NOVEMBER 10th:  With a large sigh of relief, I have just moved our final batch of 47 meat chicks from the brooder to the tractors.  The brooder is now empty for the first time since March.  It has been a LONG chick season this year.  Besides raising several groups of both incubator-hatched and hatchery-bought laying breed chicks, we have raised somewhere around 300 meat chickens.  Which means we also butchered somewhere around 300 meat chickens, excluding the 47 that are now in the tractors.  Some of them have been eaten by us, but most have been sold at our local farmers’ market.

DECEMBER 30th:  Here I am 6 weeks later to attempt to finish my previously started blog post.  The 47 meat chickens that were still in the tractors have been reduced to 9!  We somehow processed 16 ducks, a plethora of rabbits, 38 chickens, and still have 9 chickens to go even though it is almost the end of the year.  Honestly we have been struggling to wrap things up.  Not only have we had a ton of processing to do, there has also been a lot of extra “off-farm” work for both TS and I since both of us work part-time in retail.  There’s been time spent volunteering at the kids’ school, birthday parties, family Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations…  There’s been some snow days too!  We have gotten really behind on farm stuff, but have enjoyed the family time we’ve had.  I hope to update on our farm activities soon!