Whippoorwill Hill Farms

02/17/2025

HPAI H5N1 is still wreaking seasonal havoc on the nation's food supply, but we know how to weather the storm.
Build community. Buy local. Eat local. We have farm fresh eggs available everyday. Chicks for sale this spring! Message us to place your order or a to schedule pick up

Avian flu is here, are you ready to protect your flock? 🐔🛑

Highly pathogenic avian influenza has been detected in Virginia poultry, but you can take action to keep your birds safe. Strong biosecurity is your best defense, and these five steps will help reduce the risk of transmission.

1. Limit exposure to wildlife, including wild birds and rodents.
2. Clean, sanitize, and disinfect tools and equipment, especially when used between flocks.
3. Quarantine new birds and sick birds.
4. Keep dedicated shoes for the poultry area and wash/sanitize your hands.
5. Avoid transmission between flocks by waiting 72 hours between visiting your flock and other birds.

Read our for more information on each step ➡️ https://brnw.ch/vceh5n1

02/17/2025

Geez... I don't even want to know what a dozen eggs cost us when we run the numbers on our feed etc 😫

🥚🥚🥚 Pricing Eggs 101 🥚🥚🥚

Let's discuss egg prices and how (NOT) to sell your eggs for less than they cost you. 🫶

There are several methods to calculate total egg costs.

The one pictured is the simplest and easiest to remember, to make sure you're selling your eggs and actually making a profit. 🙌

There is nothing wrong with making a profit. The calculations below do not even include labor. We left it out, as we do not pay ourselves an hourly wage.🫶

Hope this helps anyone thinking of what to price their eggs for. 🥚

Other methods include:
Adding up all costs, original costs paid for chicks or chickens, plus everything purchased for chickens.
Then add up how many eggs each chicken lay per year.
So let's say you bought 10 lavender orpington chicks at tractor supply (6 months ago) for $5/each, totalling $50. They ate chick starter for 4 months. (4 bags @ $20/bag totaling $80, plus a bag a month of bedding ($5/bag), totaling $30. And 2 bags of layer pellets totaling $40. This is assuming you didn't purchase a coop, feeders, etc.

Costs so far: $200 for raising chciks to layers for 6 months.
$50 (chicks)
$120 (feed)
$30/bedding

Each lavender orpington lays approximately 170 eggs a year. Let's divide that by 12 (12 months)= approximately 15/eggs a month. Not multiply that by # of layers (10) remember you bought 10 lavender orpingtons. 😁

170 eggs divided by $200 = $0.85
$0.85 is the cost of your first egg from your chicks now chickens.

A dozen eggs at $0.85/each = $10.20/dozen.

So if you sold your first eggs at $3/dozen in the first year, you'd be losing money. You'd be losing $7.20 per each dozen eggs you sold.

After the first year of owning chickens, you then begin to make a bit of a profit on selling eggs.

Many folks get confused and want to divide the larger number by the smaller number. In this case, we need to figure out cost per egg, hence why you divide eggs by costs.

Happy Egg-Cow-culating. ❤️ 😁

01/15/2025

Celebrating our 2nd year on Facebook. Thank you for your continuing support. We could never have made it without you. 🙏🤗🎉

01/14/2025

The gestation period for a pig is 115 days. Or as the saying goes "in 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days and at 3 am during a storm if at all possible".
If our pig is pregnant, and thats a big if, she'd be due between the 15th and the 21st. Next weeks dip in temps is likely when she'll have her piglets.

Severe cold weather is anticipated early next week, with daytime high temperatures struggling to reach the 20s and nighttime lows potentially falling into the 0s. This notable drop in temperatures is expected to occur from Monday through Wednesday, with the most extreme conditions likely affecting Tuesday. Residents should prepare for difficult weather conditions during this time, including the increased heating demands.

01/06/2025

Some of our favorite trees on the farm hang on to their leaves through the winter. Check out this post from Learn Your Land to improve your winter tree identification skills. Your livestock will thank you! If I can find the pics, later I'll share pics of our pigs snacking on fallen dry leaves that we gathered for them. They love them like potato chips!

Want to improve your winter tree identification skills? Here’s a good tip: Look for marcescent leaves.

Marcescence describes leaves that have turned brown and are still attached to trees. These withered leaves often persist on the trees until spring.

As you might expect, marcescence isn’t a feature displayed by too many woody plants. When you see a marcescent tree or shrub, you can narrow down your ID choices to a relatively small number of species.

In the temperate woodlands of eastern North America, marcescence is often displayed by hornbeam (Carpinus), beech (Fagus), witch-hazel (Hamamelis), hophornbeam (Ostrya), and oak (Quercus).

