Babies and Eggs Everywhere

With Kevin Jr. on the farm, the chores and projects have fallen pretty squarely on my shoulders.  He’s growing so quickly in Shae’s care and it’s not the slightest sacrifice on my part to see them both as healthy and happy as they are.

Bake on low for 15 minutes, or until done.

The farm, though, is also growing!  We received this week our second batch of Cornish Cross broilers and they are doing wonderfully.  We did have an amazing experience with a little chick who I found cold, wet, and motionless one morning.  During their morning feeding I found a baby chick seemingly dead beneath the lip of the waterer.  It appeared as though he had climbed in to play and then gotten too cold to return to the hover to warm back up.  He was sadly motionless, but instead of composting the little guy, I had the unexplainable thought to try and warm this motionless body back up.

So, in a strangely ironic twist, I put the little chick into the oven to see if I could help bring him back to life!  After a few minutes in some warm towels, there was no improvement so I gently picked him up and walked over to the compost bucket.  Right as I was about to drop him in he sucked in a big gulp of air and started to breathe!  It was amazing.  So back in the oven he went.  Over the course of the whole day we kept him in warm towels, under a heat lamp, and on a steady diet of sugar water.

Amazingly, the little guy did a full recovery and was ready to rejoin his friends for the evening feeding.  We’ve had no mortality since I put him back, so it’s great to report that he’s thriving and happy!

Ta DA!

First Early Bird Ranch Egg!

In construction news the egg mobile is almost ready!  We've had our first egg show up from the new hens and we are rushing to get them in their permanent home.  This custom built mobile coop is the most impressive structure yet on the farm and quantum leap in our infrastructure.  The coop will hold 500 hens with nest boxes, roost bars, food and water infrastructure, and will have a solar power system to control automatic doors and some predator control systems I’m excited to talk about once we get all the kinks out.  The egg mobile is a special design that will be low and squat to make it more stable, but will have an impressive inside area for the hens to sleep in at night.  We opted to build it out of steel instead of wood because it has to be strong enough to travel the hilly terrain on the ranch so it can follow the lovely cows in Left Coast Grass Fed Beef’s herd.  Because the egg mobile will also provide some serious benefits for the cows, Left Coast has generously given us a few hours every week in the schedule of their resident welding expert (Jeremiah) so he can help us make this structure a success!  

I will absolutely post pictures as soon as we are done.

I lastly want to thank everyone in our community who have been bringing us wonderful suppers each night to help us with the baby.  We have personal notes on the way, but it is just so important to me to sing the praises of our amazing community here in Pescadero.  We couldn’t do half of what we do without the help our neighbors and friends!