The Massacre

It was Halloween Day.  A day where many people in the world dress up and "Trick or Treat."  Most expect treats, candy or such.  Not many people think about getting a trick instead.  On Halloween Day I woke up to do the chores and filled the feed bucket to go feed our 49 meat birds that are only two weeks away from butchering.  Well, there was no treat for me - only a trick.  A cruel trick, if you will.  It was a massacre.

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines massacre as follows:

massacre

/ˈmasəkər/

A massacre is the violent, cruel, and indiscriminate killing of a large number of people—(birds, in this case) especially those who are defenseless, unresisting, or non-combatants.

I opened the door to the chicken tractor in the dawn hours before the sun peeked above the eastern horizon.  Normally, I'm greeted by hungry birds awaiting breakfast making all sorts of noise and commotion.  Instead there was dead silence. I found ALL 49 of our birds DEAD.  I can't put into words the frustration and anger I felt toward the perpetrator of this crime.

I had been thinking about the 300 pounds of chicken we were going to store in our freezer in two weeks, and I think the old saying, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch" can be altered to "Don't count your chickens until they are in your freezer."  Starting the race is one thing, but you gotta finish it.

The Killing Field

It was a mink, to be sure.  They are cruel, devious animals, programmed with a bloodlust, a zeal for killing, and they kill all at once.  They don't even eat the animal.  They bite the neck and bleed the chicken out, leaving their wasteful kill for you to find in an almost mocking fashion.  The population of minks have exploded due to the expansion of their habitat which locally is crawfish ponds.  More crawfish ponds and rice fields mean more mink.  More mink means more chicken deaths.  It's not just us.  All of our neighbors have lost their flocks.

Butchered, but not by us.

The chicken tractor is protected by chicken wire which has, historically, done the job.  However, minks can dig as you can see the point of entry in the photo below.  All they need is an inch of clearance and the opportunistic killer is inside.  Their murderous intent at this point is easy, like shooting fish in a barrel.

The chink in the armor

The horror the birds must have felt as they were picked off, one by one.  You can see that some tried in vain to find refuge from the killing spree under the waterer.  They found no safe quarter.  There was no life left in the chicken tractor.

No place to hide

Our weekly Wednesday weigh ins have come to an end as we have realized a 100% mortality rate.  Sickening, I tell you.  There was nothing to be done except bury the dead.  I loaded 49 beautiful, but dead birds into my wagon and pulled it down the boulevard of broken dreams.  I estimate 250 pounds of meat wasted.  Is it a total loss?  Yes and no.  We won't be able to butcher and eat any of these birds, but I'm trying to find whatever silver lining I can find.  I'll bury them in the garden and they'll at least provide fertilizer for next Spring's vegetables.

The (wasted) meat wagon

I began to dig their tomb in the spot where the sweet potatoes were just dug up.  I figured I would dig a trench, lay 8 birds in the hole, cover it and repeat the process until they were all interred.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

But not so fast, my friend.  Before burial, I gutted out the birds, saving the guts and organs.  I'll freeze them.  Why?  Proverbs 6:16-19 lists seven things the Lord hates, one of them being "hands that shed innocent blood."  God is not talking about animals here, so it doesn't really apply to our situation, but I hate minks that shed my chickens' blood.  And I'm going to do something about it.  I know the Bible says, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."  I agree.  I won't act in vengeance, but I think as a steward over the little piece of Creation He's given us, I've got to exact some justice and stop it from happening again.

Tricia told me, "Kyle, it's just like swatting mosquitoes.  You can't kill them all.  No matter how many mink you trap and kill, more will arise."  Maybe so.  But you don't stop swatting mosquitoes.  Every mosquito you kill is unable to bite you or lay eggs to make more mosquitoes.  Same with a dead mink.  Hence the bucket of chicken guts which I'll use to bait my traps.

Bait for the mink traps

The burial went swiftly, each trench holding the remains of 8 fat birds.  I shoveled the dirt over their carcasses, about 6-8 inches deep.

