Garden Planted

Our main garden area with the electric fence.

 We've got the garden about 80% planted as of today. So far onions, peas, 3 kinds of lettuce, spinach, carrots, corn and potatoes. All of these, with the exception of the carrots,  should be able to handle a light frost so we were able to get them planted first.

The potatoes popped early and are probably the easiest to grow. We bought seed potatoes at the farm supply and cut them into 1/4's before planting. Last year I collected the potato bugs daily and fed them to the chickens.

Our garden (or gardens) are about 10 times as large as last year. We acquired a tiller to use which cut the work down considerably. We also have a large pile of seasoned cow manure left over from the previous owner that we  will till into the soil in the fall. Our farm was originally a cow farm. Needless to say, the fields are a rich soil and perfect for a vegetable garden.

This picture shows all 3 main gardens. Corn is planted to the left and
potatoes to the far left garden.

 We started our tomato, green peppers, acorn squash and cooking pumkin plants inside in our sunroom back in early April. They should be ready to transplant into the garden in a week or two after the danger of frost has passed. Next year, I will start the tomatoes and green peppers inside in early March.

We installed an electric fence around the cow pasture this spring and I extended it around part of the garden to keep any small animals (and the chickens) out of the garden. So far, it has worked with the chickens who will tear up the ground in no time at all if let be.

If all goes as planned, God willing, we will have plenty of fresh garden produce by mid summer and early fall
to feed our family and can for winter. Any extra may go to the farmers market along with our extra eggs.

Sitting with Rudy enjoying the evening after a hard days work in the garden.

Egg Layers

We started off with 12 egg layers in the summer of 2011 (1 rooster and 11 hens). This year we added 12 more. We should have plenty of eggs by mid summer. We bought our chicks from the local Farm store. They are supposed to be pullets but, just like last year, it looks like there will be a couple roosters that will be going to the butcher.

With the 11 hens, we average about 7 eggs a day. I read that if you keep a light on in the coop in the winter months to extend the daylight hours, they will keep laying all winter. It worked.

We let the chickens run free range during the daylight hours. They work their way back to the coop by night and we lock them up tight. I do believe they put on about 2 miles a day making rounds around the farm, occasionally going back to the coop to eat, lay an egg and water. We also leave water outside the coop for them on hot days.

Turkeys and Meat Chickens

Broiler Chicks

The Broiler Chicks and Turkeys arrived a week ago via US Mail. We ordered them from Townline Poultry in Zeeland, MI and they ship when they are a day old.

We learned our lessons last fall with our first batch of broiler chicks. Make sure to feed them broiler starter and after 10 days, feed them 12 hours on and 12 off. They grow fast, so be prepared to butcher them at 8 weeks. We opt to have another local farm take care of that for us at $3.00 a chicken.

The hatchery sends a few extra chicks with the batch in case any are dead when your shipment arrives. We didn't lose any till about day three, but still have 52 chicks after one week. Do some research on checking for pasty butt. Chances are that one or two will need this taken care of.

The Turkeys started off a little slower than the broiler chicks for the first couple of days. We use a higher protein feed (26%) turkey starter. They also make a medicated starter that is higher protein, but we are going without the medication. We did use chick saver the 1st couple of days for both the broilers and turkeys. Buy it at your local feed store and add it to the water. This helps give them a good start and adds electrolytes. We will add it to the water for all of our chicks, chickens and turkeys on extremely hot days. It's not expensive (about $1.99 for a 3 pack).


We had everything ready before the chicks and turkeys arrived. Then all we had to do was fill the water and put them into the pens. We dunk their beaks into the water as we place each chick into the pen to let them know where the water is.



Dexters

 We purchased our first freezer beef from a local farm that supplies us with hay and feed. We were able to buy two Dexter Steers in the fall of 2011. Both were about four months old and already eating hay and grain.

These pictures were taken in May and I would guess them to be about 400 lbs each.

Starting A Blog

In 2011, we moved to our farm in Northern Michigan  and started a whole new lifestyle of "farming". When researching how to get started on everything from raising egg layers to growing tomatoes, some of the best information we found was from folks who posted their experiences online. I still research every time we start a new project (like last week when we added Turkeys to the farm). So we decided to post our experiences in a blog to help other new farmers minimize making some of the mistakes we made. If nothing else, it will be a humorous account of what a family, with no prior experience in farming, went through when getting started. We certainly will welcome any feedback, suggestions, advice, scolding or questions.