So this is really happening....

Tomorrow is the end of the road for my first flock chickens

I can believe I am here. It seems like the endless hours researching were just yesterday. And here I am.... having successfully raised my first flock of chickens trying desperately to detach emotionally from this final step.

We have chosen to have the chickens processed at Farm Fed. This is a federally inspected and licensed facility in Abbotsford. Its a little more expensive than having a mobile slaughter service, but I have opted to have use Farm Fed because everyone of the birds will be inspected before being released backed to me to sell. I am paying for peace of mind.

They have provided us with the crates we will need to transport our birds from our farm to the processing facility.

10 to 12 chickens per orange crate

The staff have been so helpful, answering our endless questions and being patient with us as we learn and try to get this right.

Mann loaded the crates on to our trailer for us and showed us a bit around the plant. Cam and I could not stomach the smell so the tour did not last real long.

And again I am shocked as to what I am using my SUV for. When we bought the truck a few years ago we had hockey gear, youth group attendees, large playdates in mind - we would have never imagined that we would be using it for transporting 100 chickens.  Mike at Campbell River Honda would be so impressed, I am sure!


So tomorrow morning - around 5am - Cam and I will be attempting to catch our flock and transport them to processing. Should be a time of lots of laughs and interesting to say the least!

Meet Gimp

Our Special Care Nursery

So this little guy (that I have affectionally dubbed "Gimp") has at least one broken leg and the other leg is not quite right either. He can't move around the coop very well and the other chickens just push by (or over) him.









If he is left with the rest of the flock he will die or be savagely killed by his flock mates. Its a survival of the fittest scenario. So we set up a little special care area for him only. We have caught a few healthier chickens hopping the wall and stealing his food. Despite the isolation, he is not growing as quick as the others, but he is alive and being cared for well.

Day 36?!

Well - 3/4 of the way! This is awesome..... these chicks are huge! Full fledged white feathers, red combs and all. We went away for 5 days and left the chickens in great care. When we came back they were way huger than before we left! Its amazing to see how quickly they grow and we really noticed it having been absent for several days.

While we were away, ecoli in beef being sold commercially, locally, was all over the media. People getting sick. Questions being asked "why is so much of our entire country's beef dependent on one processing facility in Alberta?" What about keeping it local? What about eating food that was raised / grown / made close to where I reside. This whole "scare" renewed my confidence in the importance of raising / growing / making my families' food. Raising and processing these chickens is only a small cog in the wheel. But its a good start.

Oh how I love paperwork!

The accountant in me - loves documents

The BC Chicken Marketing Board is a wealth of information and regulators of small flock farms like ours. I was finally able to track down exact information on how many chickens I can raise and details on regulations and procedures. All inquiries I made lead to the Marketing Board. I can raise up to 2000 chickens per year and sell from the farm gate all of these. I can not sell to commercial facilities (grocery stores, etc.). So I just received a beautiful package in the mail with a wealth of reading material and this beautiful document.

Promptly after reviewing in, Cam asked me if he could hang it on the barn so that we look official.  "Look official?! We are official, baby!"

The Board is collaborating with the University of the Fraser Valley and putting a course together in November for small flock chicken farmers. Looks like I am heading to the Chilliwack campus on Tuesdays in November. Some free education? Yes, please.

Day 24! How did that happen?

Half way point....

The chicks are half way through their life already. Wow - that happened quick. Some random things I have learned so far:

• Chicken raising stinks, literally. The aroma wafting from the chicken barn is not pleasant.
• Although I read there are lots of guidelines and "must do's" its really a personal experience and there are many combinations that will yield a successful flock.
• Sawdust (bedding) needs to be bought in bulk. This is the expense that is going to affect our bottom line most significantly. We didn't factor in how much bedding was needed and the significant cost that it is.
• I truly like doing this. Now that we are underway, it doesn't take too much time. Or should I say, it doesn't take more time than I expected it to take.
• Lots of people are excited to buy the meat - I've got my dad doing sales on the job site, neighbors making room in their freezers, a niece who "wants a chicken too", and my friends asking when are they ready?. Looks like my worries of not having enough freezer space to store the meat in were in vain.

