Our 2 new Kubota’s
Ellie Klein – daughter of our pen manager, Brian Klein

Over the years we have used many different modes of transportation around the farm.  Small pickups (a Ranger or an S-10) have worked well. About 10 years ago we bought two John Deere Gators and we have had success with them.  Since our expansion over the past few years has pushed our pens to over 100 acres, 2 Gators just hasn’t cut it.  Several of the managers asked for some additional vehicles and after considerable research, we decided upon Kubota’s.    We added the two pictured Kubota’s to the farm a few weeks ago, and so far the feedback is we made a good decision.

It’s Hot!

The view from my office window of the just harvested and baled wheat field

The temperature has reached nearly 90 degrees – which for us is hot!  Surprisingly it hasn’t rained here for nearly 3 weeks, so after a much wetter than normal May and June – it is really dry. 

As recently as July 3rd, our breeder flock was producing over 7,000 eggs a day.   Now just 10 days later our July 13th collection was just over 3,000 eggs.  The hens are just saying “we’re done”. 

 We have just 5 more weeks of hatching and the regular hatching season will be done.  The chick order calls we have been receiving are for larger quantities – the calls are coming from commercial farms now.  I’m sure the heat has cut into most everyone’s egg production predictions for late June and early July – so we are getting calls from farms that produce most of their own chicks – needing chicks from us to fill up their barns for the last fill.

 We have nearly all the chicks we are going to produce in the next five weeks sold, and I anticipate we’ll be “sold out” for the season in the next few days.  It’s a good feeling to have orders for everything – and not have to struggle to sell.

 A couple of years ago we re-entered the started bird business, and each year we’ve sold more 6 week old pheasants.  This year we’ve sold over 17,000 started pheasants – it’s going well.    We run google analytics on our pheasant.com webpage and we track the path visitors to our webpage travel.  From the homepage there are a myriad of ways to go.  What we find interesting is the 4th most popular page that people visit from our homepage is the started bird prices page – this shows how much interest there is.

The Ebb and Flow of the Day-old Pheasant Chick Market

Every year there are lots of twists and turns in the market for day old pheasant chicks.   Historically we can readily sell our chick production for hatch dates up through June 1st.  This year was no exception – the market for early season chicks was strong.  Then as we enter June – our sales fall off – in fact during the last two weeks of June – our phones were very quiet – very few sales.  The sales we book on calls to our farm in June are usually for orders of 50 or 100 chicks.   I am glad we have built up a good retail business (orders for 50, 100 or 200 chicks) as those retail orders kept things moving for us in June.

The shift point usually is right before July 4th – we start getting calls then for July and August chicks.  This past week the phones started ringing again – and though many of the calls were for 50 or 100 chicks, we got a call for 3,000 chicks and then we also received an email from a customer wanting to book 3,000 chicks.

Our egg production is still over 7,000 pheasant eggs collected a day – later this week we’ll set eggs to hatch August 4th.   So we plan on hatching 25,000+ chicks a week the first week of August.  Our plan at this point is to hatch, in addition to that August 4th date, on August 11th and have our final hatch on August 18th (but that may change).

We think we are where we want to be – i.e. we have some chicks to sell in July and in August – but not more than we feel we can move.  Postal shipping the past two weeks has been much more successful so we have more confidence in that area.

I’m looking forward to the end of the chick season – our last scheduled day of egg collection is planned for Friday July 23rd – it’s been a good season and all in all we’ve done well.

One Million and Counting!

Our 1 Millionth chick (held by Juan Zamora)

We’ve passed the one million mark in pheasant chicks produced this season.  On June 22nd the one millionth chick was hatched and shipped!   We still are collecting eggs and it is very busy. 

On another note – we have been working on improving our pheasant.com website – and hoping to encourage people to place orders for pheasant chicks online.  We upgraded our online store – trying to make the store more user friendly.  We also instituted a 5% discount for orders placed online.   This Monday (6/28) when our chick sales coordinator Sarah Pope arrived at work, she found 7 online chick orders had been placed over the weekend with a total invoiced value of over $1400.00.   This is a big deal and I am really pleased. 

We hope to continue to enhance pheasant.com.  Yesterday I listened to a one hour webinar on measuring conversions online – i.e. tracking customers as they arrive at our homepage and follow their path to see how many “convert” their visit into a purchase.   Originally we tracked CTR (click thru rate) – looking at what percentage of people who viewed one of our pay-per-click ads actually “click thru” and went to our homepage.  For me conversions are much more important than CTR.  We are tracking everything we can using google analytics.  I find the whole process absolutely fascinating.

Our “In House” Expert Weatherman

Six week old whites the morning after a 1.2″ rain

Our pen manager, Brian Klein, needs to be the best weather forecaster on our farm.  Every week from April thru early October – Brian has a group of pheasants to move out from our brooder barns into the pens.  If Brian doesn’t move out a group one week, then we get backed up in our brooder barns (i.e. there are scheduled hatches of chicks arriving from our hatchery that need to go into the barn where Brian was to have moved out the birds).  There is a little wiggle room in the schedule – but not much.  Remember that we only use our brooder barns just over ½ of the year – and therefore for us to remain efficient, we need to schedule the groups of chicks going into the barns as closely together as is reasonable. 

