New Chicken Coop - Part 1

I spent last night drawing up the plans for our new coop and figuring out the material list.  I went back and forth with buying a shed kit, but the to get a kit close to the size I wanted was several hundred dollars more than building it from scratch.


What we've decided on is a 10'x6' coop, the inside would have 7'x6' (42 sq ft) of space for the chickens.  The other 3x6 space would be for storing food.  The idea is to be able to get eggs and feed the chickens while being out of the weather, while storing everything with the chickens.  The chicken area will have a small loft area above it for storing heat lamps, water heaters, and other supplied.  We're going to build the egg boxes so that they stick out of the chicken area, likewise with the feeders.  This way we can gather eggs and feed the chickens without having to walk through chicken manure (a plus for my wife).


Below is a visual of the coop plans.  I made this in about 10 minutes with Sweet Home 3D, http://www.sweethome3d.com/.

The middle wall in the image above will be welded wire with a door made of welded wire on a wood frame.  The egg boxes will come into the entry area, as well as the new feeders.  The new feeders will be made out of PVC pipe, about 3 feet long with a 180 bend at the bottom.  I saw a friend of mine in Seattle had these type of feeders that he built and they work great.


So, here is the material list to build the coop, broken out by where it is used:


Floor:
2x6x10' - 6
2x6x12' - 1 (cut in half to make 2 six footers)
7/16 OSB - 2 sheets


Long Walls:
2x4x10' - 4
2x4x12' - 9 (cut in half to make 18 six footers)
T1-11 Siding - 5 Sheets


Short Walls:
2x4x12 - 8 (cut in half to make 16 six footers)
T1-11 Siding - 4 Sheets


Roof:
2x6x10' - 1
2x6x8' - 6 (cut in half to make 12 four footers)
7/16 OSB - 3 Sheets
2 bundles of shingles
36' of drip edge


Trim:
1x3x6' - 10 (for the corners of the coop and sides of door)
1x3x8' - 3 (for the windows, top of door, and chicken door)


Most of the materials are now at the homestead.  We're going to try to get this built and the chickens living in it over the next 2-3 weeks so that we can get pigs in the barn, where we are currently housing the chickens. 


It's going to be a busy couple of weeks, stay tuned for updates.

Moving The Homestead

We are officially in our new home.  Technically we've been here since Thanksgiving, but with the holidays and everything that comes with that time of year, it didn't feel like we moved in until now.  Looking out at our pastures and the unfenced in parts of our property, we definitely have some work to do.  We want to change the fencing around so that the paddocks are bigger and fence in more of the property.  There is about 2 acres of grass/hayfield that we want to fence in and just let the cows eat it.

But back to moving.  Everything was pretty easy, then it came time to move the chickens.  Thinking about how are we going to get our chickens from the old homestead to the new one, an hour away, I spotted an old metal dog carrier that we had sitting in the wood shed. 

I waited until dark so that the chickens were calm and in their coop.  They looked a little cramped in there, but in hindsight it was probably perfect since there was really no room for them to move around and get injured during the drive.

We decided not to bring the old chicken coop, since I wanted to build a new/bigger one anyway.  Our barn had a section that was fenced off with gates, so we put up some chicken wire and put the chickens in there until a new coop was built.  I let them out to tour the pasture and eat bugs, but they seem pretty happy in the barn, with plenty of light.

Chickens in Barn

Our new chicken coop is going to be approximately 8x8, like a shed, with 1/2 of it for the chickens and the other half for storage.  I'll start construction this week, so look for a new series of posts detailing the construction of the new coop.

New Homestead on the Horizon

It's been a heck of a year.  We threw out most of our garlic last year due to the wet conditions we had. Almost all of it was either rotten or just so wet that when it dried, there was nothing left of it.  That was pretty rough.  So we went into the fall thinking we would plant corn in 2016.  Then, I got a new job in December.  It required me to drive to the city at least 2-3 days a week, and sometimes more.  We immediately decided that it was time to upgrade our homestead and move closer to the city, closer to my wife's family, and closer to our old friends.

We almost bought a 30 acre farm that was already set up for beef cattle, with plenty of woods to heat the house and hunt on, but that didn't work out.  Next up was a house on 17 acres, but it failed the inspections pretty poorly.  Finally, after almost a year of searching, we found a house that we both really like, with a barn, fencing, a pond, and 8.5 acres of land.  There is currently long horn cattle on the property.  We are now looking forward to moving to our new farm in 4 weeks.

