Spring 2021 Chicks are Here
posted on
April 9, 2021
Chicks are here! Our first batch of 2021 is here. They have finished three weeks in the brooder and have transitioned to the pasture. They are moving daily to fresh grass. They are growing rapidly and doing well. These daily moves really show the difference between conventional chicken production and our pastured model.
When the chicks are first moved to fresh grass they instantly start catching bugs. This morning I saw a chick catch a cricket and another catch an earthworm. Once any chicken catches something, the others immediately get involved and they run around trying to steal it from each other. This exercise and ability to act on their natural characteristics is fun to watch and illustrates one of our primary reasons to farm this way.
Spring is an exciting time on the farm. The grass is growing and the landscape is turning green. This batch of chickens will be processed in late May which will restock our inventory.
Our farm is focused on transparency. We cannot have transparency if we only tell the fun, beautiful, successful aspects of farming. This batch got off to a rough start. The post office was behind and struggling when these chicks hatched. We had many issues with the USPS (not our local office - they were fantastic). Our order of chicks was not tracked by the USPS. They did not scan the order so it was impossible to track. Half of the chicks did not arrive when the others did. The first half that arrived had very high losses. The excitement for the first batch of Spring quickly went away. The other half of the batch arrived the next day (too late for high survivability). The losses were catastrophic and depressing. The hatchery was fantastic to work with and sent some replacements the next week. This really was going above and beyond because the fault was entirely with the USPS. Thanks to the professionalism and good customer service, our customers will have chicken available in late May.
Thankfully after a sad start, we are going strong. Chickens are healthy, the grass is growing, the weather is beautiful and God is good!
-Lyle
