It was long over due, we finally cleaned out the coop and moved the turkeys out of the house. I think they’re happy to finally have more room to run around.
It was actually a fun day of work. Work doesn’t really seem like work when you have a little helper that provides good conversation. 😉
We got our rabbit run built… now we’re ready for a rabbit. We let our turkeys out in the run for a while and boy did that stir up some drama with the chickens.
New projects, chicken drama… there’s never a dull moment on the homestead.
Around here, most days start out with the usual morning chores and end with the usual evening chores. What goes on between those times varies greatly from day to day. Here’s a little glimpse into what one day here was like.
We finally got our turkeys ordered for this year. I think this is the latest we’ve ever gotten them. I guess it’s better late than never, right?
In past years we’ve always raised broad breasted bronze turkeys. Up until last year, we got them at the feed store every year. For some reason last year, the area feed stores quit carrying them so we started ordering online. We’ve had a tough time finding a place that will ship a small order of turkeys. Most places have a minimum order of 15 to 25 and we definitely don’t need that many! Some places will allow you to combine turkeys and chicks to make up a minimum order but right now we don’t need any chicks either. We want to wait another month or two before we get our fall meat birds. Luckily we found a place that would allow small orders and we went ahead and ordered them.
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Chicken processing can be quite intimidating, especially if this is your first time doing it. This is our 7th time to do it, plus we’ve also processed our own turkeys 4 times. Each time it gets a little easier because we learn something new or discover a different way to do something that helps us to become more efficient at it. Here’s how we process our chickens…
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Here’s just a little behind the scenes of what our day was like when we processed chickens.
The weather has been like a rollercoaster lately. Just week before last we had beautiful weather and even ventured out for a walk, then last week it got really cold and we had a dreary day or two, then this week its back to being even more beautiful than it was a couple weeks ago. I guess that’s just Kansas weather for ya.
Every day is a little different for us on our homestead. Some days are pretty easy going, not much going on and others are busy, busy, busy. During the winter we usually have a lot more down time than any other time of the year.
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The weather has been so lovely lately. We’ve had mild temperatures, no wind and sunshine… it’s the perfect winter weather. With the exception of the ice storm around Thanksgiving when we were out of electricity for a day, and a few other short cold spells, this winter has been perfect so far… knocking on wood that it stays that way!
Since it’s been so nice we decided we’d better take advantage of it and do some much needed cleaning of the chicken coops. Cleaning coops isn’t one of the most fun jobs, and then combine it with cold weather; it’s one of those things that doesn’t get done very often in the winter.
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Butchering time.
It’s the hardest part of homesteading. We have such conflicting feelings over it. On one hand, we find it empowering to fill our freezer with meat that we’ve raised ourselves from start to finish. To know where our meat comes from, what all it’s been fed and to know that we can do it all ourselves is a really great feeling. On the other hand, it makes us a little sad. Even though we know from the beginning we are raising the animals for meat, we don’t name them, and tell ourselves we can’t get attached, well… we still do. It’s just hard not to get attached when you spend months taking care of them.
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Humble Little Homestead 