This Chicken Trick Changes EVERYTHING

Hey, see if you can count how many are in there. I meant to count them before you let them out. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13-ish. Yeah, so you think there's 15, I think there's 13. Let's just say there's 14. How many of them are Grandma's?

I don't know, 5, 6, probably 5.

Let's say— let's give her 6. So 8 of those are ours. Let's get them some greens. Harvesting this old broccoli for the birds. We need to make us some custom tarps because this row is ready to be covered and the other ones aren't. See that? We still have lettuce and Swiss chard, but we need to get that covered. But no worries, we can cut some 4-foot silage tarp. Got their greens in there. Hey, Joe, did you check their feed? Are they good? Your happy place, the tomatoes. What are you doing?

I'm just pruning them.

You like pruning tomatoes? Does it make you nervous?

I, I do like pruning them. I wish that I had ordered some more of my elastic.

Uh, and it's not here. Is it working out good?

It's working out great. It's like if it would just have come—

the elastic that ties them to the stretching—

like this is like it's falling over. Yeah, you need to tie it up another level, but I, I ordered it a while ago and Taking its sweet time.

Papa, look at this pasture!

Oh my, this is primo. Pigs turned our garden into a pasture. We threw down pasture seed and that looks so good. Alfalfa. What, you think? Well, that's good because we got about a week. We want to hit it before it matures. Look at him, he's judging the grass. Good, yeah.

Yeah, clover's ready.

That encourages me because I'm thinking this is ready, but we're not here yet. We've got— we can speed them up a little bit. We've been having rain, so the grass is speeding up, so we can speed up the cows. Oh, I see a tomato, Rebecca! You want to eat it? Yes. Like right now?

Yeah, I'll eat it right now.

Yeah, why don't you get to eat the first?

I can't, I need to go take my medicine.

Oh, medicine. Dang, we have a problem with our water line here. Look, it's hard to get our water buckets in. We're gonna have to get one of those short hoses just to get— because this is all rigid, or we can switch this around. The rigid one probably shouldn't be right there at the source. Probably start down there, run a hose through it. Free the birds, Josie. So I brought them way over here. I mean, where they were. Cross the paddock. I'm thinking if we put them right there at the entrance to the next paddock, Move them in the afternoon, call them just as I say, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick. And what if we could lead them with a bucket? What if we could lead them with a bucket? It's working.

Say, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick.

First off, the reason we move them in the morning Is because they got in their coop the night before. And so they're all cooped up in the morning, and it's. Did you catch that last bit? It's easier to move them. And I'm thinking if we keep their coop near the opening for their next move, they're likely going to be around the coop in the afternoon because it's going to be hot. We just open it up, call them, herd them through if we have to. I think we could. Can you go home and go poop? Drive you home? Can you wait 5 minutes? All right, Jonah, Josiah, come here please. I'm gonna need— I'm gonna need you guys to pick up nets. I'm gonna take Mr. Brown for his potty break. Come here, let me show you. I've figured out how to pick up nets so we don't get them all tangled. When you go to pick up a net, look at it. Come here, come here, Gus. This is a perfect example. See how it's twisted up here? See how it's twisted? So you don't want to pick it up like that and put it in your pile, right? Because it's twisted. Say, oh, that's twisted. I'm going to turn it like that. And then look down at the bottom and get it untwisted. Usually that untwists it at the bottom as well. You can't do it like quite like that. Yeah, there you go. Wait, you can't turn the pole. No, turn it the other way. Okay, it's gonna go down like this. See there? Okay, so this has to stay straight. Now most of them shouldn't be this way. Most of them should be clean. Okay, and then am I just gonna leave you at home or you coming back out? Okay, there's your bike if you want to ride back out to us. Okay, I'll see you, buddy. Hope you come back out. Okay, well, that went surprisingly quick. That could have took a lot more time. He was awfully compliant there. I came up here because I felt like it's supposed to rain today, so let's go ahead and set up the sheep net. The cows have a huge paddock, so we can go ahead and cut into it even though it's not time to move them. And look, they're hungry, they've eaten it all. We need to do a much bigger paddock here, Jonah. Uh, so I would say let's go on up towards to where the pigs are and then over and down. We have plenty, we have plenty of room here. We've got 1, 2 nets up, maybe at least 2 more, maybe 3. We didn't actually finish up there. We came down because Teddy escaped. Teddy. But I don't know if I explained to you— finished explaining why we want to move the chickens in the afternoon. Well, if we move the chickens in the afternoon and we get our fence hot We can not put them up at night. Now that I think about it, I think I did tell you guys this. We can put them up at night. We don't have to put them up at night and then get out in the morning. Yes, I did. Oh well, you're welcome.

