Our Eggs Were Featured in the Buy Local Breakfast

Today is the first Buy Local Breakfast of the season. These happen every year in Corvallis and highlight local farmers. We always donate the eggs. It’s probably too late for you to rush out and scarf down some yummy local food, but it’ll come round again on June 6 and July 4.

The forecast is for rain at the farmers’ market, but I’ll be there, and so should you! Today’s special is two dozen Extra Large eggs for $8.50.

Don’t forget to print out a copy of the Norton Creek Farm Web page, since it doubles as a dollar-off coupon.

Rule of Thumb for Brooding Day-Old Chicks

Here’s another good old-time rule that most people have forgotten:

“The floor of the brooder must be warm and dry to the touch before you add chicks.”

If the baby chicks get chilled as soon as you take them out of the shipping box, bad things happen. They lose the desire to eat and drink, and sometimes the ability to move, if they’re chilled. Cold or damp litter is enough to chill them.

Usually you should turn on the brooder the day before the chicks arrive. This is no time to try to reduce energy consumption.

The First Rule of Chicken Coop Design

I read this rule in old poultry books but have never seen it in newer ones:

“A chicken chicken coop needs to be big enough to walk around in, or small enough that you can reach into any part of it from outside.”

Coops that are somewhere in the middle — too small to walk in, too big to reach across — are nothing but trouble. Chickens need good care, and (let’s face it) we give better care when it’s convenient to do so.

In addition, coops that are hard to service usually provide limited visibility. Is that waterer in the back really working? Hard to tell. Is that an egg in the shadows? Everything works better if you can get up close and personal.

Predators and Daily-Move Pens

Keeping predators out of daily-move pasture pens can be difficult, since predators are motivated and can dig their way into the pen. Some things that help:

  • Having a dog close to the pens. I’m told this always works. We haven’t tried it.
  • Electric fence surrounding the area with the chickens. This mostly works. See my Electric Fencing FAQ. Most people think that electric fencing has to be way more elaborate that is really the case.
  • Electric fence wire on the pen itself. Does anyone do this but me? Hammer in a few nail-on fence insulators around the perimeter of the chicken pen, about four inches off the ground, add wire, and attach to the fence charger of your choice — possibly a battery-powered one attached to the pen itself.

These precautions are fairly effective, but sometimes you get a predator who isn’t afraid of an electric fence and wreaks havoc in spite of it. I’ll talk about that in another post.

New, Improved Norton Creek Farm Page

I’ve been shamefully neglecting my Norton Creek Farm Web page. This is the Web page aimed at folks who are interested in buying our farm products, as opposed to raising their own.

So it’s actually up to date for once, and has some good info on it, including where to buy our free-range eggs and pastured broilers. (Hint: The Corvallis Wednesday Farmers’ Market has moved.)

And the page doubles as a dollar-off coupon if you print it out and bring it to the Farmers’ Market.

In other news, Corvallis has rung down the curtain on its free downtown Wi-Fi network, much to my disgust. How am I supposed to keep the kids from each other’s throats without Wi-Fi? I bought all those laptops for a reason! I am looking into alternatives…