And with that new farm comes a lot of new things to learn.  We need to get the pond stocked with fish and make sure that we have a good habitat for them to breed, with a goal of harvesting a good portion of the fish that we eat from the pond.  We want to get cattle and possibly some goats, and learn how to get a small grass fed beef/goat operation going.  We've had so much demand for our eggs just from my colleagues that we need to expand our flock.  And where we are moving to, we could probably sell 2-3 dozen eggs per day.  We need to get a wood heating source for the new house, get it installed, and get a stock of wood as we are moving in right before winter.

There is a lot of stuff to do and a lot new learnings to share.  We're hoping to at least do weekly updates as we learn how to take care of cattle, goats, and aquaculture.

Spring Beginnings

It's been a busy week on our homestead.  With the warmer temperatures and lots of rain, our garlic really popped up. 

Garlic growing

We were really excited to see the garlic coming up through the straw mulch we put down.  And now we just can't wait to see how well it does at keeping the weeds down.  Because we plant in raised beds, we put the straw down really thick in between the beds and about 1 inch thick on top of the beds.  Next year, we want to mulch in the fall instead of the spring.

Today we got our new egg laying chickens, 8 red sex links.  We can't wait to have fresh, organic eggs again.  Since our chickens stopped laying in December, we've probably eaten 3-4 dozen eggs total in 4 months, compared to 2-3 dozen a week. 

New chickens

Now on to the chores and to-do list.  Fences to take down, fences to put up, new electricity in the barn, new raised garden beds, and the list goes on and on.

End of Year

It's the end of the year; a time for reflection and planning.  Our homestead feels a little empty with no chickens to take care of.  We started the year with 5 laying chickens, raised and butchered 25 meat chickens, and then butchered our laying chickens when they stopped producing.  We are already planning on getting 6 laying chickens in March.

Right now we are excited about growing two or three pigs in our current fenced in chicken yard.  One pig for us, and the rest for our families.  Our families are excited about the prospect of us growing some pigs for them as well.  These pigs would be butchered right around the time when the new layers are ready to occupy the space.  Although I'm not throwing out the idea of raising them on concrete in the barn as my neighbor does.  One of the benefits would be the ability to collect and spread the manure on our fields.

Speaking of fields, if I had laid out my beds better, I could have got one more bed in the field and used up all of our seed.  Our goal this year is to sell 500 pounds of garlic, which would make the tractor payment for the year and purchase a new raised bed maker from Buckeye Tractor.
http://www.buctraco.com/3%20Online%20Catalog/Model1921-Dx.htm

We are also looking forward to planting a half acre of corn.  After talking with our friends, family, and neighbors, we've decided on a the types of corn and are preparing our seed order.  We haven't yet figured out how we are going to plant the corn.  I've seen 1 and 2 row planters at auctions for less than $300 that need some work, but for only 1/2 acre I could get a brand new walk behind planter.

As the year winds down, we have been spending time looking at more acreage.  Wooded acreage for cutting firewood, hunting, and building a small camp.  Tillable acreage for expanding our garlic crop and raising beef cattle.

Reflecting on our garden and our harvest the last few years, we have to make some changes.  We have raised beds that need repaired/replaced.  Our 1 foot wide beds are going to expand to 2 foot wide for our tomatoes.  Our walkways need to be repaired and finished.  And finally our soil/compost mix needs to be refreshed in all of the boxes.  We've talked about putting up a greenhouse on the south side of the barn so that we can get an early start on everything and even grow some things year round.

We will not get all of the projects done that we envision for 2015, but we've come to realize that is just a part of homesteading.  There is always more to get done than there are hours in the day. 

Overall, we had a good year and we are looking forward to 2015. 

Farm Income

We did it, we finally made some income from our farming enterprise.  With all of our garlic cleaned and weighed, we wound up with 67 pounds to sell, about 1/4 of what I thought we would have.  It is all sold and we will get our first check this week.  And even though its not much, it did pay for the garlic we purchased last year to get started.  We are excited.  After 2 1/2 years of planning, purchases, and prep, we finally have money going into our account.

