Rainfall Data - 2025

We always keep very detailed records about things at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm, partly because it's interesting, but perhaps moreso that we may be a little weird.  Take rainfall, for instance.  Rain is very important to everything we do.  Without rainfall, grass doesn't grow, vegetables don't grow, our entire ecosystem shuts down.  We thank the Good Lord for rain!  

In 2025, almost 66.5 inches fell.  That's 5 and a half feet of rain.  Just the top of my head would be sticking out if that all came on one day.

66.492 inches of rain is the highest total of rainfall since 2021 and is a couple of inches more than our 13 year average.  As you can see May is the month with the most rainfall, both in 2025 and for the 13 year average.  April of 2025 was the month with the least rainfall.  March is the month that is the driest month over the 13 year history

Finally, let's look at the daily log of rainfall.  It never rained on the 2nd, the 19th and the 20th of any month in 2025.  (Good days to have a picnic)  It rained the MOST on the 23rd of each month in 2025.  (Good day to sit inside and read a good book)

Just something fun we tally up and look at each year.  How much rain do you get in your neck of the woods?  Next, we'll be looking at yearly totals for egg production.  

By The Numbers - Rainfall 2024

We keep detailed records so that we can compare year over year.  It's probably a lot of trouble for nothing, but we do it anyway.  I find it is interesting to see changes.  It is instructive to see trends.  For instance which months are the driest and which are the wettest.  We live in an agricultural area and have agricultural interests.  One of the first things that farmers will tell you is that you need soil, sunlight and water in order to grow crops.

We try to grow a large percentage of our food on our little 5 acres of land, so rainfall matters - too much of it as well as too little of it.  I like the "Goldilocks and the 3 bears approach" to rainfall.  Not a flood, not a drought, but JUST RIGHT.  Keeping daily records that you compile helps you to know where you are.  

We collect lots of rainwater in numerous barrels and troughs that we have positioned beneath rooflines in order to sequester precipitation.  With a 1 inch rainfall, we can catch hundreds of gallons of water for the animals to drink and for us to use in irrigating the garden.  In a year like last year, though, rain barrels are useless if the wet stuff doesn't fall from the sky.  We've thought about learning how (from You Tube) to drill our own shallow well.  I tabled that idea but haven't forgotten about it and put it on the shelf.

Let's first look at the 2024 numbers.  This table shows rainfall by month and in total from summarizing and accumulating all my "ciphering."

But what does it mean, you might ask?  It means that we got a hair over 63 inches of rainfall in 2024, but that doesn't really tell you anything without looking at the trend.  I've added my 12 year trend below:

Now this tells you something!  First, it tells you that we rebounded from 2023 which was the lowest amount of rain in 11 years we've been recording and lower by almost a foot than the previous driest year.  It tells you that in 2024, February was the driest month and May was the wettest.  Normally March is the driest.  It tells you that we have a 12 year average annual rainfall of almost 64 inches.  In 2024, we pretty much hit the average on the nose.  The trend really highlights what an aberration 2023 was!

If you look up at my handwritten rainfall log, the detail shows you a metric that I call the "Best day to go on a picnic" statistic.  You'll see that it never rained on the 20th of any month last year.  Thus, a perfect picnic day!  So far in 2025, the streak is still alive.  It didn't rain on January 20th.

Visit the blog next when we'll look at Egg Production in 2024.

2020 Rainfall - By the Numbers

On Thursday night's post last week we looked at egg production.  Tonight we'll look at rainfall.  We have a rain gauge out on a fencepost by the water trough.  Every day we check the gauge and record any rainfall on a paper log inside.  Each month we tally up the totals and at the end of the year, record all data onto a spreadsheet.  We've been tracking rainfall for about eight years now.  There's no particular reason we do it - it is just interesting to us.  I guess over years, it is good to look at trends.  When are the driest months?  When are the wettest months?  Let's take a look:

First off, you'll notice that we accumulated 59.85 inches of rainfall for the year, with the heaviest rainfall occurring in January and the lowest in March.  As I look at the daily rainfall logs over 2020, I notice that in the entire year of 2020, it did not rain on the 9th, 16th, or 30th day of the month for the entire year!  Furthermore, looking at last year's records, it did not rain at all on the 9th day of any month in 2019 either.  What does that tell you?  Nothing, really, except maybe in 2021, if you were planning an outdoor wedding or a picnic, or a fishing trip, the 9th might be a good day to plan it.  

