#chickenkiller

Last week was quite eventful on the farm. We had two hens leave us for chicken heaven which prompted an almost invisible addition to the pasture. One of the chickens passed due to an unknown sickness. She was isolated and we attempted to save her but were unsuccessful. 

The other hen was killed by a hawk in what appeared to be for sport as the hawk did not eat her. Eric did some research, and found that stringing fishing line across the pasture will most likely deter hawks because they can see the line. So, on Sunday, we all went out to the pasture to string fishing line between a total of five trees. The chickens did seem less scared once the line was up, but that could have been my imagination. 

In other farm work, Eric set two fence posts on Saturday and started the new fence to surround the second pasture. The portion he completed on Saturday is next to the current male goat area and he plans to expand the male goat area next weekend to give them more space to roam. Goats seem to love to roam!

For the garden, our seeds that we started two weeks ago are really taking off. The kale, mustard greens, and collards are about two inches tall and some of the seedlings are starting to sprout true leaves. The leeks are doing moderately well and about half of the seeds we started have sprouted. We have our seeds under a grow light for about 10 hours a day in our mini greenhouse and we fertilized with dry, organic Miracle Gro fertilizer.