chicken

We are thrilled to say that our chickens are have been very well received again this year, and the preorders for the August chickens ( and a neighborhood fox) have pretty much taken care of all the chickens. We had hoped to have a few extra to bring to the Farmer's Markets and sell off the farm, but I don't think we will .

I placed the order for our next batch of chicks last week, and they are due to arrive here on August 5th. Since it take 9 or 10 weeks for them to grow, and then we need to allow time for them to be processed I think we are looking at them being ready for pickup October 9 or October 16. We already have folks getting on the list, and we really don't want to run out. Well, I guess we do want to run out....we sure don't want to have too many. But we don't want too few. See our predicament? We're a pretty small potatoes operation. Chickens take up a lot of freezer space , and the last thing we want is to have 150 too many birds. So we try to really pace our production to what we are pretty darn sure we can sell in a reasonable period of time.

Anyway, I guess if we were to get a zillion preorders in the next couple weeks, we'd still have time to get another batch of chicks started. The weather window for pasture chicken raising in Embarrass, MN is pretty short. You may have heard how cold we get around here. Last year,we brought our last batch to the butcher November 2nd, and we are hoping to finish up chickens a little earlier this year.

I guess what I am trying to say is ....we welcome you to pre-order some chickens. After these fall birds go...there are no more until June/July of 2010. Wow....that just blows me away. It sounds soooo far away. That's the cool part of farming, though.  There is always more to learn and ways to improve.

And there's always next year to try again.

Next summer we'll have to raise more.

It's that time of  year. Time to get on the chicken list! We have already pretty much sold our first 150 birds. Right now we are raising a double batch that will be ready around the first week in August.  About 1/2 of them are spoken for. No order is too big or too small. If you are interested in ordering chicken, please call the farm 218-984-3235 and ask your questions. I have included some information here on the website as well.

By ordering in advance you are doing us a huge favor. When we start a batch of chickens we have to order our day old chicks about 2 weeks in advance, then feed them for 9 weeks or so, bring them to be processed and pick them up a few days later. Once we bring them home we have to have enough freezer space to hold them until customers can get them. With this long lead time we are hesitant to start a new batch until we're pretty sure the batch before them is sold. Last year we underestimated demand and ran out of chickens way too early.

As always our chickens are raised on pasture in chicken tractors. They eat a nice clean feed that contains no hormones, no antibiotics and no animal by products. They are processed under inspection at Nelson-Shine Produce in Brainerd. The Nelson family has been wonderful to work with and has never let us down. The birds are so cleanly processed and well packaged!

The average chicken is 5 pounds, and the off the farm price is $2.50 a pound for whole chickens.

Do you hear what I hear?

Sshh......It's coming from around side of the barn....

Maisie knows what it is!

It's the sound of spring!

Today we are celebrating the arrival of the first chicks for 2009!