Now let's compare to the eight year accumulated data:

Over the 8 year data collection period, we've averaged almost 67 inches of rain each year or about 5 1/2 feet of rain each year.  The wettest month on average over the 8 year trend is August; however, the wettest month in 2020 was January.  The driest month on average over the 8 year trend is March.  The driest month in 2020 was March as well.  Over the eight year period, we've accumulated 44 1/5 feet of water.  That's a lot of precipitation!  At Our Maker's Acres Family Farm, we wish you and your family showers of blessing in 2021.

2015 By The Numbers

At the beginning of each year, we like to look back to see if we can better manage things by looking at trends, statistics, and facts.  We pray that we'll be good stewards of things that the Good Lord has given us to manage.  As a result we try to read and gain knowledge and improve each day.  Another thing we do is maintain records.  Although it can be tedious, good record-keeping is vital in determining what works and what doesn't work year after year.

Our utility room is the primary work area of our home.  We wash and dry clothes there.  We pour milk there and wash the milking buckets and milking rags there. We store our egg cartons for packing away our daily egg production there.  We germinate all of our tomato, eggplant, and pepper seeds there.  We have a deep freeze chest freezer where we store a lot of our meat, vegetables and fruit there. There's one more thing we do in the utility room.

It is there where we have charts to track our egg and milk production as well as rainfall totals.  The charts are on a magnet attached to the door of the freezer.  Each day we dutifully chart totals and at the beginning of the next year, we record the totals.  I've thought about automating it by maintaining the charts in an Excel spreadsheet, but files can be lost or destroyed.  A chart maintained by hand, complete with different handwriting and ink colors on various lines, shows imperfections and mistakes.  These imperfections and mistakes remind me that that's who we are.  We are quite imperfect and fail quite often, but we keep going even though the results may not be pretty.

Anyway, today during lunch I transferred all the handwritten data into Excel, to quickly provide sums, averages, and see trends over the past three years we've been keeping records.  Here is our story:

For year ended December 31, 2015, our hens produced 9,155 eggs or 763 dozen eggs in total. Although I can't count them because they won't stand still while I'm counting, I'd guesstimate that we have about 65 laying hens running around the pasture, clucking, pooping, and doing other such fun hen things.  They are chased by 7 roosters who are quite amorous and when they aren't running from the roosters, the girls lay eggs for us.

Not surprisingly, over a three year average, the best month for egg production is April.  If I had to give an educated guess why, I would say that in April, the pasture has lush grass.  Spring has sprung and the tender, nutritious grass, along with bugs, worms and other delicacies give the hens maximum nutrition, allowing them to fill the nesting boxes with beautiful brown, green and blue eggs.

We'd be able to increase our egg production during the winter months if we kept a light on for them. Their laying quantities reduce significantly as the days get shorter since a hen requires a certain amount (research shows 15 hours per day) of daylight to maintain peak egg laying.  We choose not to do that and give the girls a 'rest' during the winter.  We do look forward to the longer days of spring and the resulting increase in egg production.  Our historical records show that this increase begins abruptly in very late January/early February.  We'll see if this trend continues...

Now let's take a look at rainfall totals.

Although we can't do a single thing about rainfall, it is interesting to track rainfall totals.  Rainfall averages over time for our zip code shows that on average, it rains 60.35 inches per year - a tad above 5 feet in a year!  If you average our rainfall we recorded over 2013 - 2014 (two year time period), that is right on the money: 60.25 inches.  However, in 2015 we had a full 9 inches more of rainfall in the year, totaling 69.05 inches or almost 6 feet of rainfall.  That's almost a foot more rainfall than we got last year! March continues to be our driest month, but the 13 inches of rain in April 2015 propels it to be the new 3 year average wettest month, replacing the previous two year average wettest month of January.