No, I don't typically wear a skirt in the barn. The photographer caught me a good day.

Bigger birds = bigger pad

More square footage required for bigger birds

The chicks new crib. So spacious.

On day 12 Cam modified the barn so that the chicks could have more space to roam and still be warm. This also enabled the birds to access more of the nipples of the watering system. I have completely given up on the small portable watering containers. They were useless because the birds filled the tray with sawdust and poop with an hour of me cleaning it out. The birds also preferred temperatures that are lower than the research we have done. 80 / 85 degrees seems to be plenty warm enough for them.

We found the mystery mobile chicken slayer. He lives a couple blocks away. Cam touched base with him and if we require his services, we'll call him a couple weeks before slaughter day.

We ended up switching the feed we were giving the chicks. We realized that the medicated crumble was the best choice for our flock. They are so vulnerable for the first 21 days that the small amount of medication was best and would prevent death and disease. The medication was 3.5 dinitro-0-toluamide (zoalene) and prevents coccidiosis. This is approved by the Veterinary Drugs Dictorate of Health Canada. Once the chicks mature and move the "grower" stage of feed we will move back to the non-medicated feed.

Spa de la Poulet

Well there were 18 patrons that enjoyed my spa services. The affected poultry were treated to a soak in a luke warm bath. Water was retreived from an underground river 300ft below the surface of South Langley.

State of the Art equipment at Spa de la Poulet

The matter that was attached to the chicks' behinds was gently exfoliated by a gagging estetian. The next step of the treatment includes being blown dry and then gently released back to the flock.

Those chickens who did not participate in this glamorous treatment reported their flock mates butts looked like they receive a full  backside waxing - apparently the esthetician was not as gentle as she could have been.

The next day, much to the esthetician's dismay, 4 of the patrons required a second treatment. It was after this that I retired from the poultry beauty service industry. Spa de la poulet hired Cameron Keller as my replacement. Oddly, no more chicks required future services.

Are you kidding me?!

We are noticing how quickly the chicks are growing. White feathers are starting to show on their wing tips and we have raised the watering system a couple times since they are getting taller.

But 3 have now died. Typically a 3% loss is normal ~ but that's where I am at at Day 7 and I still have 42 days left to go - that does not allow for any more to croak ~ no more that can give up the ghost ~ no more to kick the bucket.

I did not realize I signed up for this......

But I have been noticing on a couple birds their poop is stuck to their butts. Ooh gross, suck it up princess, farming is not always glamorous!

This is known as "pasty behind" and can be fatal since the feces can leave the body and they get stopped up.  Solution: I need to bathe each of the chicks that have it and then blow dry the down on their butt.

Seriously!!!!!

This will be interesting.I am off to the barn to spa treatment some little chicks. I will then personally be bathing in bleach if you need me.

A moment of silence please...

 

It happened...

Breaking news from my barn...... A little one bit the dust. No more pecking and chirping and peeping for this lil one. I am handling it quite well....... Let's all take a moment of silence. There will be a memorial service on our property this afternoon at 2pm for us all to remember what a leader this guy was within the flock and the legacy he will leave since he made such an impact on our lives while he was with us for 6 long days.

Just kidding...... I am handling this very well. I am not at all emotional. Seriously. I am actually sitting on www.allrecipes.com checking out fabulous grilled chicken recipes getting ready for all the chicken grilling we'll be doing in 6 weeks.

What I am not doing next time....

We had these small watering devices on hand so I put 3 of them in the barn. I did this for a couple reasons:
a) if the new chicks are not drinking their beaks need to be dipped in water so they are taught how to drink
b) I was nervous they would not figure out the Ziggity watering system and not get anything to drink in their first couple days here

First I sterilized them..... (they are upside down in this picture) and filled them with water.

(Sidebar: If you like the wallpapering job in my laundry room pictured here,I have 2 fabulous ladies that are happy help you... you just need to feed them martini's and sushi the night before you need wallpapering done.)

Then I placed them in the barn.