Garlic ready for delivery

Next year, even if we still end up with a 4x yield, we will make enough to break even with the tractor payment. Anything above a 4x yield would be actual profit.  And with the changes we are making, I'm confident we'll be closer to 6-7x yield. 

When we set out, our goal was to sell the majority of our garlic to a seed company in the Midwest, but we have to get a higher percentage of our garlic heads bigger than 2 inches.  So now that we've found some garlic festivals within reasonable distance, our goal next year is to sell 300 pounds at one or two festivals, while continuing to improve our fields and select the biggest & best heads to increase our average size.

It's taken 2.5 years to get any revenue, hopefully 1 more year and we will be profitable.  Time to review and update our farm plan for the next 1-3 years.

Garlic Yield

I had counted on a yield of close to 10x when I started this venture last spring.  After harvesting all of our garlic, our average yield for year 1 was 4x.  Since we are planning on planting 25 pounds of each variety ourselves, we were left with only 30-40 pounds to sell.  So, we wound up making enough to make one tractor payment and replace the fluids in the tractor, but was so far off the mark, that it is really depressing.

1/2 the garlic hung to dry

After a few days, much thought, and discussing it with the family, I've come to the conclusion that this is just like any other business.  There are start-up costs, learning curves, and you can't be successful right out of the gate.  So, things are in motion for year 2.  We have a bigger plot, with better soil that is growing the second round of buckwheat right now.  We have 100 pounds of quality garlic to plant.  We have found several avenues to sell our garlic next year.  And we are excited to try some new things.

We will definitely be mulching the garlic for weed control.  We will attempt to use a potato plow to harvest the garlic much faster.  We will try washing the garlic with water before hanging to cut down on the time it takes to clean the garlic for sale.  Hopefully we can get our yield up, harvest faster, clean faster, and make a profit next year.  I need to figure out a faster way to bunch/hang the garlic, but I have 10 months to figure that out.

Some other things that we will be doing next year is growing a pumpkin patch for friends and family.  We want to have a fall gathering, take everyone on a hayride around the country roads, and send all the kids home with pumpkins to carve.  We are also in the planning stages of growing a large plot of corn. We haven't decided if we will grow field corn to feed our chickens or sweet corn to feed our families.  And we are looking into growing pigs instead of meat chickens in the spring.

Needless to say, there will be plenty of activity next year.  Now we start shifting gears and thinking about firewood again.

Weeds and Scapes

The weedeater worked decent in between the rows.  We finally got everything weeded, just in time for the scapes to come on.

Kids running in the weeded garlic field

Andromeda helping with the weeds

We are working on a price for the scapes.  Since they are really a by-product of growing hardneck garlic, I'm not looking to make much off of them.  I might have my wife call a couple of upscale restaurants and see if she can unload them in mass.

Garlic Progress

I am extremely satisfied with how well our garlic is growing, considering this is the first year growing a mass amount and not in 4x4 raised boxes.  That said, we messed up by not mulching the garlic in the spring before the weeds started growing.  So now we have a large task of weeding ahead of us.  Since the garlic is planted in raised beds, we are going to try weeding the beds and in between taking a weed-eater through at ground level.

We are on track to weed 1 row per day in the evenings when it's not too hot.  Hopefully we'll only have to weed 1 more time by harvest.

Below are before and after pictures.  You can see the first three beds on the left are weeded down the slopes and there is still a large mass of weeds in-between the beds.  Since our field for next year is twice the size, it will be imperative that we mulch in the early spring to get on top of the weeds.

Before

After

2013 Catchup

It's 2014, a new year and a new set of goals for our farm (yes, we've started to call our homestead a farm).  But before we get into a new year, I need to catch up on the fall of 2013 activities.

I lost my job in September and started a new one which requires me to be at the office from 7-4.  This has really thrown our lives into a disarray.  I'm now waking up at 5:30 AM in order to take care of the chickens and rabbits before driving to work, and returning home right around dusk.  Getting off at 4:00 will be nice in the summer months, allowing me to work outside from 5:00 - dusk, but in the winter, it's just darkness.

