Steel Raven Farms

Getting Back to The Basics

Ducks

Overwhelmed With Chores?

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It’s easy to get overwhelmed, especially on the homestead. Goats need milked, eggs collected, dogs let out, and ducks bedding changed AGAIN. On top of that everyone needs to be fed, including the children. By the time your day is done you’ve logged 9 million steps and are exhausted. But sleep is for the weak because you have to stay on alert for predators, the baby, and the sick goat in your living room. Chore management on the homestead is a really thing and it’s hard to get a handle on.

Yes, I do it and yes, I am tired. But I have found some pretty ingenious hacks to allow me to get some sleep without sacrificing my animals care. Below are my 5 hacks to keeping up with the homestead, while working full time and homeschooling.

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Get the kids involved

I have found that there are two sides on this, and few people fall in the middle. Either kids do chores or they don’t. My boys do chores, and they do a lot of them. Every month they switch out. We also help each other out. If I see the ducks need water, I fill it up. If Jaxson sees that the cats are out of food, he feeds them. Their current chore list looks like this:

Chase- Chickens, ducks, feeding dogs/cats, wiping up the counters, and cars

Jaxson- Goats, dishes, bathrooms, dragons, watering seedlings/garden/house plants.

Parents- Cast iron, vacuum, garden, laundry, bedding, and whatever else needs to be done.

Start small and grow

When we started the homestead, we started with our dogs, cats, dragons, and snake. Then we added chickens. Once we were comfortable with that, we added goats, and so on. Before we add anything new, or more of them, we ask if everyone is on board. Since the kids handle most of the animal care, we want to make sure that they are good with getting more.

Get into a routine

While this is tough at first, once you get into a routine of taking care of your chores, it’s easier to see where you have more time. Our routine goes something like this, I wake up, let my dogs out and shower. The boys get up, let their dogs out and start on their animals. If they are hustling they can get their morning chores done in about 10 minutes.

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Because we unschool, our homeschool doesn’t take hours and hours. We talk about what they are interested in and they do research on that. We also take time for the basics like math, reading, social studies, and science. They do Spanish on Thursday.

Delegate

One of the first things I was taught in Paramedic school is delegation, and it’s not something I do well at work. But at home, I’ve got it covered. After talking with Jared about our goals and what we want to accomplish, I come up with the To Do lists and plans and delegate it out. This helps everyone figure out where they need to be and what they need to be doing.

It also extends to chores. I hate doing the dishes, so the other 3 handle it. They hate doing laundry so that usually falls to me. Jared and I “fight” over who will vacuum and who does cast iron. Keeping up the house is everyone’s chore.

Cleaning

I could write an entire blog post about cleaning up the house and the homestead. I would be lying if I said my house was spick and span. It’s not. I’ve got 4 huge dogs, and kids living inside my house. Not to mention the occasional goat, chicken, duck, etc. My house is never clean. But I clean up as I go and everyone else helps a lot.

Don’t get hung up in the details. My kitchen is a prime example. That little ledge behind the sink that collects all manner of nasty things is constantly dirty. I have tried everything in my power to keep that area clean but it’s not happening and you know what? That’s fine. My counters and stove are clean and the sink is mostly empty. Pick your battles and move on.

Grace

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At the end of the day, you are simply human. Give yourself grace when you can’t get your kitchen scrubbed or the laundry done, but the animals have food and water and the kids aren’t dead or hurt? You’ve done just fine.

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The Different Types Of Chicken Coops

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I have been browsing the internet for weeks trying to figure out something for a new coop. We’ve got more chicks and ducks coming and nowhere to put them. So I started researching the different types of chicken coop. I couldn’t find anything I really liked and to be honest, the wood coop that we have now, is starting to really stink, even after we clean it really well. I think using a metal shed for a chicken coop may work. Maybe.

Why We Chose A Metal Coop

***Make sure to read the updates at the bottom to see how it’s actually working***

We have seriously out grown our old coop. When we bought it, we weren’t really planning on having a ton of chickens. Our thought was, chickens are pretty easy so let’s get a couple. By a couple I mean 15 but only 9 survived. After offering our extra eggs for sale and current state of the supply chain, we have decided to grow our flock. We are hoping that this will allow us to make a little bit of money but also sustain us food wise. You can read about our new flock here. 

Since, we will also be getting 20 ducks around the end of March AND the 36 chickens, we want to make sure there is plenty of room for all of them. I think this 8×10 metal shed will work great. It’s got plenty of space and if we can hang the new laying boxes and roosting bars, there will be plenty of room for the ducks to nest.

Also since we allow them to free range throughout the day, there shouldn’t be any problems with space during the day.

Now before anyone gets all up in arms about it, we know some of the problems with a shed like this as well as ducks and chickens in the same coop. First, we will be installing gables and vents to make sure that the heat can escape in the summer. They will also have frozen bottles on the ground to keep cool. Not to mention we made sure that the coop is in a shady area.