The chicks have proceeded to thank me for this additional H20 supply by kicking sawdust in the trough and then pooping on top of the soaking sawdust. This makes a horrid smell and its disgusting to clean them out. I won't be using these next time. Rather I will align the cardboard in such a way that more of the Ziggity line will be available to the chicks from the beginning.

Day 5 and all is well....

We've a learned a lot in the first few days with this flock.....

The Donut Effect

Based on various sources we thought the best temperature to keep the barn at was around 90 / 95 degrees. But we noticed that when resting and gathering the chicks were huddling along the edge of the cardboard wall. This is called the donut effect when the chicks create a ring around the area directly under the brooder that is creating the heat. It suggests that the area is too warm and the chicks are congregating as far away from the source of heat as much as possible. We have dropped the temperature to 80 / 85 degrees and sure enough - the chicks are now resting and congregating through the entire area and no longer clinging to the walls.

Response to humans

On days 1 and 2 the chicks came toward us when we came in to the barn. Day 3 and forward they now scurry away from us. On their first day home they were climbing all over the kids. This won't happen again for 2 reasons - the chicks seemed to have an innate sense of fear of us and the saw dust is so covered in poo there is no way the kids are going over the cardboard wall ever again.

Where did that one go?

 

Quota and Permit

I finally was able to confirm that as a non-commerical farmer in BC I can raise up to 200 chickens per year for my own consumption. I can raise up to 2000 per year (with a permit from the BC Chicken Marketing Board www.bcchicken.ca) to sell to individuals. Without "quota" I can not sell any chicken to stores. So all of my plans are onside (as long as I apply for the permit).

The Smell

The odour that has started to engulf the barn is not so pleasant ~ as in foul (or should I say fowl ;-) This happened a lot sooner in the 7 week cycle than I expected / hoped.

Help

So again, through an odd divine string of relations, a commercial chicken farmer located in South Surrey was kind enough to call me and offer his comments on his decades worth of experience. This guy raises 40,000 chickens 6 times a year! He was a wealth of knowledge and asked me call him with any unanswered questions I might have. Sa-weet!!!

They're here! They're here!

I did it - I found the courage...

So my original plan was to pick up the chickens two weeks ago. Partly time, partly procrastination, partly fear delayed me in picking them up. This Thursday I had plenty of reasons why not to go get them (it was a very bad, no good horrible, kind of day), but my personal motivator (aka Cam) reminded me that I need to do something for myself and reminded me how excited I am to be doing this. So I did it. I drove out to Western Hatcheries and picked up the 100 most cutest balls of fluff.

Guess what's inside.......

....100 lil chickens!

The drive home was adorable - all these little peeps from the back seat. I drove along a road with lots of large speed bumps and each bump was accompanied by a round of peeps and chirps from the back. So cute!!

I put the lil peckers in their new home and said a little prayer... "Please God don't let them die all at once".

And my prayers have been answered.... I have had them for over 40 hours and I have had no untimely passings! Just call me mother hen.

I hope these things get ugly and annoying in 7 weeks - other wise parting with them is going to be a painful process.

This chick I have dubbed "Dustin".... he's always thinking outside the proverbial cardboard box.... not like anyone I know ;-)

Almost d-day

The chicks are coming the chicks are coming!

I can worry and fret no longer. My over thinking and analyzing must come to an end. Its time to get this hen party started. I limed the floor of the barn for further sterilization and spread out the cedar shavings that a dear friend just happened to have laying around in his welding shop and just happened to live down the street. God provides in the oddest (and most perfect) of ways sometimes!

I created my smaller brooding area with this super neat cardboard on a roll. There are a million craft and project ideas that I can think of using this stuff - but I must stay on task! Again, Brackton was close behind me helping out and filling up the chick feeder tray with our starter feed.

One of the brooders will not work despite the repairs we have done to it. Since I am doing a small flock, I think one brooder will suffice this time around. Will likely need to replace it if we do this again with more chicks.

Tomorrow I am planning on picking up 100 little peep peeps! I am very excited.... I am so enjoying this process and learning something so new and so different than financial statements, bank reconciliations, and cost of part analysis.

Wish me 'c'luck......

Help from all around...

