I just finished placing all of our chicken, duck, turkey, feed, and related supplies orders. I am not going to tell you how much money we just spent. It might scare you. I’m a little scared. Please keep that in mind when considering the price we have chosen to charge for the meat at the end of this project. Last year we ordered a few chicks and some feed and built pens and sold chickens and came out ahead on the whole thing. This year we are just doing a little more of the same, plus a few ducks, plus a laying flock. Martin and Colin teamed up to build the world’s cutest little chicken palace for the laying flock, complete with a red painted door to keep out the evil spirits. I know for a fact that evil spirits take the form of raccoons where we live in Tumwater, so we also are ordering up some electric poultry net fencing to keep them far away from the red door of our coop.

Speaking of raccoons, I am pleasantly surprised that none of our cats have had brawls with the raccoons. We have one beloved pet cat who comes in and out of the house, and four “barn cats” who stay outside all the time. I keep the barn cats’ food in a plastic bucket with a tight fitting lid in the barn, and some mornings I find it out in the middle of the yard. Yesterday, I found it tipped over in the barn with the lid off and bits of chewed off plastic mixed among the spilled kibble. I think that the raccoon chewed off a piece of the lid to get it open. Now, I don’t want to feed the raccoon, and I sort of hate the raccoon for eating 20 of my chicks last year, but I can’t help feeling a little proud of it for getting the bucket open after so much persistent effort. Success!! So it is with that mixed feeling of amazement at the dedication and intelligence of the creature and the growing knowledge of the magnitude of my chicken farming nemesis that I order electric fencing and consider posting a night guard over my flock.

When Martin wasn’t busy helping Colin build the coop, he was busy helping me design the brochure describing how we raise the chickens and how you can arrange to buy them. You can call the farm to ask me to mail you one if you are interested. I’ll be trying to get it posted to the website soon also. These computer things take me a little more time than other tasks.
Mostly, I’d like to thank everyone for supporting our farm’s efforts to diversify, and especially I’d like to thank our dear friend Martin Lee for helping us with everything, all the time.