Archive for the ‘Layers’ Category

The Raising Chickens class originally scheduled for this Saturday has been rescheduled to Saturday, 4/28 from 9-11am due to the snow prediction for this weekend. Please Contact Us if you’d like to register for the class on the 28th!

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Farm Store Open This Saturday! April 7th 12-4pm Come shop for local, healthy offerings this Saturday! We have amazing pork and rabbit we’ve raised ourselves. Fresh eggs and duck eggs are in stock, too! As always we have a wonderful selection of natural soaps and bath products, candles, teas, and household goods. Address and directions are on our website […]

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  Farm Store Open This Saturday! March 3rd 12-4pm UPDATE (3/3/2018): Yes we are still open from 12-4pm despite the wind! This Saturday stock up on products to help your health: 50% off your first week’s order when you sign up for a weekly egg pickup! A weekly egg pickup is where we agree to have eggs available for you […]

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October Newsletter

Farm Store Open Saturday, October 7th, 12-4pm  This Saturday come say hello and do some shopping! This month’s special is 20% off egg purchases of 5dz or more! Read all about our delicious, healthy eggs below. In the farm store we’ll be fully stocked with all of our amazing offerings: soaps and bath products, pork, rabbit meat, chicken and duck eggs, […]

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Visit Us During the Loudoun Farm Tour This Weekend May 20-21, 10am-4pm We are looking forward to welcoming new and returning visitors during the Loudoun Spring Farm Tour May 20-21 from 10am-4pm. The farm store will be stocked as always with rabbit meat, pork, eggs from our free range chickens and ducks, organic bath and […]

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It’s spring! In typical springtime fashion, temperatures are about freezing this morning, but we should have a high of 64 today. As the weather warms up, our outdoor chore list is exploding. We have so many exciting things to do, and finally the weather is nice enough to do them! Here are the adventures from […]

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This week’s nice weather has brought out all the farm helpers pictures above: Noah, Ghost, and Rebecca! This past Saturday was a busy one at the farm store. Many people came by to see Lauren of Boot’s Shire Homestead and the chicks she had for sale! Remember she’ll be back with chicks and ducklings on […]

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We’ve been trying some new setups for laying hens this year, and creating a new hen house meant making new nesting boxes. I used the opportunity to make improvements on prior designs, and here’s a summary of what resulted. Key Characteristics: 4ft long 4ft high 2 levels 15″ deep Roll-out style (tilted floor, covered egg […]

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It’s been so busy recently, I haven’t had the time to post about all the amazing things we’re doing! The posts will come, I promise. Still, I wanted to spend a few minutes sharing some homestead things I love right now. Roll Out Nesting Boxes If I could go back in time, I would have […]

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With so many animals and only two farmers, we are constantly looking for ways to be more efficient with our farm tasks. Efficiencies in daily tasks such as feeding and watering pay huge dividends. A customer recently shared a poultry feeder design that we’ve implemented with great success! Here are a couple links (Link 1, […]

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We have a lot lined up for the Loudoun Farm Tour this weekend! Our ducks will be out front to welcome you upon arrival. Ducklings will be showing off their antics in a pen. Then we have goat kids and piglets that are ready to be fed and petted. For the daring, the adult pigs and […]

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For all the diversity in this world, some things are universal. Like how children rub their eyes when they’re tired. Or how the minute they see a flock of chickens, they’re chasing after the birds. We have ducks in the front, and the minute children step out of a vehicle they’re tearing after the ducks. On […]

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Here’s the latest (and final) installment in our Weathering the Winter series! Today we’re talking about how to winterize chickens. Here you can see our chicken yard in all its winter glory. Chicken wire on the sides and top of the enclosure provide predator protection. The chicken wire on the top provides protection from hawks, […]

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Along with much of the East Coast, we just endured a record-breaking snowstorm. When you live on a homestead with livestock, weather is a big deal. The livestock need to be cared for every day, and that means getting to them, and making sure they can get around, no matter what the weather. As we […]

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We had a visitor in our front yard chicken/duck coop this morning.  The ducks and chickens were making a big ruckus outside the coop so we knew something was amiss. We ran over and found this “little” visitor… A large (over 5′ long) black snake was caught choking down one of our chicken eggs!  

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Oh my goodness do we have some fun stuff going on at the homestead! All kinds of livestock fun has been going on, read about it below! Chicks! So Many Chicks! And Ducklings Too… Over the past few weeks we have had so many chicks! We’ve had laying hen chicks, meat chicken chicks, meat duck […]

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Spring is here! Well, it feels that way at least. As the days warm up and get longer, we are busy completing projects on the homestead. Unfortunately that means there’s been less time to record all the excitement here on the blog, and I missed posting an update last Friday. Sorry! Here’s an update on […]

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It’s been another busy week on the homestead. This morning we’ve been busy preparing for the pekin ducks that will arrive next week! Look forward to some delicious, healthy pastured duck meat to be available around the beginning of May. Love for Whispering Willow Lip Balm I recently tested the Whispering Willow Lip Balm we […]

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Red Sex Link Chicks [Video]

We have chicks now! A couple of weeks ago we received our latest batch of chicks in the mail, 100 red sex link hen chicks. We order chicks from a reputable hatchery and then raise the chicks in our brooders in the garage. These chicks were very popular and we sold out quickly! Because they […]

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Spring is Coming! It may not feel like it now, but spring is fast approaching! I can see it in the days that are getting progressively longer. Today we worked outside until 6:30pm, and it seems that not so long ago it was dark by 5pm. While we look forward to warmer weather, I know […]

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Snowy Wednesday!

It’s another snowy January day here on the homestead! Most of the animals don’t like being in the snow, choosing to stay under cover. These chickens ventured out, probably to see if I had any treats for them! Unfortunately for them, there were no treats this time.

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For about a month now we’ve been experimenting with a fodder system for feed. It’s still in the experimentation phase, but I thought I’d share our results so far. After some research, we decided to play around with growing barley fodder. It could lower our feed costs, plus we really like the idea of having […]

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This post was originally from October 2014, but never was published. Enjoy a story from warmer days, now that we are in the middle of winter… About a week ago we picked up 5 new chickens. A local family had too many chickens for the size of its coop, and needed to get rid of a […]

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We’ve had hens laying for about 4 months now and wanted to share a chart of our egg production. Our expectations were certainly different than what the results ended up being. The variation in egg production from day to day was a surprise to us, as well as the relatively low numbers of eggs given […]

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As we enjoy the cooler fall weather and prepare for winter, there have been a lot of fun happenings on the farm! Whiskey found a butternut squash from a volunteer plant that must’ve grown from compost.   Apparently butternut squash is Whiskey’s idea of a dog treat! We have also seen several walking sticks around. […]

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