Finally, the work was done except for adding a two inch layer of mulch over the exposed soil which will come later.  Within three hours of finding the carnage, all 49 birds were buried.  Now came taking down the waterer, removing the feed troughs, heat lamps, extension cord and removing the tarps from the top of the chicken tractor and putting everything back in its place.

I did a brief 'post-mortem' regarding the financial implications of the mink attack.  The chicks cost $223.50.  So far we had $200.88 in feed costs.  We never factor in the cost of labor (our own) because if we weren't working on the chickens, we'd be doing something else.  $425 is a bitter pill to swallow.  An investment down the toilet.  We may be down, but we're not out.

As discouraging as this might be, I think about the settlers, the sod-busters, the homesteaders that founded this land.  When calamity like this struck them, and it often did, the ramifications were far more serious.  There was no store down the road to go to when you lost your laying hens to varmints in order to buy meat.  They had to make things work.  They re-doubled their efforts and moved forward. 

I plan on ordering another 50 chicks in early spring, and I'm researching "mink-proofing your chicken tractor, which includes lining the outside with hardware cloth and then making "hardware cloth" wings on hinges to lay down on the perimeter of the tractor that are a foot wide.  Minks don't dig tunnels that far.  We'll also do some trapping to thin out the mink population.  Maybe I'll make Tricia that mink coat I joke about.  We've been raising meat birds for years and years and never had this happen before.  We'll try to improve our process so that it never happens again.  Join us again this spring as we try again.  

Digging Up the Sweet Potatoes

Back in March of this year, we talked about sweet potatoes.  For the past 20 years we've never had to plant them.  Like cilantro, they come up volunteer each year.  We estimate the first sweet potatoes came up from compost that we buried in the garden from kitchen waste.  It was a gift that kept on giving!  About 10 years ago, we introduced an heirloom variety called Golden Wonder that we got at a seed swap at a sustainable agriculture conference.  They really took off.  Too successful, in fact, crowding out the Beauregards and over time, became susceptible to what we think were sweet potato weevils.

To combat that, as the Golden Wonders came up this spring, we pulled up about 3/4 of them and planted slips from both the Beauregard and Evangeline varieties.  Those varieties were developed here.  In fact, Russ worked for the professor at LSU in developing these successful varieties for commercial use.  The Beauregard and Evangeline slips grew and vined all over the garden and despite the dry conditions, seemed to thrive.  It's now time to dig up the 2026 harvest.  Since they grow underground, you can't really estimate how your crop will be until you dig them up.

I wish there were an easier way to do this, but there's not.  I use garden digging forks.  They look like a pitch fork but with wider tines.  I turn every square foot over, unearthing the mature sweet potatoes.  Here you can see I'm almost done.  My lower back will be glad when we're finished.

The cows and goats really dig my digging, because I throw all the vines over the fence and they feast on the sweet vines.  At first they eat the small roots and then they eat the entire vine, leaving nothing left.

As the sun sank in the western sky, I finished the digging!  We don't like to leave the soil uncovered, so we quickly cover with leaves and mulch so that the sun doesn't kill the beneficial microbes that might have been uncovered and exposed.

Here is an Evangeline Sweet Potato:

And here is a Beauregard:

We got a decent harvest with sweet potatoes of all sizes.  The smallest ones we'll feed to the cows.  They love them!  Maybe almost as much as they love cabbage.  Lots of medium sized ones perfect for baking.  Here Tricia is showing two of the largest ones we dug up:

We store them in crates in the garage that will allow air flow as they cure.  Curing allows time for the starches to convert to sugar and also allows those with any scars to heal up.  Scars, you ask?  Well, since you can't see them when you're digging, you inevitably cut right into some with the garden forks.  Unfortunately, some of the biggest, prettiest ones get scarred in the process of digging.

I weighed them on the garden scale and we got 33.5 pounds.  Not the best harvest we've ever had.  We routinely dug up over 100 pounds.  But we won't be complaining over 33.5 pounds.  On the contrary, we're looking forward to the two week curing period to be over so we can bake some up and slather big pats of butter on top!

2026 Meat Birds - Week Six

Wednesday weigh-in for the meat birds is already upon us.  It is the once a week time we check in to see how they are growing.  Let's talk about feed.  We do have the birds out on fresh grass that we move them to each and every day, but we also feed them.  We are now feeding them an 18% Protein Chick Grower.  

