Goodbye chicken tractors.
I may have jinxed myself in that last blog…
Things took a turn for the worse.
What was shaping up to be a great chicken season went sideways real quick during the storm on May 21. After spending the Saturday morning working in the barn and prepping for the second flock, I got the Emergency Storm Alert and headed inside for what I figured would be a quick and much needed rain delay. Sadly, I was wrong and the delay would turn out to be a lot longer than expected.
The coops had been through many storms before and I didn’t think twice about this one. But once I saw a couple strong trees come down on the farm, I realized this was no average storm and my heart sank for the birds. I quickly ran out back to check on them. In minutes, the wind had picked up the coops and threw them 100 feet across our fields. Fortunately though, the birds were okay—a little wet and startled, but okay nonetheless—and we managed to save them.
My parents and I crated up the chickens and brought them back into the barn, just in time for supper. The chickens would spend their last week in the second best option to the pasture, inside the barn with fresh bedding, eating quality non-gmo feed, grass, and vegetable scraps.
Yesterday, the entire flock was processed and our freezers are now full. All orders on this flock will get a 10% discount, call it my Stormy Bird Sale. It just doesn’t seem right to charge full price for pastured chicken that didn’t spend it’s full life on pasture.
Unfortunately, I’ll need to shutdown for a while as I rebuild but I plan to be back up and running this summer. It’s a setback, but with starting over comes the opportunity for change and I’m thinking of switching gears a bit to improve on my chicken tractors. Stay tuned on how it shapes up.
Hope you’re all well and you weathered the storm okay. Thankful to still be able to fulfill your orders and as always grateful for your support!
On the bright side, the farm also got a fancy new art installation. I’m starting bids at $1 million:
