Moving sheds to make way for the coop

Chris spent most of Saturday with my father and friend, Mike Casey, moving our small shed in McLure to our site here in Darfield. The shed had served as our promotional sign coming into Barriere, but as we are not actively drumming up business we had other plans for it.

I spent the day at the kids sheep husbandry day which I always find a lot of fun. I don't think the male lambs do, though. It was ear tagging, castration and tail docking day. The 4-H club has a potluck for lunch and it's always nice to visit with friends. I have to say that although the club means a lot of work for the parents, it does create an amazing sense of community.

We spent today cleaning out and moving our various storage sheds to make way for our larger shed as our chicken coop. According to our "master plan" as Mike calls it, we will be able to separate the meat birds from the layers in the coop and let them have an enclosed run on the days we are not here. We plan to free-range the chickens when we are on site. Having said that, the meat birds are almost 4 wks old (Cornish game hen size, apparently) and are HUGE. Another six weeks doesn't really give them much time to free range! We really do have to move them soon. Mike says that KFC chicken is all 6 weeks old. I can believe it; these birds eat their weight in grain in a day, it seems.

Here is a picture of Chris moving the larger shed to its new home.