On the Farm

There are so many stories to tell this week, I'll have to play catchup over the next few weeks, we've had new faces arrive on the farm, big excavators and bull dozers arrived to start a project and cows are grazing. This week I thought I would share the story of how chicks get to our farm and how sometimes things do not go as planned.

Most small farms and homesteads get their chicks from a hatchery in the mail. Crazy! The chicks travel in special boxes through our postal system and arrive safely, most of the time, to our local post office. They are able to make this incredible journey over the course of two days, without food and water. They are able to survive on the remaining nutrients in the yolk from the egg they hatched from.

On our farm we receive chicks every week to keep our production and processing schedule on track, and to make sure we have enough in the freezer in the fall to last all winter. This year we are getting 450 chicks every week. However over the last 3 weeks we have had two batches arrive with significant death loss. Oof.

After consulting with our hatchery and trying to play detective with the postal service we've learned that many hatcheries and farms have been affected. (see this article, or this one.) To the credit of our hatchery, Freedom Ranger Hatchery whom we've worked with for over 15 years now, they have refunded us for the losses and they bear the weight of this cost.

The implications for our farm are serious. We only raise our chickens on pasture, when the grass is green and that time is precious and short. When we loose a batch of chicks, we cannot fill that gap in the schedule all we can do is add onto the end of the season. For us the end of the season is already full.

Racey and I have been brainstorming how to approach the problem and we have decided to drive to PA to pickup the chicks each week! Thank you to our friend Ben who is taking on the job. The chicks will leave the hatchery on Monday morning after hatching and arrive on our farm later that day. Sounds like a much nicer trip to me!

Phew it took us a while to arrive at the plan but we are grateful to have found a solution.

-Nathan