Haybine 499

This summer I purchased a new to me cutter/conditioner.  A cutter/conditioner is a hay mower that has large conditioning rollers in it.  The rollers are designed to "condition" - crack - the stems of hay that have thick waxy coating on its stems like alfalfa.  If alfalfa isn't conditioned, it can take up to a week to dry depending on the humidity, temperature, and the sunlight available.  In this part of Iowa, a week without rain isn't very likely during haying season which is why I move to the cutter/conditioner.  However, the machine's rollers were not doing the job that I needed them to do so I decided to remove them and have them replaced with more aggressive rollers.  The trick was figuring out how to remove the rollers.  After finally getting in touch with someone who had done it before, I was able to remove the rollers, but not without the assistance of my friend Harvey and his cutting torch.  It was much harder than expected and the mower is sitting in my brother's shop taking up most of the room in there.  Hopefully the rollers come back soon and I can attempt to put the new ones in place.  If installation is anything like removal, it will be quite a chore. 

Chicken Day - Last Day 2011

Today is the last day of chicken processing for 2011.  It takes a whole lot of hard work, detailed management, and very detailed record keeping and coordination to raise a very high quality pasture raised chicken.  Since Sharon has the gifts to do all that is required to be successful at raising very high quality pasture raised chickens, we are able to be successful at it.  However, if Sharon weren't here, the chicken business would grind to a quick halt.  I'm not sure if I've ever described what goes into producing a pasture raised chicken, so I'll try to do a quick list of what the process is.

We open the webpage for chicken orders in early spring/late winter.  This is my small contribution and can be done from the comfort of the house.
Sharon sends out emails to let our customers know that we are open for chicken orders.
Once the orders are placed by customers, Sharon starts placing orders for chicks and schedules the chick delivery to coordinate both the spring weather and a processing date that she has scheduled.
The first batch of chicks is delivered in early spring while it's still cold, but late enough that when the chicks are feathered out they can go right out onto the pasture.
The management of the chicks is a 24 hour process.  Sharon has to maintain the brooder temperature, water and feed needs, and maintain the chicks safety for several weeks, changing the temperature toward normal ambient temperature until the chicks can do without any brooder heat.
Once the chicks are able to live without brooder heat, the chicks are moved to the pasture pens.  These pens will be the chickens homes until they are processed.
The pens are open during the day to allow the chickens to run the pasture at to do the things that chickens do.  At night the pens are closed to protect the chickens from predators.
When the chickens are in the pasture, the pens are moved everyday to clean grass.  In this way the chickens and their living area are kept clean, the manure is spread evenly across the pasture, and the birds get clean grass and new bugs continually.  But what this means is that Sharon has to move each pen by hand everyday, sometimes multiple times a day.
Sharon also has to keep the birds watered, fed, and has to keep grit available as the pens travel across the pasture.  She also has to open the pens first thing in the morning and close each pen at sunset everyday.
While the first set of chickens is living in the pasture, the process starts again with the second batch of chicks, which are delivered at a date that ensures that they will be ready to move into the pens, just after the first batch has been processed on a date that Sharon has established before the first batch was ordered.
Finally on the evening before the chickens are processed, they are gathered.  Think of the movie "Rocky" where Rocky has to catch the running chicken to increase his foot speed and you get the idea of gathering real pasture raised chickens.  Okay so there are a couple of tricks that we use so that we don't have to run the chickens wild like in Rocky, but quick reflexes, a strong back and a predator's instinct are advantages.
Each of these processes is done for each of the three batches starting in the spring and ending in the fall, with each batch finishing on "Chicken Day" which is chicken processing day. 
That brings us to today.  Last "Chicken Day" of 2011.  We gathered the birds last evening and had them gathered up by around 8:30PM.  I was up at 5AM to start the scalder.  This morning we'll do all of our other chores, eat breakfast, and then start processing chickens around 8AM with the goal to process about 24 chickens an hour.

Hard decision had to be made.  The alfalfa that I planted a few years ago is not performing up to expectation.  My theory on why is that the oats that were planted as a nurse crop with the alfalfa was too heavy, and this stunted the alfalfa.  Even letting the alfalfa go the first year, and not taking a cutting from it, it just never yielded the way it should have.  The second year was great, but after that the yield dropped like a rock.  So about 2/3 of the alfalfa will be taken out and planted to corn to give the field time to let the chemicals that the alfalfa puts into the soil to keep other alfalfa from growing, dissipate.  I'm working with a neighbor to have him do the custom work for me, but wouldn't you know, the temp is supposed to drop to 29 degrees tonight, so trying to kill the alfalfa once it goes dormant might be a problem.  I've had that in the past and don't want to deal with it again.  Weather will rule and we'll just have to wait to see how we'll proceed.