My 24 Chickens will Flip this Garden in no Time

I can't believe it's like January 15th already. Time to get the gardens cranking. Gotta get— gotta think in management. I mean, we're gonna be starting seeds pretty soon in the greenhouse. They're gonna need somewhere to grow when they grow up, and that's gonna be it. We have to have time to get these chickens up there to work in the greens, fertilize it a little bit, till it a little bit, and then get them out and cover it in silage tarp to get the rest of the greenage. Because look, chickens will work it, especially that amount of chickens, but they're not gonna completely decimate it. And you don't necessarily want them to either, especially if you have raised beds established. We don't want them to tear up the raised beds. So it's going to be a special timing game. I'm doing good from after the surgery, actually felt a lot better Yesterday, so the fourth day was the, the breaking point. It's still sore, it's still swollen, but that's to be expected. Let's go move these icies onto the garden. Good morning. Oh, will you guys do Lily's chores? She's feeling under the weather. I think we should get some hay in case the chickens need it. Did you guys give a hay to the Luchador?

Nope, Jonah said they don't need it.

All right, take that hay out there to them, please. I don't think we need that big flake. This is just in case they need some bedding. Why not get some stuff that's just gonna waste on the ground?

Lots and lots of skin.

We're moving the ICs from down in the crop garden So right up here, yesterday we put down lots of material— composted leaf mulch and cow bedding. That's a chicken's delight. Okay, I actually want to bring the pigs in here because this is a garden bed that we actually want to convert back to pasture. We figure it's harder to source clean meat. Let's focus on growing our meat. This is— there's a lot of garden beds still. We're gonna have 1, 2, 3, 4— 4 1,200 square foot garden beds plus Haroon's garden plus the kitchen garden. 5,000 square feet of garden. Yeah, that's plenty for us. Turn this into pasture. Let's see if the pigs can help us level our raised beds, our established raised beds. But for now Let's get these chickens on a different garden job. Good morning, Joyful!

Good morning!

You're awful joyful this morning, living up to your namesake. Josiah and Grace, please take this Henry and fill that water up. You might want to take Henry, it's gonna be heavy. Unfortunately, we didn't make it. It's not too far. We're gonna have to grab the other one and do some major overlapping. We got the net up. Oh, let's open this up. This is the fun part.

Dude, what are you doing?

We're gonna put— the kids brought the pallet, probably move this a couple times.

Throughout.

They scratch, scratch, they have to jump up here and they can't scratch around this.

And a lot of their dirt falls off too when they lay on this top.

All right, you guys ready for the fun part?

No.

Noes and yeses. Nobody wants to have any fun.

Victor's been hauling pallets.

All right, that looks like a guy on a mission. Hey, you ready to be milked? Yeah, it's about that time. She knows it's 8 o'clock. It's 8 o'clock, it's normally when we milk them. This is the handy dandy chick shaw, totally mobile. Chickens are now—

pick them up.

So I'm gonna put these guys in the corner here. I don't know how long it'll take them in here, probably just a few days. But every night they drop half their manure load, so every day let's move their poop to a different spot. Cradling the bed.

All right, look, already—

well, we haven't given them any food. What do you guys like? Do you like the greens? I bet you'll find the cow poop and sift through that.

What do you like?

Just checking it out, new place. These chickens will help us in here in no time. Look, this one's going after weeds. Oh, this one's grabbing our old, uh, collards. Thank you. Look at you guys. Buenos días. Start— good morning. Put this on the bed. Jenna's getting the cows in. I think it's at the critical moment. You guys are doing great. They're stealing all the milk, all the calves. Oh, that's okay. Just don't get yourself hurt. That's all that matters. They can get a little— oh, she is getting— he is getting the milk mucho. Let's get her out of the way. You got her collar? Yeah, good. Little guy, we don't have a collar on him yet. Where does he need to go? Right there, actually. Give him a, uh, a scoop of alfalfa, please. Now put that gate up so he doesn't come in. And anything over here, you could, just because the kids are about. We don't want him just walking off. You guys want to walk him for a little bit? No, you're over it? Okay, Miss Thing, Brianna's milking you a little bit. You missed That, or are you guys in milk right now?

We're in milk, but we haven't been milking consistently. But we just got a fridge down to the barn, so we'll probably start milking again now.

Okay, you like it?

I love milking.

Yeah, what do you like about it?

