Ex-Californians get Californians

The bunnies are here, sadly they lost the battle of cuteness against my sweet little Sugar Pie.

These are Californian bunnies they are for show and meat. We will build a range coop for them and they will be housed in the chick house. Chickens can act as sanitizers for rabbits. The first of many moves as we slowly move toward a more "whole farm" model.

Does anyone know anything about lamb?

Advice for New Chicken Owners

If you are going to micro farm/homestead with chickens buy the largest equipment you can afford! Do not waste your money on the little plastic one gallon waterers they work for chicks for a while but they quickly out grow them. Plus you will really want to get their food and water off the floor because chickens are disgusting and will pee and poop in their food and water if they are able to roost on it!

You will need the following:

• waterer (a couple if you have more then 10 birds and you live in hot climate like we do!)
  
• feeder
• chicken feed (homemade or from the feed store)
• Oyster Shells (something to harden their shells! You can even grind up their egg shells and serve it back to them but make sure they are unrecognizable or they will start eating their own eggs.
• Chicken House
• Chicken yard (unless you plan on having 100% free range chickens which is our goal!)

Pictures of Chicken growth:

Amerucana (brown patch on his head) is 2 weeks old. Note they are starting to get feathered. They are able to get to their roosts that are about 1' and then 2' off the ground.

Production Red (yellow) is 2 weeks old. Note they are starting to get feathered. They are able to get to their roosts that are about 1' and then 2' off the ground.

Large Production red is 18 weeks old. Fully feathered and nearly the same size as the laying hens. Noticeable difference is their comb and wattles are not red or fully developed.

The kiddo is my chicken wrangler, she's been catching chickens since she was 4! Okay, she's still 4 but it'll be a great story when she's telling her kids!

Egg list closed

We are proud and sad to announce that we currently have a waiting list for our super tasty eggs!

The wait should not be too long as we have 9 birds that will start laying soon.

From my estimates we should have roughly 3 dozen more eggs available in September or October (I know Dina you want two dozen more!)and 3 dozen more available sometime starting in October or November. If we buy some chicks from a nearby producers these numbers will increase in November. Our numbers jump by nearly 10 dozen in January and hopefuly every 3 months thereafter. We are also looking into buying some battery operated poultry lighting to increase the amount of daylight they receive. I am not sure how well this will work as our birds are not simply confined to a house but we shall see.

Well, that all from Rooster Hill don't forget to check us out next week for our "Egg-tastic" recipe of the month!

Last week we sat down with Jessica Bolding, CPA and I went over the farms finances! She was such a big help!! It became very clear that there were a lot of things we were missing out on such as:

• mileage for farm related activities
• % of electricity, water
• Not to use the Accrual System

Each year the IRS comes out with an IRS Farm Reporting Book that details the farming requirements.

It also became very clear that there are things that I care about that the IRS does not care about. I have to keep track of my egg production so I know how we are doing however the IRS does not care. They do care about my purchases and if they are going to be depreciated over time or if we will be taking the whole item in one year.

Finally, it became clear that although I keep all of our receipts I was not organized enough. So, I am organizing all of my expense & income receipts by month and paper clipping them together hopefully this will simplify the tax reporting. Finally, I will be saving 15% of my income if I make it over my expenses to pay taxes.

Learning at RH

Rising Feed Costs

As you may have noticed our prices went up this month. We will hold steady at this price as long as we can. Feed costs went up again this month and it is expected that they will continue to rise.

This is a portion of an article from the AP (Associated Press) regarding this issue...

Pilgrim's Pride posts loss, blames rising feed costs

Monday May 5, 5:25 pm ET By David Koenig, AP Business Writer

"Pilgrim's Pride also said its U.S. business would probably lose money in the current quarter, and it might be summer 2009 before the company returns to normal operating profit margins....Chief Executive Clint Rivers placed blame for the industry's trouble on the federal government's "deeply flawed" policy of paying subsidies for using corn to produce ethanol for fuel, which he said would cause food prices to rise further.
"American consumers are only just beginning to feel the impact of sharply higher food prices," as food producers pass along more of their higher costs, Rivers said...."

Both corn and soy beans are on the rise and we are feeling the pinch here at Rooster Hill. We have however decided to try to hold our new prices for the next few months. Our feed costs have gone up nearly 20% in the last 3 months.

So what are we going to do?

1. Build more roosts in our modest Hen House


2. Buy more fencing and create a much larger yard and move toward pastured/free range chickens as soon as possible.


3. We are checking into making our own feed!

The most important thing I am finding in farming is watching my bottom dollar. Figuring out how to spend the least amount of money for maximum results. Just like any new business we are going to spend more then we make the first year but we cannot continue on this trend indefinitely. We have 9 months until we reach 1 year... We hope to be making a profit by then.

Counting our coins at RH

New on the Hill

New at the homestead are these two White Pekins. We have another on the way. These ducks lay some mammoth eggs about 2X the size of a chicken egg. We are going to try to get about 30 ducks total and sell their eggs, also. Right now we are just enjoying these mammoth eggs for baking and Wayne's fried or poached eggs.

Another new addition to the homestead are 15 day old baby chicks. 11 Production Reds, 3 Amerucana (blue eggs) 1 Production Red rooster.

On 6/26 we moved the rooster and the 3 baby hens into the hen house. We move our chicks into the hen house when they are between 8-12 weeks old. We prefer to move them when they are older and bigger so the other hens don't peck them to death (literally!).

This weekend we will finish painting the shed & future broiler house (current hen house)start clearing some land next to the hen house to build our bigger hen house. We will move the ducks into the little house and add a small broiler house to the area to our homestead. The broilers are for our personal consumption but we have some friends that are going to be raising organic broilers if anyone is interested let me know and I'll pass it along to them.

Thanks for visiting the Hill!

Planning your Homestead

Here at Rooster Hill we have come to the conclusion that it is time to "slow our roll". First we are going to finish the 3-4 1/2 done projects we have started and not yet completed. Concurrently, we will be taking a step back to plan the use of our property. To maybe avoid some of the mistakes I've been reading about.

Things we know we need to do are build a larger "barn/shed" area for animals. We also need to start fencing our property.

We know we are focusing on eggs (chickens & ducks), herbs and milk goat products for sale. We also want turkeys, an orchard and a large garden to provide our own fruit and vegatable needs. We want to maintain a small pasture for the goats and an acre or more for a wood lot.

We have considered pigs and and a couple(1 mom & calf) of cows for our own beef.We are talking about adding a woodheating furnace and solar panels in the long run.

So now we are going to be putting pen to pad so we can figure out the how what, when & where.

It just all seems so much more urgent with the rise in gas & food prices. We really want to be self sufficient. Like my friend Kim Benavides said we may be called on to provide food for the poor who knows what God has in store for our 5 acres!

Books we are considering: "The Have More Plan" by Ed & Carolyn Robinson, Five Acres and Independence by Kains, The Self-sufficient Life and How to Live It by Seymour &Handy Farm Devices: And How to Make Them by Rolfe Cobleigh