How We Started Our Farming Life
We moved onto our farm in February of 1997. Pre-internet access. We were seeing a bit of socal isolation, ut most of all, we were looking to produce healthy food for ourselves that had been ethically raised, free of herbicides, pesticides and antibiotics. Having no real idea how to do any of this, we purchased a few books to help us get started, but we were limited by the stock the bookstores had on hand, and there was not a lot on homesteading available to us at that time. We also relied heavily on what information was available at our library. But in the tiny town that we were now living in, the equally tiny library had very little to offer. We were essentially on our own. We weren’t deterred though; we had chosen this way of life and were determined to make it work.
We decided to start with chickens, figuring they were likely to be the easiest to raise and wouldn’t require much space. They would give us eggs and we could harvest any males for our dinner table. We got our first chicks in March when chicks started arriving in the feed store. I couldn’t wait to get started with my first farm adventure. I naively entered the store, and there, in giant feed tubs, were the cutest little black and white fluffy little peeping chicks. I had never seen a baby chicken other than in books! The sign on the bins said “Straight Run Barred Rocks”. I thought, “Okay! Whatever those are….. I’m in!” I had no idea what they were, but they would lay eggs, and that was good enough for me! I asked the man how to care for them, and he got me set up with lights and feed ad food holders and waterers. I was officially a homesteader, err at least a girl that lived in an old farmhouse with chicks. I was so excited! I bought 7 adorable, fluffy, peeping, chicks. I was hoping for at least 4 girls, figuring I had a 50% chance with each chick that it would be female. Worst case scenario, I would have 4 boys. Turns out, that is not the worst case scenario. I would find out later….. much, much later, that you could buy sex linked chicks that were sure to be female, and you could even buy sexed chicks that were most assuredly female with a small margin of error. But who knew? Not me! I had 7 chicks! I was so excited, and I was pretty sure I would have at least three hens out of that.
I brought my tiny flock home and set them up in a plastic storage container with some paper towel in the bottom, and gave them food and water, and a heat lamp attached securely to the wall so as not to start a fire. (Bear in mind, I would never use a heat lamp today - I would use a Brinsea Ecoglow http://www.brinsea.com/p-375-ecoglow-20-chick-brooder.aspx ). The chicks lived happily in there for a few weeks. By that time, it was obvious that they would outgrow their little home very soon, and we did not have the main coop built yet. Furthermore, there was going to be no power in the coop and they would surely need a heat source for several more weeks. So now what to do with the chicks till they were feathered and ready for the coop? We built a chicken condo! This was our name for a tiny little outdoor coop where young chicks could grow up to bigger young chickens. This has been one of the best things we ever did on the farm. Our first condo was not built to last, which was our mistake, but we have since built another that is made to last and it is fantastic. This condo was a tiny coop attached to the back of the shop near the house, with a small run attached to it. This gave the babies lots of room to roam and grow, but was safe and secure, and provided a place for them to go to be warm and cozy. We could run power to a heat source through the wall of the shop. It also allowed us just enough room to go in and sit and still play with the chicks. Then, when they were ready to be away from the heat, we could move them to the main coop.
Out of the 7 chicks we started with….. you remember…. I thought at the very least we would have three hens…… we got only ONE hen! One hen and 6 roosters! We were very attached to them by the time we figured out the male to female ratio, and eating the roosters just didn’t seem like an option at that point. Remember, our thought was we would be able to eat the males. That was the homesteading way. But after becoming attached to the birds, doing the deed just seemed so brutal and we couldn’t ring ourselves to to it. So we thought we would give it a go, and see if we could manage to keep them all as pets. That lasted only briefly. Our oldest son was just a bit over one year old when the chicks became roosters. He was a busy one year old, and into everything. He was curious about everything, and with my husband staying home, Sam was allowed to explore where he wanted under his dad’s watchful eye. It did not take the roosters long to turn into jerks. By fall that year, those boys were working on their pecking order, and with so many of them, they had a lot to prove. The top rooster began attacking anything that moved, including us. There was no room here for an aggressive animal and he would have to go. We still couldn’t bring ourselves to kill and eat him, so we found him a new home. We understood that with an aggressive rooster, he was likely not going anywhere to be a pet and we were okay with that, we just couldn’t do it ourselves. As the next chicken took over the lead spot, he became very aggressive as well. We found ourselves carrying a stick everywhere we went. This rooster especially disliked Sam and would charge him every time he got near that rooster. So the second rooster was sent off to a “new home”. Then the third rooster took the spot. He was even worse than the other two. He would hear us come out and charge down from the coop to attack. He made the fatal mistake of violently attacking Sam one morning. Sam was not badly injured, but that was the incident that changed how we viewed the farm. This was the first animal that went in our own stew pot. It was far from enjoyable, but the process was quick. We had decided to do this and we needed to learn how to do the hard part. We would not allow animals here that were aggressive. But there is more to it than that. In raising these chicks, I had forgotten one of the principles of why I wanted to live this way. I wanted to be close to my food. To know it had been humanely raised and to know what it had eaten. To know that it was truly healthy, and that I could comfortably and happily feed it to my family. Animals on a farm have a job, a purpose, and it was these roosters that put it all in perspective for me. As the aggressive roosters were removed, the next one stepped up and took it’s place. Eventually we were down to no roosters. They were simply too aggressive to have around. It was not until many years later that we once again re-introduced roosters to our farm and discover that not all roosters are aggressive. We have had several lovely, kind and gentle roosters that have wonderfully guarded our hens. And aggressive roosters are simply not permitted to stay, not matter how well they guard or how beautiful they are.
After the roosters, we eventually introduced cows and pigs onto our farm for the purposes of feeding our family - to avoid grocery shopping as much as we could. I still can’t bring myself to actually kill the animal that I have lovingly raised, but I participate in the process and how it plays out. Someone is hired to come to the farm to slaughter and deliver the carcass to the butcher for hanging and processing, I participate in such a way to ensure that their deaths are painless and they don’t see it coming. For almost all the animals in our diets, I have known every part of their life from the day they are born until they day they leave this earth. Their last day is not easy for me. I don’t think is should be easy - I don’t ever want it to be easy. I am grateful everyday for how my way of life plays out for me, and that I can provide for my family in a way that is meaningful.
