Eggs for the Homestead Farm

One of my young pullets taking a dust bath. 

Producing eggs is an excellent task for a homesteader. Two hens is really all my husband and I would need for our own eggs, but extra hens means extra eggs for bartering or selling. Local, fresh eggs are a hot commodity! I have no trouble getting rid of the excess.

How many chickens? Well, I keep as many as I have food for. That equates to a core of laying hens = 25. Assorted birds for the pot = 25. Because I process my own food for them, 50-60 birds is all I can handle. Over that, then I have to buy commercial feed. One of my goals is to be as self-reliant as feasible. So I try not to get addicted to buying livestock feed. Besides, at $28 a 50 lb bag for layer pellets, it gets really expensive.

My layers I buy as day old chicks from McMurray. Once a year I order 50, selling the excess. Each year I buy a different breed so that I can easily tell the age of the hens. One year it will be red sex links, then black sexlinks, then pearl leghorns, then Araucanas.

My pot chickens are the old laying hens, plus birds that are given to me. People around here are often trying to give away excess roosters, feral hens, and older birds. So I usually have an assortment of pot birds out there.

Feeding the birds is a bit of a challenge that I enjoy taking. A great part of their food comes from garden and kitchen waste. Just about everything gets ground up and mixed together. I also gather abandoned fruits -- avocados, citrus, bananas, pineapples, guavas, mangos, noni, etc. Lots out there that people let rot on the ground. Waste from the supermarket is always interesting, as is restaurant waste. I never know what will end up in the collection buckets. My egg buyers also bring kitchen waste and food leftovers. Plus they get a trashcanful or two of fresh grass clippings every day.

Meat/protein is the most difficult thing to get. I get a bucket of butcher waste every week, but it's not enough. So I let the local hunters know the I would appreciate their meat waste. I have a number of hunters now who trade their scrap for some taro, sweet potatoes, or other veggies. The meat scrap gets cooked on an old wood burning stove down by the barn. Far easier than trying to grind it up. If I get a whole leg of a sheep or goat, I will nail it to a 2 foot long piece of 2x6 that I have in the pen. That way it gives the chickens something to do, pecking away at the raw meat. And by nailing it to the woodblock, the meat stays clean instead of getting covered in the litter. 

Boy, I was really surprised to see how much chickens can eat. Lots! I bring them food twice a day. First thing in the morning they are ravenous. 5 gallons of ground up mix just about disappears, in a hurry. Then they get their grass clippings. I gather eggs right after lunch and give them another couple of gallons of ground feed. I've gotten a feel as to how much feed to give them in the afternoon. From now to October they will eat lots. Sometime in October they slow down on what they will clean up until early January, when the major hungries hits them again.

Keeping chickens is great. An easy way to produce a nice source of protein on the homestead.

Town Farmers' Market

Wednesdays are a traditional day for the town farmers' market. I use to be very active with the market, but there is a squabble going on (that's another story), so I don't do as much anymore. But is still enjoy going down to meet friends and get the local gossip (called "talking story" here).

Spent a pleasant morning chatting with the various vendors and locals. Found out what's new in town, talked about real estate, made connections with a person who wants  source of sweet potatoes for making dog treats, talked with a number of people who want to check the community garden. I love chatting with the local people and connecting with my community.

Came home with 5 bags of goodies: papayas, bok choy, fresh rolls, tangerines, nan bread, avocados, and local beef. It's very satisfying to be eating local stuff. The beef is grass fed and chemical free. Wonderful stuff.

Why Try Homestead Farming?

                                         Looking toward South Point, not far from my land.

First, let it be known the I never was raised to farming. I grew up in the suburbs of a large city. We lived in housing developments. I was encouraged to become a nurse or a teacher. Our pets were a cat, a parakeet, some aqurium fish, and later, a dog.

For some reason unbeknownst to me, I have always been attracted to farming. Oh, how a longed for a pony! Sure, little girls want ponies, but I also would have been just as happy with a cow, pig, goat, or sheep. Ducks and chickens fascinated me. Plus I greatly enjoyed growing things, watching them get bigger, bloom, produce seed. I recall that even as young as a child in elementary school, I would collect acorns and plant them around my neighborhood. As I approached junior high, I strongly wanted to attend agricultural high school. Needless to say, my parents refused. They didn't have a clue how I felt. And from their viewpoint, it would be a cold day in hell before their only daughter would be allowed to attend agricultural high school!