There are several methods of feeding.  Some people keep feed available to them always from 7 AM to 7 PM.  In doing this, many experience problems as the birds will grow faster than their skeletal system, and this causes crippling because the legs simply can't handle the weight.  I feed them three times a day between the hours of 7 am to 7 pm.

Last week a neighbor down the road stopped in the driveway and threw me three 60 lb sacks of milled rice for free!  He has a cousin that works at one of the rice mills in Crowley.  Periodically they have what they call "sweepings" that they bag up and give away.  My neighbor, God bless him, shared with us some of his windfall and blessed us with some free rice. To me, it looks good enough to eat, but we'll run it through our chickens.

I mixed the milled rice half and half with the Chick Starter and it'll help 'stretch' the feed and save a little on our overhead cost of feed.  I'm sure the protein percentage is lower than the chick starter, so it's a dangerous experiment.  Maybe it will slow down their growth and weight gain?  I've been mixing it in the feed for a week now.  We'll see...

Let's check out the weight of an average bird sitting out there in the chicken tractor.  I picked one up, a hen this time.  I can tell it's gained weight since last week, but how much?  To find out, I put the six week old chicken up on our kitchen scale:

And here we are.  At the end of week six, the bird weighs 5 lbs 2 oz. or 82 ounces.  Last Wednesday the average bird weighed 4 pounds and 3 ounces (or 67 ounces).  That's a weight gain week over week of 15 ounces - almost a pound.

Last year at the end of week 6, the birds weighed 5 lbs 4 ounces.  So we are off by a nominal 2 ounces.  This is the first time this year we've fallen a little below the weight of the previous year.  It could be the rice, but we're still not far off from where we should be at this time.

Summary:

At the end of week one:         8 ounces

At the end of week two:       20 ounces

At the end of week three:     33 ounces

At the end of week four:       49 ounces

At the end of week five:        67 ounces

At the end of week six:          82 ounces

As we near the home stretch of a goal of an eight pound bird at the end of 8 weeks, we are within striking distance.  Tune in next Wednesday to see how things progress.

The Best Part of Waking Up...

This weekend I heard a story of a little boy who wanted to make breakfast for his dad on Father's Day.  The boy made a big mess in the kitchen, but the thought was there and he made a bowl of Cheerio's and a cup of coffee for his dad.  He brought it to his Dad's room and sat the tray on the bed.  The dad said, "What's this?"  "Well, it's breakfast in bed, Dad," the boy said.  Milk and cheerios were all over the tray and the coffee didn't look too good, but the Dad didn't want to discourage his son, so he began to eat and drink.  The coffee was horrible!  The dad was forcing himself to take more sips of the terrible brew while his son watched.  The boy said, "Drink it all, Dad.  There's a surprise at the bottom!"  Well, that scared the dad as he carefully sipped to the end.  At the bottom of the cup lay two plastic toy soldiers.  "Son, why are there two soldiers in the bottom of my coffee cup?" the Dad asked.

"Because Dad, the best part of waking up is soldiers in your cup!"  A 'dad' joke for sure.

Truly the best part of waking up is eating a big heaping plateful of the free range, pastured eggs from our laying hens.  Take a look at this breakfast!  The yolks are a dark yellow from all the grass they are eating out there, along with bugs, worms and other stuff.  Store bought eggs don't hold a candle to the taste of our hens' eggs.  You can taste and see the difference!

Our hens put out some delicious eggs which we cook in a cast iron skillet covered with fresh grown peppers and onions, tomatoes and cilantro with a slice of hot, buttered sourdough bread on the side.  Forget it Wheaties.  THIS is the breakfast of champions.  Our hen population is down to about 20 now and they're all getting older.  As the days get shorter, we're only picking up 8 eggs a day.  As soon as we butcher the meat birds giving us space in the brooder/chicken tractor, we're going to raise some replacement laying hens to freshen the flock and keep these delicious breakfasts coming!

