Author: Steve Hardin

Spring is trying to show up

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Spring really wants to be here. She just cannot seem to stay. Every few days the snow comes down the hillside almost to our house. By the next day it starts to melt off, the back creek rises and we repeat the entire endless cycle. 
The birds all think it’s spring. The are singing and making endless noise. The animal volume becomes a constant dull roar in the spring at our house. Everyone wants a mate!  

We ordered our downstairs floor tile, 900 sq ft. It will do the entire house minus the laundry room. I had plans to do the library and the hallway this spring. This will cause me to have a two foot offset section near the kitchen. So I am going to do the library and under the stairs. 
 This will leave, a maximum of 6 inch overhang probably less. I have the library empty but I need to empty out all the space under the stairs. I have stuff all the way under the stairs. We are running out of locations to stack stuff. It’s going to start looking like a construction zone again. This has a tendency to agitate the wife. 
The tile company called yesterday and said our tile was in!  I will go over this week and pick it up. We are going to use the root cellar as our storage area for the tile job. This is going to take a couple of years. The only demolition I will need to do for the tile job is the kitchen floor needs to have the top layer of lineoleum and subfloor removed. I also have to dismantle the custom shelves in the kitchen I made from the old doors and wood kicker trim. That whole thing will have to be removed and then the bottoms of the doors shortened so it still fits. 
 

Mouse war update

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This morning view. 
 
The mouse war continues!  I killed two more mice yesterday and two more today!  All of these without any bait!  It is crazy that I have nabbed so many by just having them run over the traps. Three of them have been caught by just the tail but all are dead by the time I go out to get eggs in the evening. I keep expecting to get some no hitter days so that I am forced to break out the peanut butter. 

We have been putting Zeke on the run because he keeps getting out of the yard. Sometime today he leaped over the fence and got stuck because he was on the run! I keep hoping he will stop getting out of the yard but until I get the new side fence installed I seriously doubt it. 
 

2016 Annual summary

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2016 Annual Farm Summary.


INCOME:
 We sold $2025 worth of sheep (33 animals),  $658 worth of eggs, $567 our portion of 3 cows, $295 worth of hay and made no profit on the alpacas at all.  Our total income for 2016 was $3545.  

EXPENSES: 
I have several categories so I will give a brief overview of each one and then my rounded expenses.  I am not going to add them all up so the numbers may not add up to my real total but it will be close enough for record keeping purposes.  There is no other neat way to do this.  It worked last year so I am going to stick with it.  I will add a little more description to the categories in hopes that it will make my life easier next year when I go to add the totals up and figure out which category they go in. It did make it a lot easier to figure out my categories this year.  Annmarie told me I had to separate out all equipment purchases for tax reasons. Luckily we didn’t have any this year. 
  
ANIMALS: This covers the baby chickens, medicine for the sheep and chickens, bedding, straw, salt and supplements we also bought a new ram in April for $150.  We are also trying a new tagging system on the cows using necklaces $205. Labor to clean out the chicken coop was $100. Total cost: $943 
FEED:  This covers all the chicken food, sheep grain and hay. We purchased 23 ton of hay this year for $2400, $375 for working dog food and $647 in chicken feed  Total cost:  $3422
GENERAL:  This covers the general supplies, gloves, safety gear, nails, clips, hardware for gates, locks for gates, hinges, $26 ammo and $68 safety gear.  Total cost:  $439
EQUIPMENT:  This covers $882 for pickup repair: used tires, new shocks and repair fuel leak and oil change.  $67 for chain saw repair and $112 for weed whacker repair.  Total cost:  $1062
VET:  This covers $181 Zeke vaccines and $216 Mouse vaccines and $800 two cheat grass removals and a neuter for mouse. Total cost:  $1197
TRACTOR/SPRAYER/SPRAY:  This covers the $512 for tractor maintenance at the dealership, $93 for sprayer repair and (tractor fuel  24 gallons $61) Total cost:  $667
BUSINESS EXPENSE:  This is for $50 license renewal, $635 for farm insurance we are required to keep now due to number of animals and buildings and $350 new computer programs.  Total cost:  $1035
BARN IMPROVEMENTS:  This is for repairing the barn and any improvements.  
We removed more flooring from the milking area so the horses can be placed under cover and locked in as we also added gates. $90 Supplies and $300 Labor costs to dig out old straw from sheep:  Total cost: $390
FENCING:  This needed its own category.  We have been improving the fencing all over the farm and cross fencing to control our over grazing by the animals.  This covers the posts, wire, railroad ties, gates and labor. We replaced several gates and I purchased wire whenever I found it for a cost of ($1505), labor 
($900).  Total cost: $2405
MACHINE SHOP POWER:  This covers all the materials needed to dig a trench out to the shop and run conduit and wiring.  Total cost:  $689
IRRIGATION: This covers $231 pump improvements, $697 sprinkler heads, $450 pump repair, $51 pump power.  Total cost:  $1429
ALPACA:  We had to sharpen blades and get some more tarps. Total cost: $101
[Total Alpaca lifetime expense is $958]

Expense total:  $13,090 for the entire year.