So for the first 40 years of my life I soothed my inner frustrated farming soul by gardening. Yes, I got my pony! Had a couple of rabbits for a while. Raised some meat chickens. Kept a couple dairy goats for a few years. I dabbled, experimented, read books, and learned. There was no handy Internet in those days, so I learned on my own the old fashioned way. I even took a couple of community college ag courses. But I still lived the typical American housewife life while taking parttime, sometimes full time jobs in a field that I also loved- veterinary medicine. I often thought that if I could live my life over again, I would have gotten into farming of some sort.

Somewhere in my early 50's my husband and I started looking at future retirement. Prospects were not so sunny. While we were not dirt poor, we didn't have any retirement funds. Sometime during this period of doom &gloom and soul searching, the thought of surviving retirement by becoming more self-sufficient started to grow and look more possible. And the idea of "need less, spend less" took root.

Out came my lifelong collection of farming books. I studied them, looking for ideas to apply to our own needs. The more I read, the more I wanted to give homesteading a serious try. The idea was hatched, and for the next couple years I nurtured it. Eventually we took the plunge......sink or swim. And while we swam like mad, we almost sunk! We had to learn not farming.....we had to learn a  whole new way to look to life, a totally different way to live life! It wasn't easy or fun, but it turned out to be worth the struggle.

Why Choose Hawaii?

                                                        Mauna Kea dusted with snow

People seem so skeptical of my motives when I say that I moved to Hawaii to simplify my life and live a more homestead style life. I believe that's because of the public misconception of what Hawaii is like. Ya know....Waikiki Beach, sunshine, palm trees, surfboys. Yes, that's here but it isn't what Hawaii is all about. It would be like expecting to see cattle drives going through Oklahoma City, or  everybody riding horses down the street of Houston, Texas. So, I didn't choose Hawaii in order to sit on the beach and eat coconuts.

Grower older, I wanted to go someplace where the weather would be easier on me. I had had my fill of snow, ice, wet cold mud, bone chilling rain, dreary days, stifling humidity, raucously hot summer days. I was looking not only for gentler weather but someplace where I could grow food year around, be rural or semi-rural, have the freedom to express myself, and be able to survive on my meager savings. Lots of locations fit one to two of my requirements, but finding the "ideal" spot took a lot of searching. I hadn't even considered Hawaii until I took a pre-retirement trip to fulfill a dream to see an erupting volcano. The wish took me to Hawaii, the easiest one to access. And lo and behold, I discovered a Hawaii that wasn't anything like I had envisioned.

Hawaii is really, really diverse. In the short distance of five miles I can go from a wet, lush area to hot, dry desert. And that is exactly what the area I settled down is like! My farm is sheltered from the trade winds, but a short drive away the trades can practically blow you off your feet some days. Mornings and evenings on the farm are chilly, making a small wood burning stove welcome. A couple of miles up the mountain that wood burning stove becomes a necessity, while in the opposite direction down the mountain makes that stove not needed at all.

So, Hawaii fit our needs. The only difficulty was cost. I was not use to land being so costly. So finding the right piece of land took us years of searching and waiting.........plus a lot of dumb luck!

Why this blog?

Why this blog? Well, when I tell people what I do and where I live, I always gets lots of questions about how I did it, and why. So it was suggested that I make a blog so others can learn by example. So, here it goes.

Who am I? I am Su Ba, a retired woman in her mid 60's who is finally pursueing her desire to live a basic homestead style farm life. My background is from average middle class. I spent most of my life in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and England. 

Where am I? On Big Island, Hawaii. At 2300 foot elevation where the nights are cool (55 to 60), days are warm (70 to 80), with adequate rainfall (60 inches). Where am I? In paradise! 

The above sunset is real. No photoshop, no enhancements. The sunsets at times can be incredible here. This one was photographed by me from a friend's front yard at about 3800 foot elevation.