The past few weeks have been incredibly busy.  We built a stall in the barn for goats, brought home two goats, then 10 ducklings.  Built a goat pasture, visited with family, and my brother in law found 15 white leghorn pullets (females) at Tractor Supply at a great discount because they were preparing for another delivery of younger chicks and wanted to move the older ones out.  Considering we did want chickens that laid white eggs once we had enough room to add more to our flock, we were happy to have them (all of ours lay brown eggs, but I am sick of buying eggs around Easter Time for egg coloring… haha… ).

Contrary to what many believe, the color of egg doesn’t matter when it comes to nutrients – but how the chicken is raised and what she is fed certainly does.  As well, labels can be misleading.  Commercially produced eggs rarely come from chickens that are allowed to get in the sun and eat things like weeds and bugs.  Even “cage free” labeled  eggs, the hens are normally housed in large buildings with very little access to the great outdoors.  If the well being of the chickens matter to you, it pays to know your farmer and their practices.  At K7 Farm we are proud to offer truly free range eggs – our ladies roam our property daily, all day, soaking up sunshine, eating bugs, weeds and lots of kitchen scraps.  Any time you stop by the farm stand you will likely see them (and they might even come up and say hi!).

Very soon we will have our free range eggs available for sale.  Our egg production is beginning to climb as we have longer days and warmer weather.  Next year you can look forward to duck eggs being available as well! I hear they are fantastic for baking.

Back to our goats!  We purchased two goats to start our home dairy program.  One is a female (a doe), named Clover.  She is a mix of dairy breeds, but primarily Nubian.  She will be bred this fall for a baby next spring.  The other is her buddy, a wether (a neutered male), named Boomer.  We will gradually add on more dairy goats with the goal of being able to cut our ties to commercial cows milk.

Every year we take another step or two closer to self sufficiency.  This year we have added ducks and more chickens to our flock.  We’ve added a source of dairy.  We purchased an egg incubator so we can begin to hatch out our own chickens, ducks and turkeys for meat and future layers.  We have fencing and are getting ready to fence in 3 acres which will house my garden.  We are fencing in the garden due to the large deer population around here.  I don’t expect it to keep every single deer out (they can jump 12-15 feet!) but I would like to keep the general population out.  This will house our future orchard, as well.

I am beginning to work on starting seeds for the season.  My packet of blueberry seeds have sprouted and are growing.  I’ve got broccoli ready to plant outside in the near future  and I will start some from seed as well. We are looking at around 500 head of broccoli.  I’ve got 3 trays of celery (600 or so seeds) as well as a tray of herbs including marjoram, rosemary, sage and thyme.  I will be starting oregano, cilantro, parsley and basil soon.  A variety of seedlings will be available soon!