Uh, well, I like the closeness with the animal mostly, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

So with yours, you can't put your head on this.

I know. So if you— if it's up to you, you'd raise that bar, huh?

Oh yeah, it's so much easier. You can get closer to your animal too. It makes it easier to milk.

Yeah, Hamburger, it's, it's, it's your bad day coming up, buddy. While Art's here, he's gonna see— he's taught me how to castrate, but he's always done it, so this time I'm gonna do it and he's gonna supervise. Experienced milker. It's nice I can leave for a second. I'm gonna finish up here. Kind of had to hurry because the cows were getting in. We need to secure these corners. Come on, Stein, doing all right? Everybody seems really happy. You know they're happy when they're not all over the food and they're exploring. So this corner, see how that's leaning in? Well, let's tie it to this post. All right, it's all you guys. I got all 4 posts up. Let's go back to milk. How's it going here? Pretty good. All right, we got Flossy milked. Not as much as yesterday, a little less than 2 gallons. That's okay. I'm gonna see if we have stuff for this castration. I think we do. It's supposed to be—

is this it?

No. There's things. There it is. I've had one guy say you pull the testicles down. So where are they? Oh, let me, um, okay, you got that, Arthur?

Are you gonna do it?

No, I'm gonna do it. You can go ahead and you can just cut the bottom and screw them off. Yeah, now just pull them out. Yep, pull them out. Take it one at a time and basically work them. You can work them down, work them down, work them down. You'll feel like the string will get longer and longer and longer. This calf is stronger than I am. Is that good? Yeah. I don't know if he's okay.

It's fine.

I don't see his eyeballs.

All right, let's, uh, let's get this one out of the way.

So you just need your stick. Cows do anything for a stick.

I know, right?

He's gonna be on one stick and we'll put—

I know, you don't even have to touch him with it. Oh, that was my first time ever doing that. I hate that. Arts quicker, but I've got to learn how to do it. I'm sorry, buddy. Kids are watching the two lady astronauts work on the space station live on YouTube. That's kind of fun. All right, I'm gonna get to editing. Butter update here. This is still from yesterday. You gonna make use of that still?

Yeah, I'm gonna put it in my mixer and mix it up.

Okay, so this is mixture stuff.

This This is the mixer, but it's real. It's— you just put, you just put the cultured cream in the mixer and turn it on. Oh my gosh, it's not hard.

Why do the blender? Why'd you do the blender? Okay, so this is all that. Then, then there it is. And you— oh yay, you got little— you got a little—

I got a little mold so that mold that we're used to using. Yes, that will make it easier to get the butter out.

And it's not just a big clump. And then that— and then what, just put it in the fridge?

And then I'll put it in the freezer to freeze it, and then I'll pop them out, and then I'll wrap them.

All this exciting stuff going down while I'm back here editing. She called me here. This has been in the freezer how long?

30 minutes maybe.

Oh wow, it didn't take very long. What are you gonna do with it now?

I'm gonna wrap it into a mold, into a plastic wrap.

Oh.

Then I'll put it in the freezer and then I'll use this. I'll put this butter with this.

Yeah.

And then I'll put that in here. And freeze it and then—

We actually ended up vacuum sealing each package and it came out really nice.

Are you gonna sell it?

No, we're gonna eat it. Oh. Is this the buttermilk in here, babe?

It is.

What do you do with the buttermilk?

Um, well, you can save it or— You know what?

Yeah?

Maybe I'll just put it in a bag and then we'll just pull them out.

The buttermilks?

No, the, um, I don't have any plastic wrap.

Could we freeze them on a tray, food tray, and then put them all together in something?

Yeah, and then, oh, and, or in just like a container.

So you're not having to wrap every single one? Yeah. I've been knocking out the vlog. Rebecca's rinsing the butter. You guys want to see what that's like? By the way, If you guys are wondering why there's a strange man outside our window, they're working on gutters. So what happens if you don't get all the moisture out of the buttermilk?

Um, well, it just goes bad fast.

It couldn't sit on your counter for sure.

No.

So you run water on it?

Yeah.

What are you doing, squeezing it until you get no more?

Yeah.

Completely clear water?

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of hard to see, so I just kind of guess at it.

How you like it, Rebecca?

Looks good.

What kind of work have they done this afternoon?

Eating kale.

