Last night after my ballgame it was time to load chickens to take to the processors. The only processing facility available for us is over 2 hours away and in order for them to be processed organically they have to be delivered by 7:15 a.m. We didn't want to leave them in a stuffy trailer for too long so we waited until the cool of the night and at around 10:00 p.m. we loaded them up into the horse trailer. Actually, it is everything but a horse trailer to us! We only had 36 chickens to deliver to the processors this time...it isn't really worth the trip for that few chickens, but this was our first group and we had experimented with their food rations and didn't want to commit to too many chickens while we were experimenting. Last year we fed them a commercial organic chicken ration. Things worked well and they tasted great. This year, we fed them our own ration of ground organic grains and pasture. Not sure about the taste yet, but they gained as they should and were much healthier than last years' birds. No twisted toes or lameness. Cindy is delivering the birds this morning while I head to work. She should get back home fairly early in the day with the early start she got. Here is a picture of the birds in the trailer...next trip there will be more than 100 birds. The plan is to build two levels in the trailer using angle iron and plywood. The plywood will slide in and out of the trailer resting on the iron. In this way we will be able to install the plywood floors for the delivery of chickens and then take them out for any other livestock we need to transport.
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