Chicken Poop in my Mouth! Moving Chickens across Farm & Planting Fruit Trees

Oh my gosh, Winnie, you're a mess! Did you do that? No. Okay, come on, Winnie. The rain doesn't stop you from going hunting, huh? Whoa, it just stopped raining. Has been raining all night, so it ruined our garden plans for today. It is good for our rye cover crop we just planted in this plot. These chickens have been cooped up last night. We're gonna take them to the compost pile. Come in, go ahead, go in. Hey, hey, hey, boys! Stop! Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Can you do it? Wait, let's secure their boxes. How many chickens are in there? Is that mini me? Hey, don't let them out though until I get with you, okay? I want to see how many chickens are in there. It's rated for 24 chickens. You guys can build that, get the plans for that at homesteadbuilds.com. Get my book. I think there's— you want to guess, Junior? This one might even be lighter. I think there's less than the chickshaw right now. I've we did it to 24. That gives you like that much space per chicken. Happy day! Thanks for joining us. We got a big day despite being rained out of our garden project. We're gonna go see a prospect horse for Lily. She's learned recently that she cannot even ride Blaze. She's too big for him. He's not really a breed that is made for, uh, having a saddle on him, so particularly for a bigger girl like him. Well, she has actually found a special saddle, but still, she's too big. But that might enable you or Henry to ride. Okay, you got that? I'm proud of you, man. Good job. Okay, you got it, you got it. Don't let it run over you as you go downhill. It'll start pushing you. Just gonna let the geese free for a minute. We'll catch them later. How easily I'm moving— probably 30 birds in there. I'm moving 30 birds with one hand. The advantage of these chick shawls are that Well, you can have a coop and a high tunnel. Just move them, just shut them up at night and just move them out the next day. It's warm enough and we need to start preparing our garden bed. Watch, watch, move the other way. 1, 31, 32, 37, 38.

Oh, what?

I got chicken poop in my mouth. 39. I gotta go, I gotta wash this out. I'll get so sick. They were getting out of the coop and I was watching them and somehow it swung up on it in me. Now my mouth's full. This is the Chickshaw 5.0. Plans also at Homestead Build. Look at this, just as casual as ever. That chicken acting like he's always been out. Let's move this, um, Mini-Me so we can get the Chickshaw right in here. No, two-wheel drive Chickshaw, uneven ground, doesn't matter.

I guess he's 20 in that one.

Really? Yeah, I'm going to say 30 in that one. This one's officially rated to 36. This Chickshaw might be lighter. That's chicken. This is a lesson, chickies, that, you know, given the choice They had the choice. They decided— they decided to crowd up. The rating is also not so much about how many chickens can be comfortable in a shawl. It's more about how much can these flat-free Northern Tool wheels hold. Put double wheels on this. Yeah, and maybe frame out and give it more strength. And somebody could probably put 60 birds in this 20, 20, 21, 28. Yep. Okay, 46 in the Mini-Me, 28 in the Chickshaw. Actually, I just realized in these YouTube videos, my Homestead Book is like right down there. Like, it's— we can have a shop underneath our videos now. It's down there. Well, we got to put up the poultry net before more people get out. Look, there's another one out there. Get in, let's go.

I don't want to catch that fish.

Why? Which one is not mean?

Both of them are.

Oh, I thought you were gonna catch them. You were gonna hurt them.

Yeah.

Oh, here they are. Henry, go, go! Get out of the way, Henry!

They don't hurt very good.

They're great. They stick together. They respond to your directive. Chickens, well, they're more crazy. Look, how'd they know they were over here? You have to buy 2 geese when you get geese, but most people only have 1 flock. So it's a problem. You either have to eat, eat one of the geese when they're 16 weeks old or sell it or give it away. Not a whole lot of people looking for a goose. So I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say it'd be okay to raise two. These guys have been very—

they're kind of mean to people.

Yeah, they're— they've been almost too aggressive with people sometimes, so they're protecting— hold on, we got a special announcement. We interrupt our program to bring you this important message.

And then yeah, I'll be back in the truck and then drive away.

Okay, whatever he said. Hey Gideon, let's go get our poultry net real quick. Okay, so I'm happy and we've got a new discovery. Guard geese bond with the chickens even if there's two guard geese.

Yeah, I know.

And they still protect them even if there's two. So that opens up possibilities. You come over here, we'll put a fence in your Jeep. First step was getting the chickens out. Out of their little cage fight. The second step is security. Everybody wants to eat a chicken, so we got to keep them in because we're trying to beat everybody to eating that chicken. Or more, more likely, actually, the chickens are going to get out and just crap on sidewalks. Austin, I just realized I walked out of frame. I don't know if people could hear me or not. If, if you, if you can hear me Or you can, editor, put in subtitles so they can hear me better. Okay, play that now. Stir mulch, we don't want to be stirred. I'll try to do better next time. Oh, let's get the spikes up. Hey, come here! I've been excited to see you, my man. All right, let's walk around and get the spikes out of the ground. Nobody got out, did you notice that?