We have quite a few breeds currently out free ranging on the pasture: Rhode Island Reds, Golden Comets, Aracaunas, Black Stars and some leghorn crosses.  I'd like to get some Barred Rocks and maybe try some Jersey Giants this go round.  It usually takes roughly 24 weeks until they begin to lay, so I hope our 20 hens keep laying until the reinforcements arrive and mature.

Thirty Six Years

On October 20, 1990 Tricia and I were married in Corpus Christi, Texas.  Hard to believe it's been 36 years!?  We're kind of simple folk and also sort of routine driven people.  We don't necessarily do fancy things to celebrate and sort of do the same thing year after year, but it is special to us - Our annual anniversary picnic luncheon.

October is just a beautiful month.  The weather finally moderates with cool mornings and comfortable afternoons.  That's why we usually go to Lafayette and go to a Fresh Market grocery and load up on all sorts of specialty grocery items.  Gourmet olive mix, bruschetta and brie cheese, kombucha, two bistro meals with sides and a tuxedo napoleon cake for dessert.  We load that into a picnic basket and heat out.

Not far away is a lovely park called Moncus Park.  We lay out a picnic blanket by the side of the lake.  Tricia eyed suspiciously bubbles that were coming up from the lake near the bank and asked me if, like on Swamp People, there was an alligator about to charge up out of the lake at us and eat us.  It would be a shame as that would put a severe damper on the day, but alas, it did not happen.  We ate our meal and enjoyed our time at the park in relative peace.

We sat out and talked for the longest time and watched other people enjoying the great weather and beautiful scenery at the park.  We ate until we were SO full!

It couldn't have been a more perfect afternoon until we figured that we had left out an important part of the meal that would've really gone well with the tuxedo napoleon cake - Coffee!  Fortunately, right down the road was a coffee spot called Jet Coffee that we had never tried, so we drove through for two Cafe Americanos.  Properly caffeinated, motivated, and rejuvenated, it was time to head back home.

What a day!  Celebrating a beautiful marriage of 36 years with my beautiful bride.

A Lot Of Things Different

Last Monday I turned 60.  Sixty is a number that kind of wakes you up - jars you a little bit and makes you think.  60 trips around the sun.  I sat there and thought how could this be...  For a moment there, I became very introspective.  I don't really care about the grey hair or the decline in stamina or muscle tone.  That's just a given in aging.  Some of the things I care about are the following: Have I accomplished what I wanted to in the past 6 decades?  Are there still meaningful things to be done in the days that follow?  And while I'm thinking about this, what about all the stupid, bone-headed things I've done in 21,900 days that I regret?  Or the things I should've done but didn't?

I don't often go down the rabbit hole of regret.  I think regret is a fool's errand.  Regret, in my opinion, is only good if there is still time to do something about it to make things right.  I think Lucille Ball said it best in talking of regret when she said, "I'd rather regret the things I've done, than the things I haven't."  

You know, it's funny how sometimes when I am thinking about something, coincidences happen.  Thinking about regret for both things I've done and things I haven't, I was listening to a podcast where the host was asking the person he was interviewing what his top 5 favorite country songs were.  That made me curious and I turned it up.  The person answered and most of the songs he brought up, I had never thought of.  The only one I knew on his list was "Don't close your eyes" by Keith Whitley.

This gentleman that was being interviewed is a lyricist.  He writes music and pays close attention to lyrics and song meanings.  He said that his favorite country music song was "A Lot of Things Different" by John Conlee.  Now I know John Conlee.  I've sung along with him on the radio while listening to "Rose Colored Glasses" on my truck's radio turned up loud.  But I had never heard "A Lot of Things Different."  The guys on the podcast were saying that the lyrics on this song are hard to get through.  They are meaningful, emotional and raw.  You can feel the genuineness as he sings about doing things different.  So I couldn't resist and pulled it up to listen to.  Wow!  (I think I'd endorse every bit of what he's singing about, except maybe the part about skinny dipping with Jenny Carson.  Nothing good's gonna come of that!)

Anyhow, grab a box of tissues, press the arrow in the middle below and have a listen.  I've also posted the song lyrics farther below, but the words are easy to hear and understand.  John Conlee says he'd a done a lot of things different.  Me too!  How about you?  If you still have time to do them, there's no better time to start than today.

