{"id":1209,"date":"2018-04-25T15:52:30","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T19:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/?p=1209"},"modified":"2018-04-25T19:06:26","modified_gmt":"2018-04-25T23:06:26","slug":"chicks-mark-start-spring-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/2018\/04\/25\/chicks-mark-start-spring-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicks Mark Start of Spring Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/IxSpKE3oORE?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The first broiler chicks have arrived to mark the official start of the 2018 season!<\/p>\n<p>We always get excited to hear those first chicks arrive. They get shipped to us from the hatchery and we pick them up at the post office. (Chicks can do this because the egg yolk provides them enough food to sustain them for 2 days after birth.) We bring them home and put them in a brooder that we start at 98.5 degrees to keep the chicks warm.<\/p>\n<p>Of course it\u2019s not long before their cold tolerance goes up and they\u2019re ready to go out on the grass. We move them out into their portable outdoor shelter when they\u2019re 2-3 weeks old.<\/p>\n<p>This open-bottomed shelter lies on top of the pasture allowing the birds to eat a fresh smorgasbord of greens each day. The shelter affords protection from predators and harsh weather while providing plenty of sunshine, fresh air and that oh-so-important grass.\u00a0 We move the shelter to a fresh patch of pasture every day and feed and water the chickens twice daily.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1221\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ethan_shelter.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1221\" class=\"wp-image-1221 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ethan_shelter-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ethan_shelter-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ethan_shelter.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1221\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ethan fashions the frame of a new portable chicken shelter. The design is open-bottomed, and lightweight so we can move it daily.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The broilers eat an estimated 20% of their diet in fresh greens.\u00a0 The remainder of their diet is a balanced energy\/protein ration that includes cracked non-GMO corn and roasted non-GMO soybeans from a farmer we know, oats kelp, and minerals.\u00a0 While picking through droppings left by the herds and \u201csanitizing\u201d the pasture, the chickens put down an estimated 300 lbs per acre of natural nitrogen fertilizer and important trace minerals.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1222\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/shelter_hill.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1222\" class=\"wp-image-1222 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/shelter_hill-e1524685727863-1024x252.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"252\" srcset=\"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/shelter_hill-e1524685727863-1024x252.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/shelter_hill-e1524685727863-300x74.jpg 300w, https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/shelter_hill-e1524685727863-768x189.jpg 768w, https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/shelter_hill-e1524685727863-672x166.jpg 672w, https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/shelter_hill-e1524685727863-1038x256.jpg 1038w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1222\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Portable chicken shelters on the hillside. The chickens have a quickly visible impact on the grass.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>When the chickens reach about 10 weeks old, we hand process them right here on the farm.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve come a long way since our first batch with our hand-made feather plucker and our scalding pot that resembled a witch\u2019s kettle. Even with the help of friends and the miracle plucker, it took us 3 days to finish. Even so, we marked it as a victory. We had done it \u2013 and enjoyed it!<\/p>\n<p>We kept most of the birds from that first batch, but sold a few to interested friends and family members.\u00a0 And we learned to do better. For several years, we set up our equipment under a portable shelter that took a few hours to put up each time.<\/p>\n<p>These days we have a covered outdoor shelter with stainless steel sinks and tables and we\u00a0use a commercial plucker and scalder. And we\u2019ve cut our time down to about 3 hours for the same number of birds. Many would probably say we&#8217;ve reached expert status.<\/p>\n<p>Still, it\u2019s good to look back and see progress. That&#8217;s what keeps us enjoying our new chicks each spring!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first broiler chicks have arrived to mark the official start of the 2018 season! We always get excited to hear those first chicks arrive. They get shipped to us from the hatchery and we pick them up at the post office. (Chicks can do this because the egg yolk provides them enough food to sustain them for 2 days [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,111,90,34,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animal-husbandry","category-chicken","category-continous-movement","category-pasture-raised-chicken","category-pasture-raised-poultry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1209"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1224,"href":"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions\/1224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harvestpartners.farm\/connect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}