Coop Swap!!

We've recently swapped coops!  Here is what our old chicken coop looked like, we used five gallon buckets as the laying nests for convenience and ease of cleaning. The chickens seemed to like them too!

You can see the wall on the back of the coop was painted by Martha, trying to use up some old house paints. I think that the chickens enjoyed the murals, maybe we can do it again in the new space this spring!

However, our flock has grown and we are anticipating it continuing to grow during this summer. So, we've re-worked our horse stalls as part of the overall barn remodel to become the new coop for our laying hens, turkeys, and guinea hen. You can see the direct access that the birds have outside through the small doors in the barn wall. We close these up every night to keep them safe from outside predators.

You can see some different nesting boxes on the walls in this picture. We still used the five gallon buckets for other nesting boxes and those are located along the opposite wall to these boxes.

 The new coop is four times the size of the old one which really gives the birds some more room to move around. We tried to make the transition between coops as low stress as possible, but unfortunately right after the initial swap, our egg production dropped down to a mere few eggs a day.  We were worried about this drop and started trying to figure out how to increase the egg production in other ways. Luckily all that the chickens seemed to need was time. After having two or three weeks to become accustomed to the new space, the eggs are booming! We get about two and a half to three dozen fresh eggs a day!

Here are the chickens enjoying their new space!

You Have to Start Somewhere

Cair Paravel Enterprises is not a new idea, years ago (I'm sure I'll be told the exact date later) we operated selling chicken eggs...and other products? I honestly cannot remember, being the little tyke that I was, however I remember milking goats, shearing sheep, eating lamb and chicken from the farm, picking and canning, canning CANNING.

Here we are again.

Right now our production is limited to what we can spare, which is mostly eggs. The layers are contributing about 1.5 dozen a day, with a miscellany of yoke and shell issues. (Yesterday mom made pasta with a double-yolk egg and one of the hens laid a membrane-wrapped egg white. No shell. No yolk.) Eventually we hope to have fresh produce not only for ourselves* but for those interested in sustainable, organic (abet uncertified), oft-heirloom and above all DELICIOUS offerings-of-the-garden. I'm still trying to convince The Managers (ne Parents) to get milk goats or a heritage breed of cow for milk and meat. Dad (or Whitt, or Chef Ledford) will have some beautiful woodwork to offer after the summer work season, and hopefully will be able to offer some cooking classes in the near future. The sisters plan to eventually sell their products: artwork, clever crafts, and essential tools of life....


But for now, we're eggs and apartment rentals. For the record, the chickens incontrovertibly came first here.

- Lil

*78 quart jars of whole Romas have been canned
I forget how many jars of sauce, sauerkraut, dillybeans
endless bags of green beans are in the freezer, nestling with peaches
Heirloom tomatoes are being dried and frozen, apples too
We have enough pesto to float a pasta battleship.