How 30 chickens turned into 350!
Chicken, chicken, chicken.. we are deep in chicken preparation and have chicken on the brain right now. It’s funny to think of where we started and how far we have come on our chicken journey. It all started with 30 birds… and here we are now, waiting on our 350 to arrive in a couple days..
I’ll never forget when Jeremy bit the bullet and ordered birds. I think I was in denial about it up until we got the birds in the mail. For weeks he built a little brooder house (chick house to keep them extra warm the first few weeks), researched and bought feed, got feeders and waterers… but I just never thought we would actually buy birds… to eat. Then one day he called me while he was at work and said he ordered chickens. WhaT?!?!
Thinking back on those first birds, we were so “green”. Jeremy had done a ton of research and felt pretty confident he knew what to do. But me? That was a different story, I didn’t know a thing about chickens, but I had to figure it out very quick. We had the little chick brooder jeremy built in our courtyard and he also built a mobile chicken coop (we still use it by the way, we call it the “mother ship”, its where all of our egg layers sleep) that we would eventually move them into. It was April when they arrived and it happened to be a REALLY WET April that year, so we had to put an easy-up canopy over the little brooder. It was such a funny set up. For a long time we were a little nervous about putting them all the way out back where our pasture is.. so we actually left the coop in the front yard, the chickens would hang out in our front grass. It being so new to us we actually spent A LOT of time with those birds, they would follow Jeremy around the orchard, it was pretty fun.
And then they finally got big enough, it was time to process. This was our first experience, so as excited as we were to finally eat the meat, we had no clue what we were in for. Starting with THE NIGHT BEFORE we had to make a rapid trip into town to buy a freezer, it was a last minute “OMG WHERE ARE WE GOING TO PUT THESE CHICKENS?”
Back then we didn’t have a plan to sell chickens, we knew these were all for ourselves or our family and friends. We took them to a private processing facility and then brought them home to package and freeze. What a sight that was.. we carried in huge ice chests full of ice and whole chicken. My kitchen was covered in plastic, we had aprons and gloves and got shrink wrap bags. We would take the whole chicken, put it in the bag and drop it in boiling hot water for a few seconds, the bag would shrink up around the bird and we would put it in the freezer. It took us HOURS with those first 30 birds. The meat was SO good! We were hooked.
Flash forward a year, we did another run just like the first, but jeremy decided we needed to change our process a bit (and he wanted more birds). So, be built a bigger brooder and ordered twice as many chicks, I think it was about 80 at that time. This was an interesting run because, we had more chicks than we ever had AND we needed more chicken coops. *Side note-we keep all of our birds in mobile chicken coops on pasture, about 30 birds per coup, they are all on wheels and don’t have a floor so everyday we can move them to fresh, clean grass*. Anyway, we had about 4 weeks to build 4 more chicken coops. To be honest, that was a hectic time. Jeremy worked full time back then so he would work on the coops during weekends and after work. We got them done but whew it was stressful with the time crunch.
After that run of birds, since we had ALL the space now, Jeremy decided to order 100 birds (I think 125 to be exact). It was so time consuming; we didn’t have a water line set up in our pasture back then so we would have to carry 5 gallon jugs of water to fill waterers. We were using fermented feed back then so all of our feed was a wet oatmeal consistency, we would have to ration out feed 2-3 times a day. We used a hot wire for protection around the birds so it had to be rolled up everytime we moved them. Our processing switched at that time too, we wanted to be able to sell birds so we had to get them processed at a USDA facility but we could still package at home. I could only handle doing 30-40 birds at a time so we would spend a few days trying to get through all 100 chickens. It was about this time we started doing farmers markets, WHICH WE LOVED! So we knew we would once again have to expand to keep up with the demand.
A few things got a little easier around this time, we switched to a dry feed that allowed us to free feed which was amazing, we got a water line set up so we didn’t have to carry around huge jugs of water anymore, we got some more freezers and were selling out at farmers market. We got awesome electic netting so our birds were safe and thriving on pasture. We were feeling pretty good. THEN, we had our first big chicken issue, not saying everything was smooth sailing before this, we had dealt with many different hurdles and experiences but we had yet to have a big loss.
We had about 150-175 birds at this point (it is hard to remember exact numbers). It was end of Summer and we decided it was warm enough that we could put chicks directly on pasture after about a week. Not the usual brooder for a few weeks and then move to the mobile coops. Well, this was our first mistake. Lesson-chicks NEED a brooder for at least 3 weeks, their little bodies cant grow fast enough when they are working that hard to stay warm. They need to be at 90+ degrees their first few days and gradually adjusted as their feathers come in. So our chicks weren’t growing as quickly as we needed them to. We also noticed that many of them were significantly smaller then others. They almost looked like we had gotten 2 batches of chicks at 2 different times. It was the first time this had ever happened, even their feathers were coming it at all different stages. At first, we chalked it up to moving them to pasture to soon, but after a few weeks we had some birds that looked on time and many that looked…awful.
Sadly, after alot of research and chatting with the hatchery we discovered that we likely got a big batch of RUNTS! Yes, chickens have runts too.. we had a bunch of birds, that were never going to be the size we needed then for our business. This was the last run of the year so we had to call it and unfortunately this is the first BIG chicken loss we ever had. We were able to make a little profit off of some of the birds that did grow out to size but it was a big hit to our moral.
But… you gotta take the bad with the good, we had been fairly lucky with a chickens at this point and one loss wasn’t going to change our mind about it. WE learned a lesson and try often to LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES! We just prayed that the next run would be better.. We don’t have chickens during the harsh winter months (harsh for us just means wet, cold, soggy ground) birds and moisture aren’t a good combo, so we like to wait until the air is drier before we get birds.. typically late february, early march.. Well after that horrible batch of birds, we waited our few wet months and then… COVID HAPPENED. Now the last thing I am going to do is get into covid debate, but one thing is absolutely for sure… IT CHANGED A LOT. And one thing it changed that really caused an issue for us was PROCESSING.
This brings us to NOW. Because our old processing facility got shut down, not enough staff, and our location we have decided to start processing our birds at a location in Modesto, Ca. This location… HAS A 300 BIRD MINIMUM. So, here we are.. waiting on our 350 chickens to arrive. We built a bigger brooder, we ordered 2 tons of feed, we are building MORE mobile chicken coops, we had to get a special water system, special feeders. We are utilizing new pasture this year for the first time.. we have prepped the best we know how for 300 chickens. And by prepped, I mean we have prepared everything we CAN control in hopes we are ready for the things we CANNOT control. We never really know what is in store..
I am sure there are SOO many little hiccups and stories I could say in the mix of all this, its been 5 years of learning, growing, adapting.. chickens are a funny thing; you just never know. But hopefully this is a good cliff notes version of our experience as new chicken farmers. As predictable as they are, they are equally perplexing. WE have grown, our confidence allows us to handle more situations with grace and understanding. Looking back now I laugh, but living it was more sweat and tears then laughter. Now it is almost second nature; we have raised SOO many broiler (for eating) chickens. Now we have a flock of egg laying chickens, random chickens that roam the farm, even now some turkeys & a duck! We never knew our 30 chickens would turn into a full-blown chicken program. And we are about to embark on our biggest journey ever.. with hopeful hearts that we are prepared and all of the chicken excitement from customers has us buzzing with enthusiasm! We will see what happens..
Until next time,
-Elizabeth