I'd have spent a lot more time out in the pouring rain

Without an umbrella covering my head
And I'd have stood up to that bully when he pushed and shoved
And called me names but I was too afraid

And I'd have gone on and seen Elvis that night
He came to town and Mama said I couldn't
And I'd have gone skinny dipping with Jenny Carson
That time she dared me to and I didn't

Oh I, I'd have done a lot of things different

I wish I'd have spent more time with my dad
When he was alive, now I don't have the chance
I wish I had told my brother just how much I loved him
Before he went off to war but I just shook his hand

And I wish I'd gone to church on Sunday mornings
When my grandma begged me to, but I was scared of God
And I wish I would have listened when they said
"Boy, you're gonna wish you had, but I wouldn't"

Oh I, I'd do a lot of things different
People say they wouldn't change a thing
Even if they could, oh but I would

There was this red dress she wanted
One time so bad she could taste it
I should have bought it but I didn't
She wanted to paint our bedroom yellow
Trim it in blue and greens
But I wouldn't let her, wouldn't have hurt nothing

Oh, and she loved to be held
And kissed and touched but I didn't do it
Not nearly enough and if I'd know
That was going to be our last dance
I'd have told the band to play on
And on and on and on and on

People say they wouldn't change a thing
Even if they could, oh but I would

Oh I, I'd have done a lot of things different
Yes I, I'd do a lot of things different
Oh I, I have done a lot of things different

2026 Meat Birds - Week Five

According to the normal plan of butchering after eight weeks, we're more than halfway through.  This week we lost a bird.  I arrived to feed them in the morning and one was lying breast up dead as the proverbial door nail.  Curious about the "dead as a doornail" phrase, I had to look it up.  The saying dates back to the 14 century.  When craftsmen were building big, solid doors, they wanted them to last.  They drove a long nail all the way through so that the end of the nail stuck out the other side.  Then they would hammer the protruding end down, making it impossible to pull the nail back through.  A nail bent like this couldn't be pulled out and used again, thus it was dead.  Just like our chicken.  We've never had one die at this stage.  If they are going to die, we want them to die in the first couple of weeks before you've fed them.  We don't know what killed this bird, but it wasn't a predator.

In the photo below, I wanted to point out that the chicken tractor is on wheels and is pushed daily to fresh grass.  They quickly clip all the grass down and eat it, leaving a barren square littered with chicken poop.  That poop will grow some green grass come spring.  You must be very careful pushing the tractor as the birds aren't smart and are prone to getting run over.  Yet another way to kill them.  I learned that lesson the hard way over the years.  Note the barren squares where the tractor has been.

On Wednesday night weigh in, I open the door and scoop up an average sized bird.  They move toward the door thinking it is time to eat, making the task of catching one very easy.

Here is the average sized bird for tonight's trip to the kitchen scale.  This bird is a hen.  You can tell by its comb.  It the photo above you can see some roosters in the mix, identified by their redder, larger combs on their heads.  We purchase straight run, meaning they aren't sexed, so you get a mixture of males and females.  Roosters grow much faster, so its a good thing to have more roosters as they'll gain more weight in the same period of time.

Up on the scale the bird goes.  I watch it closely as I don't want it pooping on our scale.  I also don't want it jumping off the scale and work bench and getting hurt.

Let's see what the chicken weights tonight...

4 pounds and 3 ounces (or 67 ounces).

Last week: And at the end of week 4: 49 ounces (3 lbs. 1 oz.)
This week: At the end of week 5:    67 ounces   (4 lbs. 3 oz.)

That's a weight gain week over week of 18 ounces or 1 lb. 2 oz.  At the end of Week 5 for last year's crop of Cornish Cross birds, they weighed exactly 4 lbs., so we are right on target!

Summary:

At the end of week one:         8 ounces

At the end of week two:       20 ounces

At the end of week three:     33 ounces

At the end of week four:       49 ounces

At the end of week five:        67 ounces

We'll be weighing again next Wednesday with our goal of butchering a bird weighing 8 pounds at the end of 8 weeks.