New Broiler Chicks

Sometimes I wonder whether we are technically a farm or a ranch.  I guess it would seem to me to be more of a ranch than a farm, as all of the productivity of the farm goes into raising animals.  One of these animals is the broiler - a chicken raised for its meat rather than for its eggs.  Sosoni Farm raises pastured poultry (non-GMO) similar to Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm.  If you don't know who Joel Salatin is, I won't spoil the surprise for you - Google him!

Jones clearing out the stall for the new chicks

One of the differences between Sosoni and Polyface is the breed of chicken used for broilers.  While Joel Salatin raises the typical Cornish Cross, known for their ability to grow quickly and produce copious amounts of white meat, Sosoni Farm uses a Freedom Ranger-Black Cornish cross breed.  They take about twelve weeks to be ready for butchering, while the Cornish Cross takes only about 8 weeks.  The benefit comes in the handling and raising.  Cornish Cross are rather mean birds that not only peck the hand that feeds them, but they quickly turn on each other and will kill and eat each other if the handler is slow in feeding them or sleeps in one morning (not that we farmers ever sleep in)!  The Freedom Ranger-Black Cornish is a bird that allows a bit more leeway in feeding, and is also a pleasant bird to be around, if you like being around chickens.  Our children love to be around chickens, and can pick their favorites out of 200 birds in five seconds.  They will often be seen carrying a Freedom Ranger-Black Cornish chicken around with them as they are tending to the other birds.

Now let me just say that only have first-hand experience with the Freedom Ranger-Black Cornish, but all of our information about the Cornish Cross is from books and things we have been told by other chickeneers.  Maybe when we have our own operation, we'll gain some first-hand experience with the Cornish Cross!

From left to right, Jones, Jax and Beaux checking out the new chicks, fresh from the post office!

The first thing we had to do was to get a barn stall ready for the 200 new chicks arriving by mail.  We cleaned out the remnants of last years' animals and then laid down a new 3"-4" layer of pine shavings, which not only helps with keeping the chicks clean and dry, but also helps to keep them insulated from the cold concrete floor.  We had three large heat lamps to keep the little guys warm, as these spring nights can get a little drafty.  On cold nights, not only do you need to worry about the cold killing chicks, but you also worry about them smothering each other as they bunch up to get warm.  If a little chick somehow ends up under the mass of chicks trying to cuddle for warmth, it may not be strong enough to get several chicks off its back, and will eventually smother.  It is most important to give the chick water when it first arrives, and after it get some drinks of water, starter feed can be introduced.

Starter feed is milled smaller (sometimes comes in pellet form) and contains a higher protein percentage, around 20-25% from what I have seen, as compared to the grower/finisher feed, which is typically around 18% protein. The feed we use is 50% barley, 30% wheat, 15% peas and 5% camelina.

Unloading the first box of chicks

Usually when the chicks arrive from the post office, there are a couple of dead ones, so the hatchery includes several extra.  We were happy to find none dead when we opened the box!  Sosoni prefers to raise roosters for their ability to put on weight more quickly than hens, so all of the new chicks were roosters.  They are harvested before fighting becomes a problem.  In four weeks, these little guys will be ready to move to pasture!

The kids loved the cute little chicks and their little chirps.  Jones loves to talk to the chicks.  Beaux and Jax also loved their chirps, but couldn't believe how much their feathers feel like fur when they are young.  It was fun to watch the kids around chicks for the first time, and their love of the little guys made their new chore of feeding and watering exceptionally enjoyable!

Jones holding his favorite

It's Haying Season

Haying season came a little bit earlier this year than it did last year.  In this region of Idaho, everything is dry land farming (no irrigation), and we have had a pretty wet year so far.  This means more grass sooner than normal.  Cutting the grass hay also shocks the plant pretty heavily, since a large portion of the plant is cut to make the bales.  This causes the grass to turn brown almost immediately after cutting and prevents most hayers in the region from getting more than one cutting per season.  While farms in the Treasure Valley are enjoying 3-4 cuttings of hay a year, we only get one on the Palouse!

Organic hay at Sosoni Farm, Deary Idaho.  Notice the brown grass after cutting.

 Glenn estimated at one point that we hayed about 250 acres or more, and we ended up with a little over 250 round bales.  The round bales are supposed to weigh in at about 800 pounds each, so that is a lot of hay!  Doing round bales requires that you have some heavy equipment, but it also means you can do everything yourself.  Glenn used to do small square bales, but he always had to find local youth to help buck hay and get it stacked in the barn.  We have heard numerous stories from local farmers about how hard it is to find kids willing and able to buck hay for pay.  It is getting to the point where most kids stay indoors and aren't interested in making money or even spending time outside.  How sad!  We are trying to break that mold here with the Rappe family.  Hopefully Jones, Beaux and Jax will be hard working, eager individuals for years to come!

Well formed round bale.  Trent on the baler in the background.