Oh, what? I didn't expect it to be so It wasn't this powerful.

It wasn't this powerful the other day. Hope I got that on camera. Goofy stuff like that works better on camera. Okay, a little less powerful right now. See, before, before this water line, I got close to sheep are— we'd have to walk all the way to the creek or back to the house. I'll get a little spray in the morning. It's fine.

Is it off? Drag it, drag it to my friend.

New grass looking good, coming along nicely. We haven't lost anybody. Have we lost anybody since putting them out? The one that got shot Overnight made it, or did it? Is it— have you seen it dead?

I'm pretty sure it made it.

Yeah, nobody's died. I'm wondering if we should move them. We're moving the sheep, so I wouldn't have to do afternoon chores if we move these guys right now. I don't know if I have enough time though. I have to get another net since we're having to go through the lane. We're gonna put them over there and eventually get them behind the lucha doors. Move them every day. What?

You know, we could move them in the center paddock through the lane.

Yeah, yeah.

Are we gonna go get the other fence? Hey, hey, we're trying to talk. How do we move them then? You think we can get them? You think we can get them through and then not go everywhere? You want to try it?

Sure.

The reason I want to move these guys every single day is they can get 50% of their food off the land. It doesn't take them long to tread it, so I'm going to keep them in fresh. Look here, walk that over there. They'll be drawn to their shaw, so I'm thinking let's move their shaw first. Here they come! Should we just go with it? Should we just go with it? Here, turkey, turkey, turkey, turkey, turkey, turkey!

Poke, poke, poke, poke, poke.

They're a lot easier to herd than chickens, aren't they? So we're just moving them one day at a time, very slightly, and eventually we'll be behind the luchadors. Luchadors are mowing in front of them. We'll go out to move the luchadors anyway. We'll move the turkeys at the same time. This is nice. Let's hurry and get this net up. Josiah, take their feeder over there, please. Okay. That is nice. That is nice. Look how much they're eating. Chicken will only get 20% off the land. A turkey, 50%. Their feed's in here. They don't care. They're foraging. Rebecca's been weeding out here this morning. Looking good, Becky. Your stuff's coming up nicely.

Yeah, it is.

And you, you look hardcore right now. Send this back to your 10-year-old Floridian self. I know, right? We've never gotten dirt, never touched dirt till you were 30.

I got a nice harvest of cucumbers too.

Okay. Hey, your hope for anyone out there, Rebecca, that wants to get into this— your hope, because this girl grew up in Florida, from swimming pool to concrete, man. Never any dirt. And look, whoa, look at this, look at this! You trim these up so nice. Very good. And you got some really nice fruit coming in, honey. Wow, this looks pro. Nice.

It's my hardest.

What do you say to those people who feel like maybe they're getting a late start, that, oh, I didn't grow up this way, I don't know anything? What would you say?

It doesn't matter, just start.

Just get some overalls on and put those hands in the dirt.

Get working. Yeah, it's the best thing for you, actually.

And the butt stains, is that from wiping your hands or sitting down in the dirt? Update on the greenhouse, just curling that up, putting the shade cloth on top. It's like 1 degree warmer in there in the hottest part of the day, so it's working. See, she eat that tomato.

Mmm, Sungolds are so good.

That's your first tomato of the season.

It is.

Oh my gosh, those toes are a long way from those pools, baby.

Huge paddock.