Yeah. Can I keep this ad because I found it?

Yeah, you can. No better way to teach a kid egg's fragility, then just let them find it out themselves. Wants to play with it? Let him play with it. All right, don't hit Henry, he's right behind you. All right, more spikes, more spikes. Did you break the egg? Well, why are you crying? Oh, he's patting it. He's patting it. We let him fail. You treat that egg like it's my grandbaby, okay? Going back in the pocket. How long do you give it? How long do you give it? I don't know if that's being too diligent, but I'm gonna work to save these 5 little spikes. 5 little spikes less I have to buy. Good job! Do this one now. Let him do this one. Get just high. You got it, you got it! Keep pulling, keep pulling. Oh, there you go! How'd you get up there?

A clutch. It's a real life in there.

Yeah, whatever you say, bud. Get in, chase those chickens in while they're right there. The idea here is it's a sheep net. The sheep were able to come out in here for some minerals. We're gonna have to move their minerals. If you want me to finish that, you could go get the track loader to get the minerals out of there. Now we're putting the— yeah, we're We're putting the, um, pulking net around the sheep head so we can get the sheep head out. Let's use this machine to get the old, the mineral shaw out of here. It's cows and sheep for a reason. It's got a way you can pull it, but we pulled it in there so it's on that other side. It's a little design fault from them. They, they didn't make a pool on both sides. This is going to be very annoying filming right here. Stop! Can you stop? We're vlogging here. Pull up the Shaytards intro. We're vlogging here. Hey, I'm vlogging here! We get these sheep to shut up if I give them another bale hay. Hour and 45 minutes to quit. I was gonna plant trees today, but we got to do this. We're gonna set this up right. You want to get the sheet net up? I say that because let me get the weeds out from under it before we go securing it real nice. Perfect. Right now it just rained and it's spring. Oh my gosh, that's freezing. Wild strawberries growing right there. Yes sir, we got all the greens off the fence. I need to secure the corners. Oh, here we go, right where we like to keep it. Need the pounder and some T-posts and some hay string. Please come help us or we're not gonna be able to leave in time for your horse. Oh, it's Let's do this. Josiah, you get our T— our FiberTuff posts, and in between, where anywhere it's sagging, particularly on that side, let's put a FiberTuff post to lift it up. Meanwhile, Lily and I are doing this. We're securing the corners, putting T-posts in and then tying the corners to it. You do not have to do this. Regular old poultry netting. If you're moving them every day, every week, even every 2 weeks, I wouldn't do this. But this is going to be there. We're going to have chickens on this all season making compost. Now we're going around putting garden spikes in the bottom. The bottom strand is unelectrified. It can be pinned down to the ground. That's where the chickens are going to get out for most times. Climbing under. They aren't quite a corner. A little FiberTuff post in these semi-corners. FiberTuff where I had any sag either. Had sag, but now we have it lifted off the ground. They won't crawl under it. Garden spikes in, T-posts on the corner, uh, FiberTufts throughout. Energizer set up. Water incoming. Hey, where you going with that? We need that. We need those blocks. Those blocks go right here. That— those blocks come up to the chickens. Once it stops freezing at night, we're gonna hook this up and let it be an auto feeder— an auto waterer. Water incoming. All right, grab a couple of spade shovels. 6 trees are very little, 2 are quite large. We got about an hour. I don't know, that's probably a good impossible That's the simple goal. Plant 8 trees in 1 hour. Let's do it. I would like to take advantage of this rainy day. Things are, you know, the ground's workable and we can't do the garden work. If we get that over with today, we'll have all that pressure behind us and we can just start, uh, go into the garden work hardcore tomorrow. The last day of the week. Park vlogging weekends Thursday.

No, it's Wednesday.