Overall, we just got more rain this year, despite June, July, and August being drier than normal.  That explains why the barnyard is a muddy, soupy mess.  Let's look on the bright side, though.  Our aquifers ought to be fully recharged now. California is in a drought.  I'd rather have too much rainfall than not enough.

2014 By The Numbers

On the door to the freezer in our utility room, we have several charts that we fill in each day to track daily egg production, milk production, and rainfall.  We like to keep good records and watch for trends over the course of time.  Like a scoreboard in a sporting event or a budget, looking at production records lets you know how things are going and helps you to look at and correct management problems. Rainfall totals are a little different.  Obviously, you can't manage rainfall, but it is interesting to track.

One of Benjamin's chores is to gather eggs.  Each afternoon he grabs his egg basket and goes out to the various places in the barn, hen house, chicken tractor and other odd places where our hens like to lay their eggs.  He brings them to the patio, spot cleans them if they need it and packs them in egg cartons.  Then he marks down the egg production for that given day on the egg chart.

A nice looking nest of eggs

Let's take a look at Egg Production in 2013 by month versus 2014:

	2013	2014
JAN	393	197
FEB	407	504
MAR	692	1714
APR	935	1796
MAY	843	1738
JUN	577	1127
JUL	462	1330
AUG	214	1094
SEP	333	988
OCT	377	1200
NOV	126	624
DEC	29	425
TOTAL	5,388	12,737
Dozen	449	1,061

I'm sorry about the formatting, when I copy/paste from Excel, it doesn't come out right.  Regardless, the numbers tell an interesting story.  With approximately the same number of hens on the pasture in both years, we more than doubled the amount of eggs laid in 2014 over 2013.  Why?

Well, there are several answers that we know of and probably other contributing factors that I'm not smart enough to pick up on.  We learn as we go and make mistakes every day.  The first thing we found was nutrition.  In 2013 we didn't do a good job of providing our chickens calcium.  They desperately need calcium since their bodies are using up a great deal of their calcium stores to produce eggs.  When the body has a nutrient imbalance, the first thing that shuts down is the reproductive system - Egg Laying.  So in early 2014, I began to keep a dish of crushed up oyster shells for them to partake of at will and that did the trick!

You can also see a trend of daylight hours and temperature in relation to egg production.  The number of daylight hours is very important for egg production. As the days get shorter, so does the egg count.  There is also a correlation in temperature.  Chickens are like people.  As the days get hotter, they get stressed and eat less, preferring to sit in the shade.  More Heat = Less nutrition = fewer eggs.

We could put lights on our chickens and their egg laying would increase; however, their productive lifespan would be shorter.  We're going to go ahead and let them have natural light and seasons the way God intended.  There are plenty of shade trees for them to cool off under.

How about rain?

Refreshing rainfall

Let's take a look at Rainfall in 2013 by month versus 2014:

	2013	2014
JAN	14.35	2.1
FEB	6.2	7.4
MAR	2.9	2
APR	8.8	3.2
MAY	5.2	8.3
JUN	3.4	9.2
JUL	2	6.5
AUG	2.5	9.2
SEP	6.6	1.2
OCT	3.7	4.2
NOV	2.7	2.55
DEC	4	2.3
TOTAL	62	58
Feet	5.20	4.85

Now, let me make a confession here that although we try our best to mark down each time it rains, sometimes we may forget.  With egg production, because the hens lay every day. we know when we've missed a day.  Not so with rainfall.  We may have missed a day, but the bottom line is the 2014 versus 2013 rainfall difference was statistically immaterial.  The only real trend that I can see is that February looks to be a wet month and November a dry one.  Other than that, the important thing to see is that here in South Louisiana, we average 5 feet of rain a year.  The US average rainfall is 37 inches, so we're pretty wet.

That's a good thing, BUT it also provides plenty of breeding grounds for mosquitoes!

2013 Eggs & Rain by the numbers

We like to keep pretty good records of things on the farm.  It gives us an idea of costs and revenues and production figures.  This information is helpful in reassessing what we're doing to determine if we might need to adjust our management practices.  I'll show you a good example of what I'm talking about.  The chart below was cut & pasted from Excel and the formatting didn't carry properly, but I think you can get the idea, even though it is very rough.