We will also be adding boards and hardware cloth to the bottoms to ensure it as predator proof as possible. The ducks and chickens can cohabitate in the same coop as long as they have their own spaces. The ducks will be on one side and the chickens on the other. I’m sure we will find more problems as we go but we will see.

Jared working on the new Coop

We will always be as transparent with our readers. In that vein, we want to make sure that you don’t make the same mistakes we have. Or if you decide to make the mistake, at least do it differently.

Summer Update

So this coop was built in the spring before it got really hot. What we have found is that the coop does not get super hot at night like we thought. Since we allow them to free range throughout the day and only put them inside the coop at night when the sun has gone down. We have not noticed a HUGE temperature increase.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still hot at night and it’s warm in the coop, but I was thinking like fatally hot and it’s not. We have been averaging 80* nights and the coop is 90* but also has fans blowing the hot air out.

One of the things we have noticed is that NONE of the animals want to go in their respective houses at night. That includes the goats. I think a lot of it is that it’s just too hot. When they are outside they can move around and find cool ground.

The chickens and ducks seem to prefer being outside during the summer and that’s fine. We have predator lights up around the property and so far we haven’t seen any signs of them being taken in the night.

I’ll update back after winter and let you know how that goes. But for right now the coop is working.

Winter Update

We have moved the chickens and ducks back into the red coop. The metal shed has turned into a flop…. Well, not completely. The shed rusted from the ground up. No matter how much pine shavings we added, the odor was completely foul. The chickens also didn’t seem as healthy either. It seemed to take them longer to get through molt and they stopped laying eggs way sooner than they should have.

When we moved them back to the red coop, their feathers seemed to get brighter and they seemed happier. Now, this is all speculation and we don’t have scientific proof, but I feel like the shed was not a good option for long term keeping.

We plan to convert the shed back into a shed and just put our various building materials in it. I would suggest looking into different types of chicken coops and leave the metal shed alone.

I will be posting updates as we go and once it’s all put together. If you want to follow us through this journey subscribe below and follow us on the social media of your choice!

Welcome to Our Homestead

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We are excited to bring you along for the journey. On this blog you will find a ton of posts about goats, canning and homesteading and more. We wanted to let other people know that you don’t have to have hundreds of acres, tons of livestock or even generations of knowledge. We wanted our blog to be different. So welcome to the homestead!

Something different

Both Jared and I grew up as city kids. The hustle and bustle something that we never really wanted. As time went on and we got older, we realized that city life is not what we want. It is not what we want for our boys. So we decided to do something about it. We were breaking our back trying to save as much money as possible to get our homestead. Since we are both paramedics and after working 36-60 hour straight shifts for two years, we finally did it. We purchased our homestead.

We just celebrated 15 years of marriage

Shortly after buying the homestead, we got our first chickens.  They are pretty cool little critters and really, what homestead is complete without a couple chickens. We started with 15 and lost a couple. Now we are in the ballpark of 50. But I wanted something a little different. So I started looking into other critters that would be low maintenance while also being semi profitable.

George and His Ladies

Enter the goats

I’m not going to lie, I didn’t want goats. I had heard the horror stories. They are escape artists, they die easily, they can’t actually eat everything, and so on. They are pretty much everything BUT low maintenance and semi profitable. But Jared wanted goats, so we got the goats. Man, I was so wrong! I love those critters! They are seriously the best. Bella is a challenge and I am going to make her love me. But Champ? The girl below? She is the best girl. She is actually going to be giving us babies soon!

Champ

After adding our first couple goats, we wanted even more. So we added more goats, then some goats had babies and now we are at 12. We are hoping to have a few more and that will allow us to start milking regularly. That milk will then help us reduce our dependence on the grocery store.

On To The Ducks

Ever since I was a kid, I have loved ducks. They are such cool creatures. Jared finally okayed a few ducks and meat ducks. While they are messy and their pool stinks to high heaven, no matter how often we drain it, I love those guys. We also gained our neighbors guinea. Apparently she was unhappy living with them.

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The Garden

We have also been working hard on our gardens and general clean up of the property. Our property was not set up for homesteading before we bought it. So we have been slowly but surely working through the property and clearing out old debris, trash, and other things. We are hoping to have it safe enough soon to let the goats roam bigger areas to keep the brush in line.

The garden has been a huge pain in the backside as well. Between not being able to get all my seedlings started and then the ducks eating what I managed to plant, the garden is finally in. I was also able to harvest our first cucumbers!

We are gearing up to start our fall garden and I am ridiculously excited! Our summer harvest has been good, considering it’s our first garden here, but I’m hoping the fall garden will be even better.

We will be adding to our homestead as this blog progresses and we want you to be along for the ride. So share and follow us on social media and Welcome to the Homestead!

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