We planted approximately 50 pounds of garlic in October.  We started breaking apart the heads the night before and continued the next day, a task that we greatly underestimated the effort involved.  Altogether we had around 15 man hours just getting the cloves prepped.  With the help of my mom, we planted all of the garlic in 5 hours.  In order to speed things along, I gave everyone involved a nail apron to fill with cloves.  I then put the holes in the ground to drop the cloves in by screwing pieces of 1 inch diameter dowel rod to a 4 foot long decking board.  I would put the board on the raised bed and step on it, pressing the dowel rods into the soil.  Our estimates for next year are that we should harvest around 400 pounds of garlic, sell 300 pounds, and plant 100 pounds.  I will definitely need to recruit more labor for breaking the heads and planting.

Raised beds ready to plant garlic

 We received 4 rex rabbits for free from a friend.  My original design of suspending the cages from wire (as described in the Storey's Guide to Raising Rabbits) did not work too well.  So I built a rack out of 2x4s and placed the cages on it.  The rabbits have done well and I'm looking forward to breeding them when the weather gets warmer.

I think that wraps up what happened during the hiatus.  We have lots of things planned for 2014 and my goal is to update this blog weekly with more tips, how-to's, and advice.

Stay tuned, it's going to be a great year.

Ready for More Buckwheat

I cut the buckwheat down and tilled it in.  I found out that I need to buy a mower for the tractor.  I figured I would try to cut it with the lawn mower.  It knocked the plants down but the deck kept getting clogged and it didn't chop the material as much.  So our next purchase is going to be a 60-72" 3pt mower.

The discs did a decent job of chopping the the buckwheat while incorporating it into the earth, although it took a lot of passes.  Overall, it didn't turn out too bad.

Tilled field of buckwheat

 Now we'll plant another crop of buckwheat to be cut down at the beginning of September.  That will give 6 weeks for the next batch to start to break down before we form beds and plant the garlic.

Buckwheat in Full Bloom

The buckwheat that I planted has really enjoyed the rain and hot weather.  The plants are 5 feet tall and in full bloom.  It's quite pleasant to look out the window and see a field of white flowers.  I was worried that the aroma from the flowers would be overwhelming, considering how many there are, but they are not at all.  There is a faint fresh smell around the field, but that is it.

Field of Buckwheat

The other day I went down to pick some zucchini, which I planted at the corner of the field, and was amazed at the amount of insect activity.  I didn't realize that there would be as many pollinators attracted to this field, which is only growing buckwheat as green manure for the garlic crop.  Bumblebees, what looked like two distinct types of honey bees, butterflies, and all sorts of other flower loving insects were happily feasting on the pollen of these little flowers.  We are quite pleased with the side effect of helping the local bee population. 

Bee Gathering Pollen

First Field Plowed

We have been busy the last month.  Unfortunately, our crops took a beating (at least some of the peppers and the radishes).  We had temps in the high 80s the week before Memorial Day, followed by 3 nights of frost over Memorial Day weekend.  The past week has been in the high 80s again.  The radishes did not do well with such extremes, so I harvest all of the 128 that were in the ground for 4 weeks.  We wound up with approximately 50 that were edible. All of the crops look great right now with onions waist high and everything up and ready to grow.

I finished building the cages for the rabbits and almost went and got them before I realized, all I had was the cages.  I still needed the feeders, I had to hang the cages and put in the manure system.  I received the feeders last week and will be finishing everything up this week so that we can hopefully pick up our New Zealand breeders at the end of the week.


I went to purchase a 2 bottom plow up the road, however the guy informed me that he sold them all, but he had a couple 1 bottoms and several 3 bottoms.  I decided on a 3 bottom plow, figuring I could remove on of them and have a whole set of spare parts.  Unfortunately neither of us had realized that it was a category 2 plow, not a category 1.  So I returned it and picked out a 1 bottom plow with a coulter.  Sitting right beside it was a 3pt bedder with a double set of discs on each side.  I exchanged the 3 bottom plow for the 1 bottom and the bedder.

I plowed the first field that we will plant in garlic this fall.  The total size is 100x50, giving ten 100 foot rows.  I had planned on using the bedder to make raised beds, 1 foot wide every 5 feet (the width of my tractor), but to my surprise, the bedder is adjustable out to 2 foot wide beds, essentially doubling the amount of garlic I can plant per bed.  I can't wait to start making beds and see that piece of equipment work.  The plowing went surprisingly easy.  I did have to put the tractor in 4wd but I think if I would get the tires filled with calcium, it wouldn't have been an issue.