The Y access shows the day of the month and the X axis shows the month of the year.  The bottom lines show totals by month and cumulative egg production figures for the year.  I apologize again for the quality of the table below.

Our Maker's Acres Family Farm
Egg Production Records
Year: 2013
	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1	14	16	20	21	24	19	18	7	9	13	3	0
2	14	20	5	14	32	36	14	9	17	17	4	0
3	16	13	18	17	34	33	21	9	5	18	4	0
4	11	23	2	28	19	36	24	5	18	25	7	0
5	10	22	16	30	40	32	13	12	0	20	6	0
6	17	15	9	27	15	33	21	3	11	22	0	0
7	15	19	17	32	20	30	18	3	0	20	0	0
8	10	15	12	27	13	22	20	6	11	17	0	0
9	9	19	21	29	22	28	22	3	7	19	5	0
10	16	15	21	37	16	21	19	5	9	19	7	0
11	12	21	28	38	17	20	18	2	8	19	8	0
12	11	16	20	35	15	16	20	6	7	20	5	0
13	13	13	29	40	29	15	21	2	9	18	12	0
14	18	14	22	39	28	16	15	5	9	16	7	0
15	8	14	21	34	29	16	13	2	7	12	6	0
16	14	12	26	44	32	16	16	5	8	18	10	0
17	8	13	32	36	32	13	8	4	8	0	4	0
18	12	13	33	39	32	18	12	3	7	9	8	0
19	11	11	26	39	36	19	5	6	6	14	8	0
20	9	13	36	26	36	13	20	8	20	9	5	0
21	12	12	31	39	30	12	6	11	12	7	7	0
22	10	10	33	29	32	10	18	9	20	3	6	1
23	10	9	33	36	37	15	7	9	11	8	0	1
24	10	10	27	27	26	15	12	8	19	1	0	1
25	8	9	32	27	26	8	9	14	15	4	3	1
26	13	12	28	31	36	10	13	9	16	6	0	5
27	11	15	25	22	28	12	13	0	17	3	0	1
28	13	13	18	30	28	14	11	13	13	3	0	7
29	20	0	16	33	25	14	9	12	12	4	0	3
30	20	0	22	29	26	15	12	13	22	4	1	5
31	18	0	13	0	28	0	14	11	0	9	0	4
	393	407	692	935	843	577	462	214	333	377	126	29	by Month
	32.8	33.9	57.7	77.9	70.3	48.1	38.5	17.8	27.8	31.4	10.5	2	Dozen
	393	800	1492	2427	3270	3847	4309	4523	4856	5233	5359	5388	YTD
	32.8	66.7	124.3	202.3	272.5	320.6	359.1	376.9	404.7	436.1	446.6	449	Dozen YTD

This chart showed some interesting information.  Our little flock laid a total of 5,388 eggs in 2013 or 449 dozen eggs.  That seems high at first glance, but a we have about 60 hens.  That means on average, our hens laid 89 eggs.  If you do a quick search, you'll see that on average a hen will lay an egg every 26 hours or 265 eggs per year.  Yikes!  What happened?

As we discussed in a previous post, we have a nutrition problem and need to supplement with feed to give the birds the nutrition they need.  Good record-keeping bears this out.  As the chart indicates, during the Spring and early summer, the birds are able to forage for bugs and worms to supplement the grain we're feeding them and egg production is at its highest.  However, in winter months, when the bug and worm population falls off, we need to begin supplementing with feed, as their egg production falls off sharply. 

This is interesting data for me - News I can Use!  

We also do the same thing with rainfall data, tracking it day by day on a similar chart.  What we show below is a total of 63 inches of rain for the year in 2013, averaging a little over 5 inches per month.  Disclaimer: we may have missed a day or three during the year, but the figures should be pretty close for our area.  We'll continue to keep detailed records which help to show interesting trends to assist us in farm management. 

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
14.35	6.2	2.9	8.8	5.2	3.4	2	2.5	6.6	3.7	2.7	4	Rain by Month (inches)
14.35	20.55	23.45	32.25	37.45	40.85	42.85	45.35	51.95	55.65	58.35	63	YTD Rain (inches)
												5 Avg Rainfall/Mo.