Turkey Tuesday: Farmer Katie, the Brooder Lady

 

I’m home for the summer, which means I am supposed to be helping more with the farm.

So last week, I tried to pull my weight, setting up for turkeys.

It’s not really hard work.  It’s just boring.

First, we set out all of the red feed pans.  At this point, the feed and water lines were raised so the Bobcat could drive under them.  This pictures shows hubby, lowering the lines.  He has a big winch that attaches to the drill that then lowers (or raises) the lines.  I asked him to help describe it, but he’s on his way out to take care of the baby turkeys (as soon as he finds a clean t-shirt.  I think I need to do laundry again.)

 

 

Then, we put the feeders together.  This sucked.  Totally.  And my thumbs blistered and the muscles in my hands were sore from stretching the pans onto the hooks.  But I had to prove to hubby that I could do it.  So I borrowed his mp3 player, and I danced to N’Sync and that helped.  :)  (“You’re all I ever wanted, you’re all I ever needed, yeah-ah.  So tell me what to do now, cause I WANT YOU BACK. duh-don-choo.")

Then, the feed lines went back up and the water lines came down.  I passed out the “mini waterers” that you can see on the ground.  These will just be used the first two weeks, when the turkeys are really little. 

And we called it a day!  This was only about 2 hours of work for the two of us, but Bart spent quite a few hours with Beth, our REAL brooder lady over the next couple of days, hooking up the minis, putting up cardboard rings, and passing out the feed trays that we will use for the first two weeks.  (I was working in my classroom.)

Overall, the work is not hard.  Just kind of monotonous.  I told hubby that it wasn’t “stimulating my brain” and he told me that it was “stimulating my checkbook” instead.  I guess he’s right.  Our goal is for me to take over Beth’s duties, to save some money, so I better get used to it!

 

Next week: Annie’s Project.  Any of you farm ladies heard of it, or had experience with it?

And in case you were wondering, we got all of our older, sicky birds out last night.  Quite a relief.  Hubby was picking up 50 – 100 dead, 40 lb birds everyday.  Really demoralizing, considering all the money we’ve put into them, and the money we would have gotten when they went to market is GONE.  Boo.