Yeah, they've munched down that kale. They've eaten all their— I put food on this. Do I see any food left? Nope, they got it all. There's still some on the greens. It's going to take them no time, less than a week. Your sheep are fat and happy right now, Mom. We got our net up. Let's open it up. This is the best part. Let's get this old net away from the Shaw. Mom's coming with some minerals. Decide, you and I and Grace will pick up the old net. Got a little diarrhea there, Beck?

Yeah.

Well, they're all picking out on your water and minerals refreshment. All right, well, we've gotta move the pigs this afternoon, but given the diarrhea of the sheep, that one sheep, we're gonna do a little bit of a treatment just to be safe. And then, uh, maybe give— while we're at it, give Hamburger another spray of iodine because we You hold it like this. All right. Okay, they got in there.

Yeah, they did.

Homeopathy for the herd. What's your big idea to catching one of the sheep?

Well, I'm hoping that she'll come to me.

A shepherd's crook would be nice. There she is.

I'm gonna go get some fresh hay.

My plan is going to be to try to get her to go back to the minerals area and see Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep!

Got her head?

We do. Let me get up on her butt.

I wish Baby would just let us hug him like this. Won't you let us hug you like this? One day. Man, honestly, that went easier than I thought. This hay training has been paying off. We can catch him in the field, Becky. You get there so you can't go down the fence line.

Oh, it's okay.

You're a good mama. You're a good mama. We're not gonna hurt her. This is not on, so she'll figure that out. We're in trouble. We got run roughly 1 hour to get these pigs out. You want to do it?

Yep.

All right. Oh boy, it would be buried in the very back corner. We need to get the mobile pig shelter out for them. It's buried behind the micro shaw, the forklifts, turkey shaw, and the tractor.

I backed it up. Jonah's hooking it up now.

I only need to do one. Just gonna do a little bit of that area at a time. Okay, you got that? Okay, it's a good— that's a good feature at Earth's Gym there, honey. The shelter pool. The fence tester, please. Let's see if we've got power out here.

11.2.

So it's ready to go.

Looks like it, because kind of tangled there, Mr. Rhodes.

See, like, what the heck? You're storing that and it gets all the hit. It'd be one, one of those, or two? That's too much if I go two. Look how big that is.

Yeah, it'd have to be one fence from Premier One that Justin has twisted. That's normally not what you do, folks.

We're gonna funnel the pigs. I mean, we have this extra rope, why not? Instead of them just going way crazy over here, you know, just give them a little bit of a wall. So if we get them this far, we're pretty good. Rebecca and I both realized we have not trained them to a net. Boy, I guess we're either getting confident with our pig skills or Stupid. Time will tell. Okay, there we go. A little tiny spot for them. How much skim's in there? You want to really spoil them? All right, let's add some grain to that and they can't resist it. What's going on? Uh, mud. One of these, the kids— the kid had busted open, so here, there it is. Let's go with that.

Is that how much?

No, just keep going. Put some in there. Put 2 or 3 of those scoops. I want to be— yeah, get one more scoop. I think they're just gonna go run, so I'm gonna try to lead them with this grain. Arthur will grab a pig board. They're gonna run all over the place, but you are gonna kind of chase them back to me, okay? Yeah, he's not so sure. Okay, hold on. Arthur said we could carry him, and I guess we could, but I think it'd be less stressful if we don't. But I hope I don't regret that when they're Just running crazy over this place. Okay, Becky says it'll be fine. Just don't panic, whatever you do. All right, ready?

Let's go.

No, wait a minute.

Hey, sausage! Bacon!

I didn't—

isn't that bacon?

Bacon's a little bit crazy, but it's a little loud.

It's okay.

Here, get a little taste.

Just getting a little exercise. They're little puppy dogs, just going right where I want them to go. That one don't even care, going right to the shelter.

Here we go.

9.5. 9.5. Okay, you might not even be on a real hot wire either. Okay, they seem happy. I gave them way too much feed, which is good because they'll be so full they're not gonna likely to be wanting to get out of here. Look, they're exploring, eating some greens. Touch that fence. Good chance they were in a net.

She's going like right up to it.

Yeah, she's not touching it. She knows she's after that chicken. It's where you're supposed to be, in the fresh air, sunshine, rain, dirty tilling. You're going to be no time in here, aren't you guys? Going to turn our raised— that help us level out our raised beds and turn previous garden back into pasture. And I just missed it. She did come put her nose on that. She screamed and she backed up. I don't know who screamed louder, the piglet or the mamas.