Last week the crew came into work while it was dry enough to move the chicken houses and fencing. Already you can see that they have mown down all the grass around them. This is partly what makes the yolks orange. Keeping the houses moving onto fresh pasture spreads out their manure and makes sure that every part of the field has the bug clearing benefit of the girls, too. They will be moved to the end of the field, then come back, right in front of where we took this photo.
This pasture was sown in May last year in not ideal conditions. It was too hot. We planted twenty acres of pasture in November, which are all germinating nicely.
Daisy is from a line of dogs bred specifically as livestock guardian dogs. She was trained by us specifically to protect the chickens. We get coyotes on the farm almost every night and the occasional stray dog. We firmly believe that as we use these farm animals to produce eggs and meat for us we have to protect them as best we can with the fence and Daisy.