A Family Farming Enterprise
FARMING: The physical work of growing plants and animals, whether for personal consumption or for sale as goods.
HOMESTEADING: A wholesome lifestyle that prioritizes the home and the family in a natural way that is connected to the earth.
Families can farm but that doesn’t mean they’re homesteading—and families can homestead but that doesn’t mean they’re farming.
“God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (Gen 1:26–28)
Here at Our Lady’s Ranch, we are homesteading farmers which means that we prioritize family and faith while growing food (livestock) for our livelihood. One such farm animal is our meat poultry! We grow meat chickens all year-round, and in the months before Thanksgiving we grow turkeys as well. Today, we want to share our process for growing meat chickens. Our meat chickens have a lifecycle of about 3 months, and we have 3 batches of them at any given time (chicks in brooder, early hens in one coop/pasture, late hens in another pasture), so we harvest them about once a month. If you’re thinking about raising poultry on your own land, we hope this journal entry simplifies the process and encourages you!
*The photos shown below are a collection from our many years of growing chickens.
1. Our meat chickens are a heritage breed called Freedom Rangers and are shipped from the East Coast as soon as they hatch. They have enough nutrients left over from being in their egg to last them 3 days, perfect timing for them to arrive at OLR and get settled in their brooder.
2. A “chick” is the first stage of life, when they are soft, fluffy, and adorable. We keep them in a small space fully enclosed to keep them safe from predators for the first three weeks of this highly vulnerable stage of life.
3. One of the most important things we need to do for them (especially in the winter) is to make sure that the chicks remain warm and dry. We do this with heating lamps set to a specific temperature.
4. We also keep them warm, dry, and comfortable using either hay or wood flakes. And don’t forget their water! We refresh their water daily, cleaning the containers and making sure the water is cool on hot days.
5. Since chicks rely 100% on feed (because they are not yet old enough to forage in the pastures), we make sure to feed them a high protein starter feed that is small crumbles for them to easily peck and digest.
6. A chicken’s second stage of life is the “teenager phase,” when they begin to grow their adults feathers and are now a lot more durable and able to forage on the pastures.
7. This photo shows us building one of our mobile chicken coops. When the chicks are old enough to move to the pastures with the adults, we set them up to live in moveable “chicken houses.” We keep them enclosed for the first four days so they remember their home without wandering away or refusing to go back in at night.
8. It is vital to put the chickens into a structure at night in order to protect them from predators. In addition, the raised brooder helps to keep them warm and dry and out of the elements during the cold, rainy winter months. It has a screened floor so that their waste fertilizes the pastures as we move the coop every other day.
9. It is mass chaos when the birds are released in the mornings. Not only are they ready for some sunshine, fresh grass, and more room, but they know they’re about to get a serving of pellets! We supplement with a no-corn, no-soy feed to make sure they are getting optimal nutrition without any roundup/chemicals.
10. We store our feed in a large silo near the chick brooder; the bigger the order the more savings in bulk prices. Mature chickens get pellets with a mixture of wheat, barley and crushed worm meal for protein.
11. Sometimes we also supplement their water (through our water systems attached to a series of wells), but the chicken’s main source of water is from the little creek that runs through Our Lady’s Ranch.
12. The meat chickens spend the majority of the day foraging in the pastures right alongside the cows and the pigs. We rotate the animals from pasture to pasture often to ensure they are getting enough food.
13. That’s why we have chicken brooders with wheels. By rotating the animals we are participating in what is known as Regenerative Agriculture, which provides fresh pasture grass for the animals, while fertilizing the soil as they trample and scratch.
14. If you don’t have the time, resources, or funds to build mobile wooden chicken coops then don’t stress! When we first started we made them out of PVC pipe, tarps, and chicken wire which we then dragged each morning by ourselves.
15. And don’t forget that you don’t have to do this alone! Working as a family has been such a blessing that it has not only afforded us ample time together, but it has also created a stellar work ethic for all of us at very young ages.
“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
If you are interested in how we harvest our meat chickens then feel free to reach out to us. In the past, we butchered, cleaned, and packed them ourselves. However recently, the sheer amount of chickens (300 at a time!) has led us to outsource the bulk of processing. Our butchers can accomplish the work in 30 minutes when we would take 30 hours. Now, we simply weigh, label, and refrigerate the vacuum-sealed meat birds after picking them up from our butcher.
We hope you have found this “how to farm” essay helpful and encouraged you to begin raising chickens of your own! Don’t get us wrong… It is work, and it is a lot of work (farming always is), but it can be manageable, satisfying, and nourishing. In addition, involving your kids can be highly rewarding. Yes, it may take a little longer to get the chores done at first, but children are way more capable than society has led us to believe.
Please feel free to email us with any questions and/or suggestions for journal entries. Our posts fall under these categories: History of OLR, Daily Life at OLR, How to Farm, How to Homestead, Catholic Community, Catholic Spirituality, Homesteading Testimonies. We are always eager to hear from our readers and will add anything you would like to learn more about.
Until next time, God Bless!
Tyler Straight
OLR Design & Outreach