So Brian’s responsibility is to move out the birds and to make sure that there is a window of good weather for the first few days the birds are out in the pens.  Up until the day the birds are moved out, the birds have never been outside.  So if Brian moves out a group of birds, and we get cold or wet, or the worst would be cold and wet – the first night or two the birds are out – Brian could lose a lot of birds.

So it’s in Brian’s interest to be cautious about moving out birds.  If there is bad weather predicted, Brian logically would not move out the birds.  But if Brian is too cautious, eventually he can begin having limited options – and at some point a day is reached where regardless of the weather – he might have to move out birds.

A few years ago, Brian followed the weather – and if there was a chance of rain – he didn’t move out the birds.  And I can distinctly remember times where he chose not to move out birds and it didn’t rain and the next day our brooder manager was questioning Brian – “why didn’t you move out birds”. 

These days – Brian has become the best weatherman on the farm.  He uses multiple sources, and not only looks at the chance of precipitation, but he looks at the temperatures that are expected.  A warm rain is not nearly as threatening to birds just moved out as a cold rain.  

This week Brian had two barns on the schedule to move out – a barn of 13,000 ringnecks and another barn of 7000 whites.  Even though the forecast was for rain, Brian moved out the ringnecks on Wednesday and the whites on Thursday.  Brian’s crew started at 5 am Wednesday moving out the ringnecks – and they finished before noon – so in a sense he gained an entire day – as the birds had that afternoon to adjust to the pen.

Yesterday afternoon and evening we got 1.2 inches of rain.  Brian came in this morning and reported to me that there was no loss whatsoever with the birds.  We have excellent cover in the pens and it did not get cold with the rain and that helped.

I am pleased that I have such a competent manager as Brian, a manager that can analytically look at the data and arrive at a thought though decision, and a manager that is not afraid to make a decision that might turn out to be wrong.  Brian is on my bus and he is aligned with the cultural values I am establishing on our farm. 

The New Nets Are Going Up

The new nets as they are being installed
Felipe as he is working installing the new nets

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Because of the damage from the December 9th snowstorm, we are replacing over 30 acres of netting this summer.  The new nets have been arriving and they are being installed about as quickly as they get here.  Pen #12 at our Noss farm is an 11 acre pen and Shayne Noller and his crew have been installing new netting on the west half of #12 this week.  The nets are 80’ X 240’ – or about ½ an acre each – these nets are unrolled, pulled and tacked into place.  Then Shayne’s crew, using automatic hand ringers, are seaming the net the full length (240’) ringing every hole (2” mesh) to the adjoining net.  The new nets have very few flaws and appear to be well made.  As each pen nears completion, there is a sense of closure regarding the events of 6 months ago.

How The View From My Office Window Has Changed In 6 Months

It’s been six months since the big storm.   Our pens are being repaired, and the trauma and stress of the pens falling down seems far away. 

The field of snow outside my office window has been replaced by an incredible field of wheat.  We have had plenty of heat and plenty of rain, and the heads on the wheat are big and fat.  Jason Henschler – the man who rents and crops our farm land has himself an awesome crop of wheat – I would expect the field outside my office will yield 70+ bushels of wheat per acre. 

We still are collecting just over 12,000 pheasant hatching eggs a day – and we have orders for all our June chicks that are hatching.  We plan on hatching pheasants til mid- August – so we have about 10 weeks of hatching left til the end.   

With the warm weather and adequate rain, our cover crop in our pens is great – and now that the foxes have been banished – the pheasants in the pens are doing well.

An Excellent Year for Pheasant Cover

The taller weeds are ragweed (bad), underneath lambsquarter is growing!

2010 is proving to be an absolutely perfect year for growing pheasant cover in our pens. Our pen crew is actively managing the cover crop – weedspraying where the ragweed is growing, and selectively mowing lanes for the young pheasants to be able to see the sun. By combining highly fertilized ground (think about the nitrogen content from the phesasant manure) plus sandly well drained soil, plus a warm April and May plus lot’s of rain – we get a jungle of cover!

I Spoke Too Soon

Brian Klein with a second fox

I copied this narrative directly from Brian Klein’s Facebook Page:

“After the excitement of shooting the fox on Thursday night, my enthusiasm was crushed Saturday morning with a phone call stating something got into our pens again and killed another 170 birds. During a stake out last night I stalked this vixen at 2:45 a.m. as she was on another killing spree. I hope that is the last one.”
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I have all sorts of emotions around this most recent event.  The prevalent feeling is being grateful that we have such a loyal and commited manager in Brian Klein.  It’s just incredible that we had TWO foxes invading our farm.  Probably someone out there knows that’s the way it works, but I didn’t.  Brian was on such a high Friday after the first fox was taken care of.  I can’t imagine how he must have felt Saturday morning, getting the call that another 170 birds had been killed.  An to think he stayed awake until 2:45 am – and then had the ability to successfully target and shoot the second fox.  Thank you Brian!!!
                                                                                                                                                                                     

Problem Solved

Brian Klein (on the right)

Two of our managers, Brian Klein and Brian Check laid in wait last night.  Just after midnite our predator arrived.  Needless to say (considering the picture) the two Brian’s put an end to our week of carnage.

Brian Check with the fox - pic taken last night!