After a couple of weeks sitting, I was getting anxious to get a set of discs to finish tilling the field so that I could get a crop or two of buckwheat before fall planting.  Before I traveled to a used tractor dealer to buy a set of discs they had listed, I decided to check craigslist.  I don't look there often and have never bought anything through the site.  I just happened to find a 6 foot Dearborn disc and a 2 bottom plow listed for $200 each.  The guy moved into a new house, was cleaning out the garage, and wanted them gone.  I offered him $300, he accepted, and I was more than happy.  I paid less for a good set of discs AND a 2 bottom plow than I had planned on paying for a set of discs.


I finally got to use the discs on the field.  Being the first field that I've ever worked with a plow and discs, my wife and I are extremely happy with the results.  I may buy a drag harrow to break things up even finer and possibly a sub soiler, but we'll see how things go.  My next purchases will likely be a seeder for planting cover crops and a used manure spreader to spread my compost on the fields.

Look for more frequent updates now that things are finally rolling along.

New Tractor

We got a new tractor, a Kubota L3200 4x4 with front loader.  It is 2x the size of our old tractor and can lift 3x the weight with the loader.  Our old tractor also had turf tires, so the R1 tires are a big plus.  The rear work lights have been really useful and have extended my hours splitting/hauling wood.  We paid extra for the 66" bucket with quick release, which allows the loader arms to use skid loader attachments.  The only downfall is that I have to rebuild my compost bins since they are built for my old bucket which was 54".

Now I just have to find a used set of disc harrows and a 3pt moldboard plow.  I should be able to get both of those at an upcoming auction.  1 step closer to commercial garlic growing.

New tractor bringing wood to the house

Coop Almost Finished

It's been a couple of weeks, but the coop is almost finished.  Between the cold evenings, busy weekends, and being sick, things just haven't got done as fast as we would like.  Anyway, here are some pictures of the coop in progress.

Tractor picking up coop

I forgot to start the coop by building it on legs, so after I got some of the walls covered and it felt sturdy, I put the forks on the tractor and picked it up.  I also wanted to make sure the tractor could pick up the coop, since I will need to move it out of the barn.
 

View of interior

The egg box is built on the side of the coop.  It is 22"x12" and the roof goes from 12" to 16", giving a 4-12 pitch.  I should have grabbed a picture before the siding went on, but if you look at the picture above, you will see that the shingles and the roof extend inside the coop a couple of inches.  I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to have any leaks, and trying to keep the cost down, this wound up working out really well.

Egg box

Now we just need some warm weather and the chickens are just about ready to head to their new home. I added a roost bar for them to hang out on since they were jumping on top of their waterer. 

I used some scrap pine from the trim of the coop.  The legs are 4 inches long, the roost is 24 inches, and the leg supports are 4 inches.  A couple of them are starting to sleep on it at night.  We are all enjoying watching the chicks grow and get their colors.  It's funny, the pecking order was established almost on day one and the light colored bird on the left of the roost has established herself as the queen bird.

A new year and new projects

We've decided to get a couple laying hens.  Our plan is to buy 3 hens that are already laying, then get 3 chicks during Chick Days at Tractor Supply to replace the older hens.  That being said, last night I started construction of the chicken coop.

After looking at dozens of plans, pre-built coops, and kits, I decided to design my own.  Our coop is 4'x4' with a roof that goes from 5'4" to 4' (16 inches of drop in 4 feet = 4-12 pitch).  The coop will be raised off the ground 16 inches on 4x4 stilts, allowing the chickens to have that 16 sq.ft. of shade as part of the run.  The whole run will be approximately 20x5 or 100 sq.ft.  The laying boxes will stick out from the main coop for easy external access.  That will also allow my wife & kids to harvest the eggs without having to enter the run or the coop.

Last night I got the floor done, the short wall and high wall, and the rafters on.  Tonight my goal is to have all of the framing done and ready for sides.  Our goal is to be ready to pick up our hens and rabbits in 2 weeks and the pigs shortly after.  So with so many new projects, hens, rabbits, pigs, commercial garlic growing, it should be a more exciting blog this year.

