We made our regular Friday drop off and pick up today. It feels good to call it "regular". I feel like we're still building things out and very clearly still in year zero, but starting to get in a groove.
With the current pandemic meaning a lot of folks are out of work, food banks and pantries are stressed more than ever. It really makes me wish we had more laying hens NOW. The leghorns should start laying in late June or early July, which should give our production a boost.
We were able to drop off 4 1/2 dozen eggs today, giving us 22 dozen donated so far this year. That's not a lot, but considering we're still getting things set up, I'm happy we're able to start making a small impact sooner than later.
We also picked up some overripe produce, expired milk, and a few other odds and ends. This was a nice mix to get this week, as last week's massive haul was mostly pasta and grains. I still have some of that left, which will mix nicely with the milk.
The chickens will really enjoy the bananas and cauliflower in this mix. Some of the pasta and crackers the flock don't love, and things like onions they tend to not eat either. That's OK, though, because whatever food waste the chickens don't eat gets composted and feeds the worms and biota in the compost, which in turn feed the chickens, so it's really a very cool cycle...feed chickens, soil, and people.
Last weekend I helped a neighbor move some sheds/chickens coops. They had a tractor, so came over and helped us straight out our big wheeled coop. This got the big coop in a better spot to get fenced in and give us more room to work and the future flock more space.
Looking ahead to this weekend, I think we're going to set up some temporary fencing and get the leghorns outside and scratching around. With any luck we'll also be planting the grass where I moved all the dirt pile dirt.
We also have a property survey in flight, and some border fencing installation lined up to follow. Once these two projects get completed, I'll be starting to build out runs and paddocks. I see a lot of fence post driving and fence post digging in the not too distant future (my arms hurt already).
Comments