And I started by raising my own chicks.

And then I bought chicks from, or I bought ready to lay hens from someone up in Kentucky.

But I am to the point I would say, and things always change, I'll probably change my mind in a couple years, but I would say I'm to the point where I'm never buying another chicken off my farm.

I had I had about a hundred hens that I had gotten fall of 2018 I guess.

So spring 2020 they were a little bit over a year old.

I bought 100 more from a local person and brought them in and they had they were sick, I guess, got my whole flock sick and I almost just yeah it was the whole year was just kind of a flop I was able to like stay on top of all my CSA like egg shares but you know when I should have been getting 20 dozen a day, I was getting like 6, like the whole year.

If I had someone that I really trusted, that I had gotten chicks from or pullets from that were ready to lay, you know, and there is people that I, that raise them well.

It just takes time finding that person and stuff, and it is much easier, but it can get you in trouble and it got me in trouble and I could have possibly saved myself if I had if I had not put them together and realized that I had these ones I got had some issues I could have tried to deal with that because it was to the point where I kind of had to use like some more strong like antibiotic stuff and then I couldn't use my eggs for like I don't know 3 weeks or something so I could have had them separate I could have had my flock that was laying great I could have got it dealt with put them together probably would have been a lot better But I I didn't and it yeah kind of screwed me over so I'm I would say that I'm more pro by your chicks That's yeah and raising yourself So go to breed selection here and I I don't have any actually specific breeds.

I can say some that are like your your high layers but there's really no right or wrong on which breeds.

So things you can go off of is your desired egg color.

I don't know if I have any pictures in here but I've had some like astonishing like cartons that just are really cool.

You know, green eggs, blue eggs, white eggs, dark brown, light brown, just everything.

You know, does it increase my, you know, increase what the eggs are worth?

Probably not really, but people think it's cool.

Cold slash heat tolerance, just depending on where you live.

And these are all things that you can see about the chicken when you're purchasing them.

Like, they'll have different icons that are, like, you know, better for hot, better for cold, better for, you know, lots of eggs, colored eggs, whatever.

Aesthetic appeal, like, you know, you have a couple breeds that are like your number 1 layer.

And so you can have a whole flock, you know, 200 of 1 breed.

And it just, personally, I think it looks way cooler to have all these different chickens and whatever, but I'm kind of getting past that.

But if you're having a backyard flock, it's kind of cool.

You get these coachins that have feathers all the way down their feet and they're just like a big round chicken and you got the Polish that have feathers crazy off their head, and you get all different colors and it looks cool.

But that's just depending on your desires on that.

There's definitely different, different, you know, birds lay better than others.

Just, and also another thing, like some of the lighter birds are much more flighty.

They're much more likely to fly over your fence, roam all over some of the bigger, like, you know, Orpington or Barred Rock, or, you know, different birds like that are much less likely to try and fly away.

So if you know if anybody wants to know like specific breeds that I've had experience with we may have time at the end for questions or I can just talk to you afterwards.

So purchasing Murray McMurray Hatchery is where I got a lot of my first chicks.

This year I've gotten all my chicks from Hoover's Hatchery.

Mostly just because Murray McMurray didn't, they were like sold out of almost everything.

I'm not sure if it's just because they were a lot busier this year.

I think there's a lot more people that were trying to raise some chickens, have their own, you know, eggs.

They had a lot more choice so I just went with them this year I don't wouldn't say one's better than the other and then Craigslist is really the only place that I found to look for like older birds I don't know if I mean yeah that's that's where I found stuff and you just got to be wary of of those.

That's you know that's your number 1 the number 1 thing that they're gonna die from is if they get cold when they're little.

A round brooding pen so I dealt with this a bit this fall where the chicks get scared and they'll all kind of like pile up and they'll go to the corner and just like pile up and they'll still like trample and suffocate these ones on the bottom and if you've got a round like no corners They don't like have anywhere to just like brush into and it really will keep, it'll keep you from losing chickens from piling.

So that's a that's a great a great thing for your brooding pen.

And then just make sure they have enough space, they're not crowding each other out.

You know, they gotta be able to run around and obviously they're mostly gonna congregate like under your heat lamps and stuff, but you want enough space for them to be able to go wherever they want.

Also, especially get away from the heat because they will regulate their own heat.

Like if your heat lamp is pretty low, which is good to have them low, but they'll just lay around the outside and they'll regulate their own heat.

So those are some tips on on raising chicks and there's all the all the hatcheries you you'll you know look at online they'll have like a whole information sheet on raising the chicks and you know they're what they encourage on stuff like that.

So this whole presentation is just based on my method which is a movable coop with movable fencing, you know, always on fresh pasture.

You know, there's different ways to do it.

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Series

Special Interests

Pastured Egg Production

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Other Teachings in Series

Plant Propagation by Cuttings

1h 5m

Grafting Tomatoes

50m

Cover Cropping: A Tool to Rebuild and Restore Your Soil

1h 12m

Acquainting Agriculture: Grow to Know Him

44m

Pastured Egg Production

1h 3m

Integrating Cover Crops Into High Tunnel Production Systems

1h 2m

Sound Doctrine