Buying Bulk Garlic

I've been trying to find suppliers to buy bulk garlic.  I never thought it would be so hard to order 600 pounds of garlic (125 pounds of 5 different varieties).  So far, every supplier I've contacted already has their bulbs reserved.  The sad part is I actually scaled down from 1 acre of planting to 1/2 acre in hopes of being able to procure enough to be able to sell some and keep enough to plant 1 acre next year.

My plan for the garlic crop is to plant 25 rows 220 feet long, which comes out to approximately 1/2 acre.  Each row is actually a 12 inch wide raised bed that I will plant 2 rows of garlic in, spaced 8 inches apart.  The garlic will be spaced 4 inches apart in each row.  That will give me 1320 plants per bed, for a total of 33,000 heads of garlic.  This would give me approximately 4,000 pounds of garlic for next year, allowing me to sell 3,000 pounds and keep 1,000 pounds to plant.

Now I just have to hope to find a supplier to make this a reality.

Full-time Farming

I've been thinking about it on and off for months, but recently I can't stop thinking about full-time farming.  I'm not really interested in animals, at least not with my regular full time job, but would really like to grow vegetables.  Actually, not vegetables, just one vegetable, garlic.  After doing a lot of research into costs, yields, market prices, and markets, I think in this area I can expect a net income of $4/pound with a yield of 7000 - 10,000 pounds per acre.  The cost for the seed for 1 acre is around $2500 - $5000.  After adding in the cost of diesel, a used set of disc harrows, and hay for mulch, my expected profit is around $23,000 - $32,500/acre.  There are other costs yet to figure in, like transportation to/from the farm, etc., but there is still a lot of profit to be made.

I'm looking at 7 acres of land about 20 miles from here.  The goal would be to work up to 2 acre plots of garlic with a 2 year rotation before planting any one field again and planting nitrogen rich cover crops in the off years.  With a potential profit of $50,000 - $60,000 a year from 2 acres, I could soon be down the path of becoming a full-time farmer.  I would also like to put in some berry plants to add some additional income or even put some of the profits into a small orchard.

The beef farmer down the road sells to a couple of large restaurants in Pittsburgh, so I am going to talk with him about potentially getting my garlic into the same restaurants and thus cutting each of our shipping costs since we could ship in the same truck.  Besides selling to restaurants, we would sell at a couple of the farmers markets in the area and since our homestead is along a highway, we would put up a sign and sell out of the barn.

I am working on the business plan and financial breakdown for the first 3 years of operation.  If it all works out and I can grow garlic while still working my regular job for another couple of years, we could have our house + farm paid off in 2 years.  Then there is no reason not to be a full time farmer.

Compost

For some reason, I've always been infatuated with compost.  The idea of taking plant material, piling it up, and it turns into dirt has amazed me from the time I was a kid until now.  I remember gathering grass clippings as a kid, shredding them, and turning them weekly, always in shock at the heat generated in the middle of the pile.  On our 4 acre homestead, I have 3 compost bins that are 5x5x4.  That is big enough for me to turn the compost with my front loader and to hold all of the compost we have.  We moved onto an old pony farm and the barn hadn't been cleaned out for several years.  I still have a large 40x10 stall clean out and put into the bins (which will require me to build a 4th bin).

Anyway, compost has been on my mind.  Yesterday I cleaned out 1/2 of my boxes from last year, taking the old, dry plants to the bins and layering with loads of manure from the barn.  I don't own a chipper/shredder yet, mainly because new ones cost way too much, so I'm waiting to find one at an auction.

With the rainy season in Western PA upon us, this is the perfect time to get the new compost working and by layering the dry material with the manure and sawdust from the barn, it should all break down nicely by summer.  I have 100 cu. ft. of compost ready to go for the year, so this new batch can work for an entire year before being put into use.  Frankly, I like the longer wait time as it allows the seeds to break down and there aren't as many weeds when it is used. Once we get our rabbits, their manure will contribute to the compost and by next year I'll have 100 cu.ft. of black gold.

For anyone that is getting into gardening, I can't emphasize enough the benefit of composting.  You are going to have vegetables that are unusable, grass clippings, leaves, kitchen waste, and your spent plants.  Rather than throw all of that out, start a compost bin and turn that into nutrients for your garden next year.  The results from that black gold far surpasses what I've ever gotten from dirt + fertilizer.  As a matter of fact, last year I had 6 foot high pepper plants and more than enough produce without using any fertilizer at all.

Happy composting.