Hi, I'm Mackenzie and this is Our Wyoming Life
Coming up on Our Wyoming Life New baby chickens arrive at the ranch and
we them set up for their new life in the KFC witness protection program
Then we pick up our processed meat from the butcher and get it ready for sale and shipment,
locally and all over the United States.
Later we sit back and watch the miracle of birth as one cow lets us sit in on the entire
process
Here on the ranch we raise and care for anywhere between 35- 50 chickens which we raise solely
for their eggs, these eggs we collect, wash and sell as farm fresh eggs to our local customers.
To be perfectly honest, we lose money on chickens.
They food they eat costs more than we sell eggs for but they help us by keeping our product
in customers refrigerators where they hopefully remember that we also have bacon, which would
go great with those eggs.
It's a big week for chickens as it's the time of year when we get new baby chicks.
Every year we order around 20 new chickens to replenish our flock.
Younger chickens lay more eggs and chickens don't live long, although the world's
oldest chicken lived to 16 years old, her name was Matilda.
Between foxes, coyotes, skunks, raccoons and god knows what else our oldest chicken is
probably 4 and they live in this chicken coop, which one of our neighbors called the chicken
taj mahal.
Before I built this in 2010 they lived in 6 by 6 hut.
Now there are roosts, separate rooms for separating chickens and ducks and geese and an automatic
watering system.
Our chickens have roommates.
Loud and annoying roommates, its kinda like being in college but they all get along for
the mostpart.
Chickens lay their eggs in these nest boxes and we collect them everyday, in fact, the
girls are getting old enough, that its become an item on their chore list, which means I
only have to do it 95 percent of the time now.
After collecting eggs we take them to the kitchen in the shop, where they are stored
until they are packaged and sold.
Commercial egg producers that produce the eggs that you buy in the grocery store at
least in the US by law have 30 days to package an egg after its laid, then another 30days
to sell that egg after its been cartoned, and studies have shown that your average grocery
store egg might be 45 days old or more by the time you buy it.
Ours our usually sold and in our customers fridge by the time they are a week old.
If you like eggs and have never had a farm fresh egg, I urge you to head out and find
a local producer and try some farm fresh eggs the difference is amazing and you can even
see it.
Our new chicks arrive by the post office, shipped from a hatchery in Missouri.
The post office will call us when they get in and we will go to town to pick them up,
but before they get here we have some work to do.
This is our chicken hutch, I built it a few years, to give us a place in the shop to raise
chicks until they are big enough to go in the chicken house.
Its on wheels because, well honestly, its always in the way.
First we fill the bottom with wood shavings, to make it easier to clean and we add a small
feeding tray, filling it with baby chicken food, a specialize formula of food to help
them grow.
The phone call comes at 4am and Erin heads in to town to pick up the baby chickens.
Upon arrival home we open the box and give the babies a drink of sugar water to get them
a bit of energy after their long journey, of course, Cheddar our house cat keeps a close
and interested eye on what is going on.
After all the chicks have a sip of their energy drink, its time to take them to the heated
shop, where they will settle into their digs for the next few weeks.
We get some warm water ready for them in these little gravity fed waters and move the chicks
in.
After adding a heat lamp to keep them warm, we close the door and push their house out
of the way and welcome them to ranch, where hopefully they will live a long and productive
life.
While we are talking about local food produced here on the ranch we cant leave out beef and
pork.
Each year we raise 6 steers and anywhere between 5 and 10 hogs.
Some of them are presold to customers that would like to have a full animal, either for
themselves or to split with family.
The rest are loaded up and taken to a USDA inspected meat processing facility, which
we did a few a weeks ago.
Now its time to head back and pick up our fresh beef and pork.
Live weight was 4 tons of beef and a ton of pork.
I will be returning today with about half of that in packaged meat.
But first we need to clean out our freezers of last years meat.
We always try to give our customers the freshest meat possible and because there are many in
the area that are less fortunate than we are we donate our older meat to the local council
of community services where it will be used to feed anyone who wants a warm meal.
We box up about 250 lbs of roasts, steaks, and hamburger, load it in our trailer and
take it to where it can do some real good.
Then I hit the road and upon arrival start loading hundreds of pounds of meat, it takes
about an hour to load it all up, afterward I turn around and head home.
Where it all comes off the trailer and sorted in to one of our many freezers.
I'll tell ya, after loading and unloading all day, I'm tired and sore.
Each one of these boxes weigh between 50 and 70 pounds filled with bacon, porkchops, t-bones,
ribeyes, roasts, ham….I'm getting hungry.
Over the next year this beef and pork will be sold not only locally at farmers market
but all across the US as we package and ship a taste of Wyoming beef and pork to many waiting
tastebuds.
If you have never visited your local farmers market, I urge you to do so this summer.
Support your local producer, buy vegetables, eggs, honey and even meat in fact you'll
be surprised at what can be available to you at the local level all around the world.
I guarantee the difference you will taste and you'll never forget.
I'll give you fair warning, this next segment, shows the live birth of a baby calf in all
its glory and I would understand it you don't want to watch it, but I will tell you its
not gross, its not bloody or disgusting, bodily fluids are not shooting all over the place,
in reality is the conclusion of a long 9 months for this cow and her calf and the first chance
to meet and love on each other.
I'll shut up for a bit, and let you enjoy just one of the hundreds of miracles that
happen every year on the ranch.
Thanks for joining us.
I hope this episode has inspired you to try some of the local farm raised and grown products
that are available all over the world and in your area.
Find your local farmers market and support your local producers.
Its not hard to do.
I spend hours every Saturday in the summer at farmers market and its not about people
coming and buying our products, yeah, that's nice but its also about meeting people, answering
questions and showing the difference between what you buy at your grocery store and what
can be locally raised and harvested.
I'm not going to preach at you, you'll do what you want to do, but without your support,
local producers can't succeed, and will fade away and that would be a very sad day.
Thanks for watching, have a great week and I'll see you next time, in Our Wyoming Life.
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