The farm stand has been up and running since Mother’s Day weekend! We started with just Friday afternoons and Saturday morning. We are now open most days of the week for flowers!
Farm stand
Wrapped Bouquets
Our bouquets are a mixture of focal, spike, airy and foliage florals. We have dahlias, zinnias, sunflowers, gladiolus, sweet peas, cosmos, celosia and mints this summer season. The colours are amazing and the fragrance is delightful!
Wrapped bouquets
Honey, beeswax and lip balm
Summer Rain Farm has 3 hives this year and they are doing great. We look forward to harvesting our honey in August.
Our chicken flock
We have about 30 chickens that roam our property and enjoy all the grass, bugs and worms that they can find. We feed them omega layer ration as well as veggies and fruits from the garden as treats.
They lay one egg on average every 25 hours so we get about 2 dozen eggs a day to package and put out at the farm stand.
Summer Rain Farm stand goals for this year are to have enough items to draw a crowd to our farm. I’ve had this goal in the back of my mind since we started having bees in 2015.
We have 2 hives of bees that gather nectar from nearby wildflowers. Summer Rain Farm harvests the honey every fall making sure to leave enough for the bees to overwinter. Our honey is delicious and we put it in 1 kg and 500 ml jars.
Now I’m ready to bring something of even more value to the farm. Summer Rain Farm stand goals for this year are to grow beautiful flowers from seeds, tubers and bulbs as well as the many perennials we have already have on our property.
The flowers will benefit the pollinators as well as our customers. I’m researching all about the flowers and how to harvest, condition and wrap into lovely market bouquets.
Our flock of chickens lays delicious brown eggs and we would have dozens of eggs ready for customers each week.
Flowers will be the beauty that draws the customers to our farm stand and gives them something to enjoy on their dining table as well as having delicious eggs and honey for their meals.
We will have beautiful seasonal market bouquets wrapped in kraft paper. They will be grown on our property and hand picked by me less than 24 hours before. These flowers will be grown without the use of chemicals and conditioned for long vase life for you to enjoy once you bring them home.
Soon after we had our country property we decided to get a few laying hens to have fresh eggs. We ordered 6 layer chickens and built a small raised coop, 4′ x 8′ and only 4 ft tall. we put in a roosting bar and feed and water buckets. This worked well for us for a few years but when we wanted a few more chickens we had to build bigger.
First small coop
2nd coop
This time we wanted a walk-in coop which is easier to clean and has lots of windows to let in the sunshine. We doubled the size to 8’x 8′ and insulated the walls. It has four 1′ x 3′ windows that open outward in the summertime. They are covered on the inside with 1/2 inch hardware cloth to keep out predators.
Big and little doors to coop
Roosts
The walls, floors and nesting boxes are painted white as well as the roosting bars. We put in 4 nesting boxes and a 4 rung roosting bar that started at 2 ft and stepped up to 4 ft high. We used 1’x 2′ boards for the roosts so the chickens can cover their feet in the winter. The roosts are 4 ‘ long and the top one is at window height.
Inside coop
Nesting boxes
The nesting boxes are 14″ x 14 ” x 14″ with a sloped roof to prevent them from sleeping on top of them. We fill the nests with fresh straw or shavings to keep the eggs clean. This also protects the eggs in the winter cold. We have 30 chickens now and they all share the nests. There is sometimes a lineup of chickens waiting for their turn in the nest.
Feed
Free-ranging chickens
We buy omega layer feed for our chickens as well as scratch grain, kitchen scraps and mealworms for treats in winter. In the summer they have a lot of fresh greens from the garden as well as some free-range time when I can watch them. We tried to totally free-range when we first got them and if I let them out in the morning they would end up as far as the neighbour’s deck by afternoon. Our neighbours are very kind and thought it was cute but I’m sure that would not be tolerated for long.
Having a run for them
Laying hens in the run
We put up a large fenced-in run that is 50′ x 25′. It gave them plenty of room to hunt and peck and we place garden scraps and trimmings from around the property for them to investigate. This way they are not only happy and safe but now the neighbours don’t have to worry about chicken manure on their deck.
Breeds of chickens
A chicken lays on average 1 egg every 25 hours. This means that we get about 25 -30 eggs every day from our 30 hens. We have 2 types of chickens right now. A red sex link is a brownish red hybrid that is a top-performing layer of brown eggs. The other breed is Ameraucana which lays blue eggs. We have 10 of these. They are a little less productive. There are many other breeds out there and if you want a pretty flock rather than egg production you have a lot to choose from.
Different kinds of waterers
Watering
We have 2 types of waterers for our chickens. In the summer we use large plastic waterers that are easy to clean and refill. They need a lot of water when it is hot out. We usually put extra pans out for them to walk in as it cools them down this way too.
In the winter we use metal waterers that can be put up on a heated platform. This keeps the water from freezing at -25 degrees Celcius. It also keeps the water raised up and out of the shavings which can get kicked around a lot in the coop. We have electricity run to our coop so we can have the heaters and light inside.
Lighting
Lighting can be for 2 reasons. One so you can actually see what you’re doing at evening chores in the winter when the sun goes down at 4:30 pm. You need to collect eggs, check their feed and water and do a headcount before you lock up for the night.
The other reason is to keep your chickens laying throughout the winter. Chickens need at least 14 hours of daylight t continue to lay eggs. In October the nights are starting around 6 pm and increase to 4:30 pm by December 21, the longest night of the year or winter solstice.
We add programmed timer lights that add 2 hours of light at first then increase to 6 hours by December. Then we reverse this as the daylight hours increase. Some people feel that giving the wintertime break to their chickens is the way to go so it is up to you whether to light the coop or not.
Mixed flock
Gateway livestock
Of course, having laying chickens led to meat chickens, turkeys, Muscovy ducks and now geese. I’ll share more about these animals in upcoming posts. Will you start your hobby farm with some chickens?