It takes a village to raise my chicks ~ 

                                           old Chinese quote hacked and paraphrased

Well getting the barn ready has been a load more of work than I expected. But it looks like I will be ready for the chicks next week!  Chirp chirp.....

The equipment we have is not new so there has been a little extra effort needed to be put in to get it all operational. The 2 gas brooders are old and one has been dropped. So I consulted a gas fitter to get them set up and operational. This took him 3 visits and a lot of tweeking. One is running fine. The other is debatable. I am quite nervous with the whole natural gas thing so I hired a professional to hook everything up and make sure all is working okay. Although I am sure I could detect the smell of rotten eggs (what a natural gas leak smells like) all by myself with my super huge nose and all.... but I wanted peace of mind.

After incurring his services I learned that I could buy one new brooder for the same price I have paid the gas fitter. Or I could buy 2, good, 2nd hand ones for the same price! It irritates me that so much in today's world its cheaper to replace appliances than it is to repair old ones... but I digress......

My problem solver extraordinaire!

Early in the week I was working in the barn and my youngest son (Brackton - age 7) came around to lend a hand / watch. I was telling him how I needed to get that pile of nailed together boards down to the burn pile at the back of the property since they were garbage and that I had to build some sort of gate near the door - so I could enter the barn without the chicks running out the door. Brax looked at the scrap wood and looked where I needed a gate and promptly said "well mom, if you take that wood and turn it around and slide it in,  you'll notice that it is the gate!" And would you know it - he was right.

Installing what I thought was scrap wood ~
 was actually perfectly fitted for the gate.

The gate - all installed!

I still had no good idea on how I am going to get the water line sterilized - enter to the problem solving scene - Dad!  We popped over to ma and pa's for an evening visit and dad impressed me twice:
1) he was reading my blog! Nice! ~and~
2) of course he had several ideas on how to get the cleaning solution through the lines.

My Jonkman haul

The only British Columbia distributor that Ziggity recommends for their water system installations and maintenance happens to be a few kilometers up the street..... so I wander over to Jonkman Equipment... for some more learning.  The staff were so helpful! They sell a huge range of farming related equipment - and they took lots of time showing me options and getting me quotes and ideas. I left with a jug of hyrdogen peroxide and a roll of cardboard. The smallest quantity of commercial grade peroxide they sold will last me a decade. That's a lot of McNuggets that I will have raised on a sparkling clean watering system!  Jonkman also helped me solve a problem I saw looming on the horizon but hadn't put in the effort to even contemplate options yet..... and that is that my barn is too big for 100 chicks to start off in. Word on the street has it that these little chicks are quite un-intelligent (read: dumb) and can easily get lost. So this long beautiful roll of 12 inch high cardboard will serve as mini walls to keep the lil balls of fluff close to the warming brooders.

This farm help was a perfect find!

Enter my sexy farm hand, (who is also a fabulous personal clothing shopper, chef, my fellow Kawasawki rider, and should be John Deere's next poster boy) my hubby Cam. Together we run a mixture of peroxide and water through the water lines. This required a lot of tedious siphoning and some agitation (we got Ziggity with it - full pun intended), and then repeatedly depressing all the little nipples to make sure the solution ran through the entire system.

We turned the brooders on to make sure that we could get them to 95degrees and we closed the barn up for the day.

Phewf! This farming gig is hard work and time consuming....

Who knew Valpolicella would be so helpful?

So today's progress was to be in the watering system arena..... a Ziggity poultry watering system ~ www.ziggity.com ~ is installed in my barn already. I need to clean and sterilize it (and figure out how it works - but that's total sidebar, eh?)

I know there is a bit of maintenance needed because some of the spiggits are dripping water. If the watering system leaks it can make the bedding wet. Wet bedding can lead to coccidiosis. This disease would wipe out my flock.

Leaky spiggit

So my plan was to run bleach water through the system in addition to wiping down the exterior with bleach. So I searched the main barn for reservoirs to start the bleach solution in and to expel the solution in to at the end of the line. My hubby is a home brewer of excellent wine and his primary fermenters are the perfect size! Problem solved.

