The First Eggs

We were so excited to find three eggs this weekend! We were about to give the house the old heave ho when we spotted one. It was laying right on the ground in a little hole the hens had dug! Next thing we knew we had found two more!! We were relieved to have spotted them before moving the house, our first eggs could have been scrambled!

Thanks girls! No egg boxes or anything!! Now to get those boxes done and attached to the back.

Jackson Farmers Market Photo's

 This was our second week at the Jackson Farmers Market. We were blessed with a beautiful day! Great for taking pictures too! Here are a few of our set up.

Our sign. Small but to the point.

Besides the veggies, honey and maple syrup, we also have bags made by Liz and muffins made by Sarah! Yum!!

Some of our yummy veggies.

A close-up of Lizzie-Tish Designs Bags.

Lot's of HUGE zucchini this week!

Thanks to Pat for fixing our shelf so that we had a nice display for our honey and maple syrup! 

 Please come and visit us on Saturdays from 9 to 1 at the Jackson Farmers Market! It is located next to the Snowflake Inn. We are also planning on trying out the new Ctr. Conway Farmers Market on Fridays from 12 to 5pm at the Country Hearth and Home Store located between the Post Office and the Rec.Center. 

Our stand is also open each day on Tasker Hill if you miss us at the Markets. 

Moving the Milk House

Earlier this spring we moved the "Milk House" from the farmhouse side of the road to the greenhouse side. We plan on using it for an addition to our farm stand for a while until a larger more permanent stand can be built. 

"What is a milk house?" you ask, our family used this little shed to store the milk and milking equipment. There was a large cooler set up inside where the milk cans would be stored until delivery. These were very heavy milk cans that had to be hoisted into the cooler via a pulley system inside the little house. The electric pump milking system and the cream separator was also housed here. There are still special stainless racks on the walls inside where each piece was placed for safe storage. 

A friend with a forklift came early on a Saturday morning to help us with the move. Here we are below slowly lowering the house into place.

In serious need of a scrub down and new paint but in it's new resting place for now.

Fast forward several months and we are ready once again to move the milk house. This time across the driveway to a platform we will use as a floor for now. Originally a concrete slab served as the floor.

No forklift necessary this time! We use the tractor and some old fashion know how!

Our little farm stand awaits! Now to finish the paint and we are ready to move in!

A Chicken Tractor for Pastured Egg Layers

Our next construction project after the duck house was a movable chicken coop (also known as a chicken tractor) for our Rhode Island Red pullets (young hens). We decided on a light weight A-frame style with some metal roofing to keep out the rain and provide protection from the sun. 

Here's Patrick our "construction manager" adding chicken wire to the ends. This end will hold the egg boxes later in the year but for now it will just be chicken wire.

We also added two clear plastic panels to each side to allow light into the roosting area.

From this view you can see the end with the door and the roosting area inside. The roosts were just 1" poles we cut from the woods and crisscrossed inside the tractor. Just inside the door we allowed for enough room to hang their feed and water. We also used electric wire netting since it is easy to move! 

This is moving day! The kids are excited to let the pullets into their new home.

Here are the girls (and a few boys!) enjoying the fresh grass in their new home! It took them a few days to find the roosts but they easily adapted to the new area. Eggs coming soon...

Just a few bits of info if anyone is interested...
 We could not find any info on chicken tractor designs for pastured egg layers online when we started this project. Hope this may be helpful to someone else.

This coop was built for 50 hens but could hold up to 70-75. 

It is 16' long and 12' wide.

The total cost of materials was around $1000.

The electric netting was purchased at Premier we have184 feet in two sections.

We use a hanging metal feeder that we bought at Tractor Supply.

We use this style dispenser for water that we also bought online.

We have found that the tractor needs to be moved twice a week, once within the fencing and another when we move the entire fencing system. We will update this with the egg boxes when we get them on.


UPDATE: Check out this post to see how we added the egg boxes on to the back.

UPDATE 2013: This year we needed to add 100 new laying hens to our flock to keep up with the demand for our pastured eggs. We are trying out a new tractor/coop in order to house them all. We were also wanting more space for egg boxes since we have had some issues with broken eggs and eggs being eaten by the hens. Below is a link to the post with a few photo's of our new set up. We also added double the amount of electric netting as we had last year. The new  house is quite hard to move right now since we have not added the wheels. We are moving it by slowly dragging it along with the farm tractor. We would love to elevate the whole thing on some kind of steel frame with wheels and then be able to hook on to the frame when moving.
Post 1 with construction photo's inside and out.
Post 2 with photo's in the field.

The Duck House

Our Cayuga ducks have outgrown their small corner of the seedling house where they have been living. Our family friend and now the ducks "benefactor" was so generous to supply the money to build them a new home! The duck house aka "Lee's Duck Chalet" was fashioned in the Victorian gingerbread style! Here it is almost ready for paint. 

 Next comes the paint and finishing touches! 

 On to the tractor for the move to "Duck Land".

A short video tour of the duck house. Check it out:

Just in case we forget!

The Cayugas are looking pretty happy about their new house! 

It took us a while to get them used to it but they finally got it! They now go in at night by themselves and are safe and cozy! Thanks to everyone who helped with this project! We will be enjoying duck eggs some time this fall and will hopefully have enough to sell!