 As the farm increases in fertility, the number of bales per acres will increase.  Glenn is constantly observing his fields to determine the best candidates for spring grazing.  As his ground becomes more productive, he will have more options for rotating his hay ground and allowing his cows to graze the hay ground from the previous year.  Glenn's herd is right around 40 head, and he says he would like it to be closer to 75-100 head to be able to make better headway on increasing fertilization on this 1200 acre farm. One thing that would greatly help some of the starved areas would be to do more intensive grazing, and less managed pasture grazing.  Keeping the animals in a smaller area for shorter durations helps concentrate manure and also helps the breakdown of the cow pies by ensuring that the cattle will trample the manure, spreading it more evenly.

Trent dumping a fresh bale

As the harvesting season progressed, we fell into a system that seemed to work pretty well.  Other than one field at the beginning that Trent helped cut, Glenn did the cutting and then Trent would follow up with the baler.  Glenn got a different baling twine than what he had last year, and there would be a huge tangle at the end of every spool that would take 15 minutes to an hour to fix sometimes, depending on how bad the tangle was, and several hundred feet of twine would be unusable at the end!  Glenn did a fair bit of baling as well when Trent was busy with other things.  Hay season means long hours on the tractor, with a sore back in the evening.  Tractors don't have suspension, and the fields are anything but smooth!  It reminded us how much we are looking forward to doing haying with horses.  Of course haying with horses has its challenges as well!  Glenn has two tractors, and we intended cutting hay with the smaller tractor and baling with the larger one, but unfortunately the smaller tractor couldn't handle the PTO load of the swather, and the baling controls were all installed in the large tractor.  So the larger tractor ended up being used for everything!  So Glenn would usually cut for a few days and then Trent would bale for a couple of days.  There was also some unexpected rain during the harvest too, so we tried not to leave too much unbaled hay on the ground at any given time.  Once the hay is baled, it can handle precipitation a lot better that when it is laying on the ground waiting to be baled, especially round bales, as they tend to shed water better than square bales.

The kids would have liked to ride with Papa when he was driving the tractor, but there wasn't a good place for them to ride inside where they weren't sitting on some controls, and the fields were extremely bumpy, which would land the kids in his lap!  They contented themselves to occasionally heading out to the field on the 4 wheeler and watching the action from the sideline.

From left to right, Beaux, Jones and Jax "watching" Papa bale hay from the comfort of their wet flannels and the shade!

After the hay was cut and baled, it was time to bring it into the barn.  The hay trailer could handle 8 bales per trip, so bringing hay back to the barn seemed painfully slow!.  Most of the hay fit in the barn, but some had to go on a hillside next to the house.  The hay that didn't make it into the barn will be used up before the weather gets too bad and ruins the hay, so all in all not a bad haul!  Last year Glenn started feeding the cows hay in the middle of August.  It was a drought year, so everyone ran out of hay, driving prices sky high.  This year has been much wetter, so we'll see how things go.  So far, the prospect of feed the cattle off of our own hay until the cows go back out onto pasture in the spring, seems good!

Trent on the baler.

From left to right, Jax, Beaux and Jones behind the swather during a break in the action.  (The boys are wearing their Australian hats!)

New Beginnings

We've finally made it to Deary, Idaho to begin our farming apprenticeship with Glenn and Pam Holloway and Sosoni Farm!  After arriving home from Australia, we spent a few weeks catching up with friends and family in Boise and then made the 5 1/2 hour drive up north, where we will be learning all we can for the next year!

Some of our housing arrangements fell through at the last minute (while we were driving up to Deary!), but the Holloways have graciously let us stay in the bunk house on the farm until the house we were supposed to live in gets fixed.  The bunk house is small, but it is a place to stay.  It has a kitchen, bathroom and shower, laundry facilities and a place to sleep... what more do we need?  Everything worked out ok, since our household goods shipment was delayed from Australia due to emergency repairs required for the ship that was to carry our goods from Adelaide to San Diego.

Glenn has been busy with the British Whites (grass-fed heritage breed cattle, pictured in the blog background), and has been waiting for our arrival to get the rest of the farm moving. The kids have started learning about chickens, and collecting and cleaning eggs for sale at the Moscow Co-op.  Eight chicks were born from the laying hens just before our arrival and it has been fun watching them grow and learn how to be chickens!  Our first batch of broilers (meat chickens) will be arriving soon - 200 of them!

The farm is approximately 1,200 acres, and the Holloway's have a lease on the property for the next 20+ years.  They are hoping that this year will be a re-building year after having to work through some trying times over the last couple of seasons.  Hopefully we will be a help and not a hindrance to help bring them into a strong year!  Everything here is raised "beyond organic" (including the hay!), and all of the animals are happy and well cared for!

It has been difficult to get on to blog, as we don't have consistent internet, and we haven't been able to establish a routine yet.  God can use all situations for good, so pray for us that we can trust in him to settle our housing situation and show us the next step of our journey!

A special thanks to all of our friends in Australia!  We were given an amazing send-off and were so blessed to have such great friends and co-workers with us in The Alice!  We hope to see each and every one of you again!

Trent, Hilary and family

Beaux in the field while papa is mowing.

Beaux and Jax at one of the many ponds on the farm.

Beaux and Jax cleaning up the stall getting ready for new chicks!

Papa and Beaux on the three-wheeler with one of the many spectacular views from the farm.

Jones and Jax at the valley gate.

Jones and Jax on the ATVs.