The new chickens have arrived! These girls are a year old and just coming out of molt. They're from a confinement operation in North Georgia, which wasn't my first choice, but they were available and already laying, and the looks on their faces when we opened the back of the u-haul and started coaxing them into their new deeply wooded digs was pretty darn priceless. They immediately started dust bathing, pecking in the dirt, laying their eggs all over the enclosure and sleeping everywhere except the fancy coop with the automatic garage door that closes to keep them safe from predators. They'll need a week or two to learn where to lay their eggs so as not to send their new farmer on a daily egg hunt, and where to sleep so as not to get eaten by predators, but I have confidence they'll figure it out. I'm waiting to sell their eggs for a week or so until their bodies get used to their new lifestyle and diet.
Next up comes the process of moving - first the roofing panels and electric fencing from the old chicken enclosure, then clearing out the greenhouse and shipping container, and then tackling the barn and wash station. Alongside that, I'm trying to develop systems for the new people I'm trying to bring on to help manage strawberries, help move and help get things in the ground at the new site. It's humbling and somewhat terrifying to realize exactly how much information I have stuck in my head! It never occurred to me, for example, that I'd have to train someone on the difference between collards and lettuce. C'est la vie...