GRAND TOTAL:  A loss of $9545

That is a pretty accurate number as I was very good about keeping receipts again this year. I think some of my glove receipts went missing. I use up about a dozen pair a year. I had to replace a set of ear muffs for when I run the tractor. I keep them on the steering wheel so there is no excuse not to use them. 

We bought hay as a just in case move and it paid off amazingly!  The winter was long and brutal with tons of snow, worst in at least last 20 years. We fed almost 13 ton of the big bales already. They last longer when feeding the cows than the small bales.  This saved us a ton of effort scrambling around at the last minute to find hay to feed. 

The big project was trying to get internet via satellite. It was a long drawn out failure. The only bright spot was we now have power to the machine shop and a light on the hay area. 

The sheep are doing fantastic. Our new ram is throwing amazing lambs. The only problem is he has developed a superiority complex!  You can pet him but do not turn your back and he may try to run you over at any moment. The dogs are the cure for idiocy. Mouse loves to chase him and put him in his place. 
The cow necklace debacle is not working out. The chains are a little too long. We need to shorten them a few links and give it another try. 
The pickup costs more than planned to fix last year. We still need to get the muffler fixed. It has a huge hole in it. I just didn’t want to spend the money last year. 
The stupid puppy could not figure out how to keep chest grass out of his ears.  We battled it all summer long and the vet won. 
I took the tractor to the dealer for a five year checkup. It was a celebratory visit for paying off the tractor. I am good for another five years. 
This is the year of the alpaca.  I need to construct a shearing table this year for $400.  If we get 25# of hair then we can pay to have it made into yarn. Plus I just got Annmarie a loom!  
It will be an interesting year. 

Chicken annual summary 2016

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These are the financials for all of 2016. I want to preface theses numbers with a disclaimer. I have not even reviewed the numbers prior to writing this blog entry so as to not be influenced by its results. While inputting all the chicken egg financials I noticed one disturbing trend, I didn’t particularly care for getting eggs every day. I collected them around every fifth day until December when I told Annmarie I would collect them every day I have been doing that this year and it is helping. I also started culling roosters at the end of November. This allowed the hens some much needed rest and it cut down on the number of mouths I was feeding which boosted productivity. 

  On average I had 24.4 laying hens (I am down to 22 hens in 2017) giving me 7.4 eggs/day(decrease 0.8eggs/day) for a productivity rate of 30% (3% decrease). I am going to blame most of this lousy productivity rate on piss poor egg collection and rooster harassment.  I am feeding on average 166.7chicken feed/month(increase 11.1 #/month) for a grand total of 2000# this year already (600#increase).   My monthly feed bill is $38.69/month (increase $1.83/month).  My feed costs are $2.28/doz (increase of $0.34/doz)with my total cost of production at $2.44/doz (includes feed and bedding only this year, no chickens).  My chickens are consuming 0.74 lbs food/egg produced (increase 0.11 lbs/egg).  It is costing me $0.16/egg (increase of 0.01/egg) in feed.  I have collected 2695 eggs to date (increase in 1204 eggs).  My total feed costs are $425.64 (increase of $113.91). 

In summary my income was $658 and my total expenses were $494.82.  In 2016 I made a profit of $163.18!  This is horrible, if I had purchased chicks it would have been around $50.  So say I only made $100 for the entire year and I collected 2700 eggs my profit per egg is $0.037.  So using my daily average eggs collected I am making $0.27/day!!  So for anyone complaining that $4/doz is too much you can clearly see that it is not.

 If I were to raise the price to $5/dozen I would only gain $224 annually for a new total of $387 annually. This point is really moot as Annmarie does not want me to raise the price. The real problem is the cost of feed has gone up every year. The only way I have kept costs down is by buying a ton of feed at a time when it is on sale. If I bought it by the bag my costs would increase $3/bag or another $120 annually. So if feed prices were standard and I had to buy chicks I would have been in the red!!!  This is why fresh small farm produce, animals and products are expensive. It costs a lot to produce them. Annmarie found us another egg customer today so we should be good now. I have been keeping track of expenses and egg costs since 2010. My format was pretty bare bones when I started so it would be hard to compare years but by 2012 I had this format. One of these days I should put it all into an excel spreadsheet and compare the years for fun.  I can make some graphs. My work is definitely bleeding over into my personal life.