Bluebird CSA

Sunday, September 13, 2009

New Arrivals

We have had some exciting new arrivals at the farm!


Our greens, radishes, and carrots are practically exploding out of the ground. Some of the lettuce germinated in only two days! We look forward to eating fresh greens in a few weeks.



We also received over 100 baby chicks! We ordered several dual-purpose breeds. These are breeds that are good as both layer hens and for meat. Almost half of the birds we ordered are cockerels, or young males. We will use them for meat and breeding.

We chose these heritage breeds because we want to eventually use less and less of the industry meat bird-the cornish cross. The cornish cross is a large breasted white bird that is extremely overbred for rapid growth. Essentially the are designed to stuff their faces and become obese. This breed suffers from a wide range of health problems including a tendency toward heart attacks and lots of leg joint issues. Additionally, their breasts are so large that they can't naturally breed. By choosing these other varieties we can keep some of the males for breeding our own chicks. This way we can maintain control of our breeding animals and avoid shipping chickens from half way across the country.

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