I know, so that makes tomorrow the last day. Okay, let's go see. Let's go pick up our trees. You guys go pick up our trees. There's one right there. Let Josiah drive. So there's a box on the porch. There's a tree beside the porch, and then there's a tree right here. Let's get this one first. This one a friend sent us in honor of Grandma. It's a maple tree. I got a hole in my heart for Grandma. Big Daddy had her phone last night at dinner and it was like, oh, I think she's the close— I've lost my dad, which is probably somebody I've loved the most that I've lost. Losing Grandma, who I also loved, was it— she was daily in our lives, so I'd say Grandma was the closest person I've lost yet. I think Jonah's putting seed down on our access road. Am I seeing this right? What, are you putting seed down on our access road? Oh, on the edges. Oh, okay, I fixed it. There was gravel going— Excellent! Show me what you've done. Give me a tour. I took all the gravel out of here. Heck yes! Did Mom see you doing that? No, I don't think she did. Hey Mom, did you see what he did here? I fixed it back to grass. Okay, so you planted grass in this? Did you plant our fescue here? That's what you plant on this area. Good, you found it. Road was too wide with the gravel, such as— push the gravel back. Okay, it looks good. We need to have little exits for water. This looks great, man. You want to go plant trees with us? I gotta finish this. Okay. I need to shower for sure. I sweated. Is that what that smell is?

No, this is my Hi, sweetie.

He's upset. He don't want to talk. Let's go. I'm waiting on you. You're waiting on me? Yeah. It's a miracle. You know how we have only one tree planted in this lower section? We need to add another one, and this is in the frost pocket, so that's just gonna be a good place for this maple. This will be the hardest tree. Okay, so let's do it first. That's gonna be a heck of a hole halfway between that tree and that locust. Grandma wouldn't have it any other way. We're gonna put her to work. Not only is she gonna be a beautiful tree, especially in the fall, the bright leaves changing, she's gonna be a rub for the cows. She's gonna be shade. She's gonna be a fly trap. Birds and spiders live in trees, catch the flies. You guys drive up to the trees, I'll meet you. We'll figure out which ones are dead. Let's go. These two are alive. I can tell by looking at them. That one looks alive. This one looks like it might be dead. The way you tell, you scratch the bark. Nope, it's alive. It's green.

What if it's black?

The bark's a little supple, it's alive. It's green underneath. If it's dry and brown, brittle And hard. It's dead. That's good. Try to put its soil back in first, get used to that shock. You can almost hear the dryness as you scrape it. Yeah, brittle it is. Yeah, it's dead. All right, we got a dead one. This is fun. We prefer bare root. I've heard that with bare root it's gonna adapt to the new soil better with those With the other ones, it's in a soil it's used to. It has to adapt to the other soil. I mean, am I right? Is that what it is? I'm not much of a fruitician. All right, well, that's neat. That's neat. And they're— they're— bare root are super easy to plant, probably 10 times cheaper than a— one of those big trees. If you lose 10% the first few years getting them established, you're still saving money. Okay, what do we got?

I checked the bamboo one.

Oh, don't check the bamboo, it's just holding it up. Is the other one good? It's good.

Yeah, it's good.

All right, you check the bamboo, which is the support stick. That is a doornail, isn't it? That looks dead as a doornail. Here you go. No, I don't want to go in there. That Lily gets with it. I'm telling you, Lily, you're a find. My princess equestrian digs for a fruit tree, grabs it and growls, cooks the meal. Are you getting tired of holding the brake over there?

Yeah, that's good.

Dead or alive?

Let me see.

It's alive.

Oh, it's dead.

How do you know? No, it's alive. Get the dead one. Yeah, it looks dead. How many trees we got left? 4, 4, 5, 3 trees. Okay, let's go to the other end. I know there's some down there. This is just so pleasurable out here working with the kids. This nice day, I was telling them what Joel told me. He's got a memory of his dad on every, every spot on this farm. And I told these kids that because this is special, you know. We're out here. I've taught them today how to, how to test a tree if it's alive. I mean, these are just critical skills. And now they're learning how to plant trees, and they'll have memories here. And I've already tested them. Do you guys have any memories? And Lily's like, I remember that time over at the pond we flipped the, the blue tub and you thought we were drowning. You jumped in. And then I remember a time where, uh, Sally's parking brake gave out and rolled down the hill and crashed into the bank down there. And I'm thinking, why do we remember these crazy times? These bad things. That one alive? Yeah, I think we're gonna get fruit. I think this is fruit. You like this job, huh?

Yeah.

Found a dead one. Let's check this upper strip. Run along the, the contour, bud. Good, good.

I checked all those trees.

Go that way.

No, I already checked them.

You did?

Remember?

Well, hold on, we got one more tree then. You check these way up here. You don't need to check that big one, that's a locust. That one looks dead right there. Get in. I think we do have one extra because I didn't account for that, the, the one that was in the pot. All right, there we go, we got one for it. So how many years has it been since we planted our fruit tree? We planted that orchard way over there in the mountain board course. Those trees don't seem to be doing well. They're doing well, better over here. We haven't had any fruit from those. We've had fruit from our persimmons in the front yard, which I think we planted even before the Great American Farm Tour in 2017. I think we have some buds on this. Is that buds or is that just new branches? We're gonna get fruit. I don't know, we're gonna preserve the crap out of it.

