February 10-14 Happy Hen Farms Newsletter: Farm History

Good Afternoon,

Everyday this week is available for deliveries! If you pick up at my grandparent's office, they are open Tuesday and Thursday (10-3) and Friday (10-5).

Eggs: 

Egg production has been about the same as last week at 5.5 to 6 dzn per day. The new feed mix seems to be helping the medium eggs out a bit, in combination with the longer days. 

Newsletter: 

This week, I decided to tell the story of how this little egg farm got started. Some of you might have heard the story, but everyone in this email is part of that story in some way or another. This will also be in the Happy Hen Farms Blog. 

Enjoy! 

Starting in the spring of 2016 (7th grade), I was allowed to get some chickens, with the original intent of having just enough eggs for my family, and some extra's for friends when I had them. At that point, I didn't really have a clue about chickens, or animals really (except rabbits and dogs). I started asking around and doing quite a bit of research on coop designs, what to feed, where to buy supplies, ect... 

The end amount of chickens my parent's said would be ideal would be (just) four. I asked a friend, who's uncle had chickens, how many might die while they were chicks. He said to expect about a 25%-50% loss from the total number. Looking back at it, those numbers were an extremely ridiculous number to lose, unless something really bad were to happen to the chicks. But at that point, I didn't really know what to think in regards to losses. 

After almost wearing out Dunlap Hatchery's catalog (from looking at it so much), my dad and I decided on 3 Heritage breeds: White and Barred Plymouth Rocks, and Black Australorps. I got three of each, and the hatchery gave us an extra, so I walked away from the hatchery with 10, day old, chicks. We had everything set up a few weeks in advance in the garage, and had begun work on a small coop. 

Fast forward about three months, the chicks were beginning to outgrow their cardboard brooder in the garage, and were starting to escape in the middle of the night. Of course, they were smart enough to fly out of their box, but were too stupid to figure a way back into the box. So, they would start chirping (extremely loudly) in the middle of the night. At this point, none of the chicks had died, which was a shocker for me. 

Luckily, there was an old horse trailer at my house that my dad said I could turn into another chicken house. That set up worked pretty well, but it wasn't meant for a permanent residence for the chickens. 

My dad and I hadn't been really serious about the whole chicken set up, but after a while of not having any of the chickens die (which would leave me with 6 more chickens than I had bargained for), the need for a bigger (and safer) chicken coop was necessary. So, the whole summer of 2016 was spent building a 25 ft x 14 ft shelter, covered in wire. We built it out of big stainless steel greenhouse hoops and lots of wire. The first thing we did was dig a trench around what was to be the perimeter of the coop. The foundation was made out of cinder blocks and cement. The purpose for this was to create a solid foundation to attach the greenhouse hoops, as well as to predator proof the coop. My dad welded a lattice of steel tubing to fit the front and ends of the hoophouse. My main job was to stitch all the wire together to put on the hoops. We used about 650 feet of wire to cover the hoops, which was all stitched together to form one solid piece of wire to stretch over the top of the hoops. The same was done for the front and back too. Let's just say my hands got extremely tough (and sore) from stitching wire for hours upon hours on end. 

Once this project was completed, the chicken were moved in there. The realization for a better indoor coop became a reality later that summer, in which we found a used shed that we converted into an indoor part of the chicken coop. That shed was connected to the hoophouse by a wire "portal." 

And good thing we got that shed, because the terrible winter hit that November. All the chickens survived, and started to resume laying in the spring. It was in the fall of 2016 that I got my first customer. After that, the word started to spread about how amazing the eggs were. This eventually led to getting more chicks the next spring (2017). I got 18 new chickens from a hatchery in Connecticut of all places! They did ok, but were not enough to satisfy the growing demand for eggs. It was also during the summer of 2017 that a new barn was added onto the hoophouse. This barn is the current chicken coop. The original shed has turned into a grain and supply storage shed, which has been extremely helpful, especially with the amount of extra tools, grain, bags, ect... that are a necessary part of the operation.

(this is the current {2/1/2020} look of the hoophouse and coop. The barn in the very back right is the storage shed.) 

In the spring of 2018, I finally decided to get a "big" batch of chicks (compared to what I had been getting). I decided to try out a bunch of the hybrid egg layers to see if they were all they were cracked up to be. I purchased 35 of them from Dunlap Hatchery, and they have been doing great ever since then. After getting them, I was finally able to meet the demand. However, almost immediately after meeting the demand, the demand went up again! It was also during 2018 that I started to offer vegetables, as well as meat chickens. If I was to sum up 2018 in two words, those would definitely be: "Learning Experience." If you bought meat chickens from me that year, you probably could agree with that statement! I remember being extremely disappointed after waiting for 18 weeks, only to get barely 2 lbs of meat per chicken. I also remember the surprise on some faces when pickup time came around too. While they tasted amazing, I think they would have tasted better if there was more to taste (if you get what I mean)! Nevertheless, 2018 came and went. 

That brings me to the most recent year: 2019. I cracked down, and decided to just get bigger by a long stretch. This last year, between new layer chicks and broilers, 140 chickens were purchased in 2019. The egg operation grew to 120 egg layers, currently all producing eggs. The meat birds also did better this last year, although some weather related stress caused some delays, which ultimately cost about 1 pound of weight gain per bird in the end (roughly 65 lbs of meat were "lost" due to excessive rain and temperature fluctuations). 

Significant improvements were made to the egg operation, including new nesting boxes, perches, tarps for the hoophouse, feed/feed storage, ect...

Most of the "furniture" additions were a necessity anyway, but some new designs were introduced which helped cleanliness of the chickens' housing. I also added a bulk feed storage container to not only keep up with feed consumption, but to also keep the eggs at the same price, especially after finding a good source for Non-GMO grain, which was a great addition. 

The garden area also received some improvements, such as a drip irrigation system. This eliminated almost all the weeds, and resulted in better looking plants. It was truly amazing to see how much produce came out of barely 0.08-ths of an acre! I am working on a statistic's chart to show about how much produce (eggs, meat, vegetables, ect...) was produced last year; I will share it in a future email to show just how much there actually was! 

Looking forward into 2020, some more expansion will take place, more so with the egg operation. I will be focusing on a few vegetables this year instead of growing tons of exotic vegetables. Mastering a few things is better in some ways than having no mastery over lots of things. 

To close this story (so far), I just want to say 'Thank You!' for your business, as well as your desire for good food! I will continue to do my best to make the eggs and vegetables the best that they can get, or even better! 

If any of you would like to come and visit the chickens, just let me know if you're interested! Some days work better than others, and school breaks usually would be the best option to come out (spring break, or long weekends).

 I am thinking of offering a few days throughout the year for "experience tours." These would be on days that have some significant activity going on, such as new chickens, planting or summer harvest time, and other fun activities. I have to figure some other logistical items out before I can put a definite "yes" on those days, but will see what I can do! 

Thank You!