Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Free Range Chickens...down on the farm



After my last post, one of my blogger buddies wanted me to show some photos of what the farm looks like now. So I got my camera out after work the other day, which is the time we let the chickens out of their pen for free ranging. They also get to free range at least part of the day on most Sundays and holidays. They love to be out, and I've heard a happy chicken is a tastier chicken!

(Above) This is a view to the east. That grey colored bird in the front is a guinea. On the far right is a glimpse of the little hen house. The brown color farm land in the back ground is what it looks like this time of year, after the corn has been harvested last fall. The man who farms that land has not tilled it yet. He will most likely plant soybeans this year. Way in the distance is a Nestle's factory. The factory used to be called Carnation, and it is where they make non-dairy coffee creamer.



(Above) This view is looking south. Not too far off in the distance, you can see railroad tracks. I love to take walks back there and walk along the tracks. I planted the Weeping Willow tree in 1994, and it is very tall now. We don't have a lot of large trees on the farm, because lightening has taken them out. This tree was split in half by lightening a few years ago, but it didn't kill it. However, a week long ice storm in December of 2007 caused some of the branches to break. You can see the damage with two downward pointing straight branches. Later in Spring until Winter the tree will be a beautiful shower of green with each branch growing up and out and curving downward. Each day more green grass pops up like in the front of the picture.



(Above) A hen and a banty rooster in the freshly tilled garden area. I don't know the variety of these chickens, but this little rooster has a very high pitched crow. He is the sneakiest of them all and has hidden a few times, just so he could be out all day the next day.

Above is just another random shot of guineas and chickens. I spent about thirty minutes trying to get a good picture of the eight guineas, but they are fast and won't be still for long! When the chickens are out, they spread out--making it impossible to get them all in one good picture. We have about sixty chickens right now. Some of them hardly ever leave the hen house. These chickens are raised for breeding and for their eggs.

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5 comments:

ReRe said...

yum!

John said...

Yum is right! We have sold fresh chickens to the local country club, organic food store, and direct to customers! And people come from miles around just to buy the farm fresh eggs!

HalfCrazy said...

Whoops, I kinda missed this thing, I was so busy the past few days!

Anyway, yay! Your farm, haha! I like your land! it's like you said, that you're pretty alone on this side of the road.

I think farm life is fun LOL. Those guineas are so cute and your chickens are naughty! I love your Weeping Willow, wonder what it looks like in the Spring and Winter, take a photo of it if you can. :P

lavonne said...

I know I'm reading this about a year later but a lovely farm is a lovely farm. How NEAT John!! Or should I call you farmer John?? LOL :-). I'm so glad to hear you take care of your chickens and free range them, I bet they taste delicious with a capital D.

John said...

@lavonne, it's never too late to add a comment! I just love that "link within" that shows three previous posts under the current one...you never know what might show up and I think it is completely random.

Not only are the chickens tasty, so are the eggs. We actually have a few people that drive some 40 miles to buy our farm fresh eggs...I'm sure those fo lks make other stops while they are in town (I mean, who can just drive by a Walmart or Home Depot LOL).

We just got in a bunch of chicks, a new variety we've never tried before and I'll be taking some pictures and Ron is going to write an article about them to a poultry magazine he subscribes to. All of these new chicks will be "processed" for meat at the nearest processing plant. The chickens in the photos here are more like pets and are just kept for breeding and for eggs.

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