Author: Anna & Mark

Twenty broilers raised
on deep
bedding = fertility
for 15 blueberry and gooseberry bushes.  Don’t you love farm math?



I
haven’t cleaned out the other chicken coop yet, but I’m hopeful that
it’ll have at least twice as much bedding.  We raised nearly as
many broilers down there last summer, and it also housed four hens
until fall, and now is home to eleven chickens. 



Even that much deep
bedding won’t be enough to fertilize
the rest of my perennials, though, since I have four long rows of
brambles, one of hardy kiwis, and one of grapes, plus two pears, four
peaches, four apples, and one plum.  Maybe I’ll be able to scrape
up enough bedding to topdress the trees, which are likely to wake up
before our driveway dries up enough to
bring in off-farm fertility.



As I plan 2012’s
broilers, I can’t help wondering which is more important — the
delicious meat or the high quality, on farm compost.  No wonder my
goals this year are simple — to raise as many chickens as our
pastures will bear.

It’s tricky to decide
when to start incubating
eggs for spring
chickens.  Last year, we waited and waited, hoping our broody hen
would get with the picture, which meant we missed some of the lushest
spring growth and our new pullets were barely old enough to start
laying before the days got short.



On the other hand, you don’t
want to start your chicks too early.  They’re very sensitive to
temperature extremes for their first month of life, and you want them
to be able to go out on pasture as soon as possible.  In addition,
you’ll get a much better hatch rate if the parent birds are in peak
health, and no chicken will be laying great eggs on storebought feed
alone without some fresh greenery and bugs.



I may be jumping the
gun, but I decided to start saving eggs last weekend for an early March
hatch.  A week or so ago, I turned the parent flock into a pasture
that had been closed off all winter, and they’ve been gorging on
chickweed and tender young rye plants ever since.



We’ll be raising at
least two sets of meat birds this year, so it won’t be the end of the
world if this hatch isn’t perfect.  Maybe by the time I’m ready to
hatch the second set, one of our hens will have decided to go broody
and do my work for me.  Meanwhile, my biggest concern is how we’ll
live without those delicious eggs on our plates as I save them for the
incubator.