Today's helpful gadgets - hand tools, bleach, and wine making primary fermenters

 I twisted, I turned, I tested... but for the life of me I could not figure out how to get the bleach flowing through the lines. I know its possible because some farmers supplement the water with nutrients or medication - but I couldn't figure it out. I was close to sucking on one end of the hose to get the bleach water flowing through - but I was not excited about sterilizing the inside of my own mouth.

So, I tidy up, stroll inside, pour myself of glass of red wine (Valpolicella this evening), and plop down on the couch with the laptop and begin to let google solve my problems. Again, wine has proved to be useful.

Where to get a chick (or 100) in this town.....

Where to get the chicks.....

The broiler side of our chicken barn is 386 square feet. A full size chicken needs approximately 2 sq ft so we could have up to 200 birds. I think am going to start with 100. For some reason that seems more manageable for a first attempt. A friend from Vancouver Island suggested I try Rochester Hatchery. She had used them in the past and were very happy with them. Their website has a load of information that I found very helpful, but I have opted for a local hatchery in Abbotsford. ~ Western Hatchery for the simple fact they are local. They have provided a lot of support over the phone so far and I look forward to meeting them when I go pick up my chicks on hatching day.

Prep for the chicks....

Interior of the barn; before cleaning and prepping

To increase my chances of not killing all 100 of these lil fluff balls I need to make sure the barn has been sterilized and all the equipment is ready to go. So I turned to google. Use bleach. Don't use bleach. Use vinegar. Use lime. Spend hours doing this. Don't worry about it. Man the internet is a double edged sword. Since the barn has not been used for several years, I am starting from a good point. If I had recently used it for raising a flock, or had a flock with disease then more efforts would have to be undertaken. I have opted for the lime method for the floors and walls and a diluted bleach for cleaning the water system. Lime because the barn will not need to dry out after and it seems easier and less fuss than the liquid based alternatives and bleach because I thought that it will kill any bacteria that has built in the lines.

What to feed them..... 

I would like this poultry to be medication free  ~ as wholesome as possible. I am opting for the non-medicated chicken feed made by Pro Form feeds. In this neck of the woods there are several places to get supplies. I like Dare's Country Feeds. I picked up the started feed today. $15.99 / 20kg. Each chick gets 50 grams / day and they eat it for 21 days. Quick math - because I am accountant by profession - (and really because I have a calculator on my iPhone) I bought 5 bags of the starter feed.

Here goes nothing.....

I am about to cross off another item from my bucket list......

Karen helped me cross off "get a friend's car unstuck from the snow"


Cam has helped me cross off several:

Stay at the Plaza

Kiss on the Eiffel Tower

Hold my child for the first time

Learn to ride a motorbike

 
Jodi and Tairalyn helped me with:

Be a bride's maid

and there was the one and with my mom that was magical: "went wedding dress shopping".

So what is the the latest one? (the one that inspired me to try blogging....) is....

 "to farm"

Yes, this city slicker accountant is going to attempt to raise chicks. Amazing, but true!

These chickens will be fryers. Meaning, they are being raised to eat. As much as keeping chickens for eggs is much cozier and has a romance side to it.... it means that we are truly "tied" to this land and this hobby. We like to travel and do spontaneous day trips too much to have such an intense commitment. So for now, its fryers or broilers - approximately a seven week cycle.

A tad of background - we moved to South Langley a year and half ago and bought a property with an older farmhouse, a big barn, and a well equipped chicken barn. We embarked on massive renovations to the home and land and feel like we have a handle on those now.

Our renovated home

So we are now working on the barns. We are under going barn painting this summer. Massive undertaking, but barns are meant to be "barn red" in my books.

The chicken barn is well equipped. In theory I have all the hardware to successfully raise chickens; gas brooders, a beautiful watering system, feeders, and a load of rain barrels (these will be explained later as their function is not pretty). The former owners raised chickens and were kind enough to leave us all the supplies. However, I am greatly lacking in the knowledge side of things and the understanding side of things. However, with a bag of courage and determination I am giving it a whirl. (Hey its kinda in my blood, eh aunt Karen, I can't fail too terribly).

Check back to keep up with my daily progress.....