Fresh treat.

Yeah, so good. So good. I'm gonna preserve the crap out of it and use it as a sweetener in my yogurt.

You don't have to go to the store and buy it. We can just walk out.

Exactly. I like it. Here, we didn't bring a shovel.

No, we did not.

You might be able to do it by hand. You'll be able to do it by hand, Josie. Thank you though. Wood chip testimony right here. He's digging this hole by hand because these wood chips And the second time we wood chip— last year we wood chipped them for the first time. Um, we won't have to do it as intensely this time. Won't take as many because it's already killed the grass around it. We're just wanting to make sure we keep it at bay. And this is an Italian plum. Can you even buy that in this? You can't even buy those in the store. Well, let's hope it makes it.

I hope it does too. Well, it's fresh.

Feels incredible to have gotten that out of the way. Before things start growing. I mean, I noticed some of those fruit trees were budding, so that was just in time. That won't be weighing on me when we go do this garden project tomorrow. What are you looking for? Yeah, washers. Figure out a net? No, to decide where I want to hang it. Okay, they got their basketball net going. I love it, I love it. All right, you make the bottom of it a little tighter than the top, and that way it slows the ball down. Y'all know I used to play b-ball in the junior— junior high and high school. Played a lot.

Ping pong, you played a lot.

What didn't you do? You learn something new every day. I never swam on the swim team.

I swam.

Really? Yeah. Don't be burping.

It was a swim I never played tennis. I played tennis.

Okay, well, I'll go. I did play baseball.

Baseball?

You played baseball? Yeah, literally. And I was in Boy Scouts. A rebar fence post rim tomato trellis to a trail— a plastic trellis net. You might be a homestead kid. Yes. Or A builder. Tell me you're a Homestead kid without telling me you're a Homestead kid. You know, they call it basketball, so I guess they first started out just using a basket. They're a bunch of farm kids like y'all. Somebody shoot it in. Yeah, she's ready. Ready to go look at that horse. But we just got word it's too muddy over there. They canceled. We're shooting for tomorrow. Yes. You getting enough beef? End of day?

I don't know.

Animal protein. Too bad they didn't say you have to eat so much greens. You have no problem there. You know, it's funny, I would do the absolute opposite. Well, there's no more meat. What I'm saying is you actually like vegetables. I know you actually like it. I'm trying to get inside that head. They taste good to me. I'm sorry, broccoli's— don't be sad. You're sorry? I'll be sorry. Broccoli's okay. What would you get on your plate most The rice?

No, no beans.

Uh, I like beans. It's on, it's official. We're going to kickstart my next book March 23rd. I just spent office hours planning that launch. I want you guys to get on the waiting list. And for getting— that's terrible lighting— for getting on the wait list I just finalized. I'm calling it the Chicken Tenders Playbook. It only ended up— it's probably gonna end up being, I don't know, 5 pages of what to do for raising chickens, from how many to get to them arriving as chicks, raising them all the way to 2 and a half years. So it's done. Like, technically, this is— could be all you need for raising chickens. I'm giving this a away. When you join the waitlist and get on my email list, it's yours. But this will be nice. I just sent this off to my assistant Amanda, and it'll be a nice PDF. That's where it begins. I'm going to leave the link in the description for this.

I have to pee.

Well then, let's go pee. Look at this amazing supper Lily has slapped together. What would I do without her? Everybody can be thankful for Lily cuz she made this fried cabbage. We're going to put our Asian ground beef. You kids have rice? Super easy meal. Just cooked ground beef. How long did it take you? 25 minutes?

35 minutes.

Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of mess. Easy cleanup. Henry, how did your egg make it here?

My egg?

I am shocked that made it. Did you see him come in with it? No, he told me he had it in his pocket. Really? That for sure, that was your indifference. That's funny. That's why you never correct kids. I mean, it might work out, right? We don't want to bring Bree a dream crusher.

Well, once I had an egg in my pocket.

And if it didn't work out, you'd learn. Yeah, what happened when you put an egg in your pocket?

First egg of the year, I put it in my pocket and I ran to the house to show Mama. Yeah, this is when I was like 5, and I reached in my pocket to make sure it was okay, and it came out, it was all gooey.

Oh boy, oh boy. How did that egg make it up here? Did you think it was gonna make it? No. Henry, how did that make it up here? Did you take it out of your pocket?

Yeah, and then I need a name.

Henry wrote the name on it. Henry wrote it. I added a couple of fried eggs for variety. All right, tomorrow we gardening. We're getting that gardening done. Tomorrow we accomplished the impossible today by planting 8 trees in 1 hour. And go see Scarlet tomorrow. Possible horse for you. Link in the description for the game plan for raising chickens. Happy day, y'all.