Plenty to eat. They're gonna love it. And guys, before sheep, we just left this behind. I mean, we'd probably mow it, but this is just like food that's here for sheep, free, really. I mean, you have to put the net around it. Normally we like to move the animals in the afternoon. Two reasons. One, it's not moist. See how the grass is moist? Parasites like that. When it gets dry, parasites dig down, so there's not so much pressure. But then also the brix count. Here, let's open this. But also what you call the brix count. I guess the sugar content of this stuff just rises in the afternoon. So when they're moved, they're encouraged to eat. And that's better, more efficient. Grass in the afternoon.

Hey, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep.

Hamburger's not fooling around. He's over.

This is my good girl.

They just love this.

Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep.

Oh, look, the coppice. Hey, remember how I had the tree guys cut the poplar a foot down? That's because it— what you call coppices, and those roots go deep, and here it comes up, and they love to eat it. Look, they're eating it. They're crushing it. That's them eating it now. And in theory, they do that a number of times and it's supposed to kill the— kill the stump and then tree, and then we can remove it. But yeah, look, look how they just totally took it down. There's something deeply satisfying about that, moving them and them just going at it. We moved them this morning because they were out of feed. You could just tell when I came up here, they, they came to the net hoping I was going to move them. Uh, I can just look at it and tell there's not much food left in here, and it's supposed to rain this afternoon. Got Fluffy to go up. All right, Randolph's back. We built this shed so wonderfully for our mulch. How about a shed for a wood pile for our wood boiler that's gonna go right there? Good morning, Randolph. The wood boiler's going right there outside of the sheep stall. There'll be a shed over it. There'll be shed here. We'll be able to haul in logs right here, cut them up, stack them, split them, stack them right here into a shed. Shed over this, so theoretically I can come out of the house, not get snowy or wet, walk here, grab some wood, put it in our stove. Another shed right here for wood. And if we need to, wood inside both those stalls. So you got the trim removed, that's what he was doing, and I imagine he's going to start putting up the back support. Figured we might as well build off our barn. We couldn't put our boiler on that side of the house because the drain fill. This is it.

And plus it's easy.

Big trucks can come in here, drop our logs right here. This is as good a place as any. For those of you who don't know, a wood boiler is like— it's an outdoor wood furnace. Yes, it's a gasification, so it's more, uh, it burns 50% less than the old traditional wood boilers excited about that. It heats our house, also heats— but it will also heat both of our hot water heaters. This is the advantage of milking late. Over 2 gallons of milk. Hey Jonah, you helping, uh, you helping Randolph this morning?

Yeah, and probably tomorrow and this afternoon.

That's cool, that's so good for you. Carpentry class.

I'm out here working with Randolph putting up a shed, and I'm gonna put a time-lapse on you guys.

How's it going, Randolph? It's going good. You got a few more boards, do you? You got this framed out already because you don't have to do any— you don't have to do any walls. Yeah, it's gonna take no time. Hey, look who's out here! Grandma! How's Rosie doing, Grandma? We're over here at the fat hens. They are out and about. Their coop's over there. I was thinking about moving them, but they look so happy. I don't know, you guys want to try it?

That might be hard because they're all in different—

I mean, they could get out earlier in the morning if they'd go. They'd be happy in the other paddock too.

Yeah, they would be.

Let's try it. Who of you kids are gonna run the pig boards? Lily and Mom. Yeah, does that sound good? I'll get up here, call Chick, chick, chick. Walk down that way, you guys. You like that? I'm looking for one syllable. Then you guys push them with your pig boards. Oh, look, they're already coming at me.

Chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick.

Are they coming? They call me the Pied Piper.

Look, it's working. Chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick.

Moving chickens in broad daylight.

Check, check, check, check, check, check, check. Chick, chick.

Oh, my gosh. Look at this back.

Check, Check. Chick, chick, chick.

I don't even know if I need yalls.

Pick boards.

Give them a little bit right there. Everybody comes through. Oh my—

uh-oh, not cold enough, is it?

No, it is. It's right on the dot, 55. Go!

You think she's tired? She's falling asleep, book in hand. You tired, Becky?

Sleep.

Very good.

Thanks.

Thank you.