No one is exactly sure why marcescence exists. Here are a few hypotheses:

— It allows plants to photosynthesize longer into the autumn season.
— It deters herbivores from browsing twigs and buds.
— Marcescent trees provide shelter to animals that in turn provide nutrients to trees.
— Marcescent leaves, when they finally fall off, provide pulses of nutrients to their host trees.
— Marcescent leaves, when they finally fall off, smother new growth of competing woody plants in the spring.

All of these statements can be true to some degree, but it is uncertain whether any one of them is the true reason for marcescence.

Still, you and I can use marcescence to our advantage when attempting to identify woody plants. A good first step is to learn which woody plants are marcescent in our region. We can then seek out these plants, spend some time with them, and fall in love with the process.

09/13/2024

Happy September! Are you ready for fall planting? 🍂🧡

Direct Sowing:
Zones 6A & 6B: Baby Salad Lettuce, Mustard, Radish, Spinach
Zone 7A: Beginning of the month: Beets, Swiss Chard, Collards, Kale, Kohlrabi. All month: Baby Salad Lettuce, Mustard, Radish, Spinach, Turnips
Zone 7B: Beets, Swiss Chard, Collards, Kale, Kohlrabi, Baby Salad Lettuce, Mustard, Radish, Spinach, Turnips
Zone 8A: Beginning of the month: Carrots, Rutabaga. All month: Beets, Swiss Chard, Collards, Kale, Kohlrabi, Baby Salad Lettuce, Mustard, Radish, Spinach, Turnips
Zone 8B Direct Sowing Recommendations are not available at this time. We are working to update our resources!

Transplanting:
Zones 6A & 6B: Beginning of the month: Head Lettuce
Zone 7A: Beginning of the month: Broccoli. All month: Head Lettuce
Zone 7B: Beginning of the month: Broccoli, Cabbage, Chinese Cabbage, Leeks. All month: Head Lettuce.
Zone 8A: Beginning of the month: Cauliflower, Cabbage, Leeks. All month: Broccoli, Chinese Cabbage, Head Lettuce
Zone 8B Transplanting Recommendations are not available at this time. We are working to update our resources!

You can prepare for the entire planting season by visiting https://brnw.ch/plantguide - keep in mind that this resource has not been updated to reflect the new hardiness zones. To determine your USDA zone, you can enter your zip code here: https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/

06/14/2024

04/28/2024

The girls' egg enterprise is growing. This week they added four new members to their production layer flock.

03/21/2024

This year's theme for National Agriculture Day is "Growing a Climate for Tomorrow." RAFI is hard at work supporting small- to mid-scale farmers and is engaged in several projects designed to help farmers mitigate climate change. Learn more on our website. https://bit.ly/48XCVV3

03/09/2024

It's time to spring forward this Sunday!
💤🌅 🐓

03/02/2024

04/22/2023

Happy Earth Day yall!!!
🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎
Did you know keeping your own chickens can help save the Earth? Here's 5 ways keeping a family flock can benefit the environment.
♻️♻️♻️♻️♻️♻️♻️♻️♻️
1 Reduce your family's food waste! Chickens love to eat our food scraps as a healthy addition to their regular feed.
🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥
2 Reduced need for herbicides and pesticides! A flock can take care of your pest and w**d problems, and reduce your feed bill at the same time.
🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔
3 Reduced carbon emissions! Producing your own eggs at own reduces emissions from shipping, refrigeration, and transport.
🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🍳🍳🍳🍳🍳
4 More efficiency and less waste! A well managed backyard flock works with its environment, not against it. So much more efficient and less wasteful than industrial operations.
🏭🏭🏭🏭🏭🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳
5 Reduced need of compost and fertilizer! Chickens p**p... a lot. That poo once composted becomes worth its weight in gold to your lawn and garden! Your chickens can help your home garden grow and provide you with fresh produce through the growing season.
💩💩💩💩💩🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌻🌸🌼🏵🌷

Raising chickens means so much more than fresh eggs every morning. Chickens are a marvellous creature whose everyday habits positively contribute to their environment, and when you give them the right lifestyle, they make yours more sustainable.

04/14/2023

Savvy Sisters Fowl Farm is a child owned family business that just started this winter. And boy have they hit the road running! Here's their second posting today! They're now offering grow outs. 4 weeks old, ALL female chicks, from various breeds known for being excellent layers. Help these kids succeed in their efforts. Show them your support today!

Hatched 3/14. Currently 4 weeks old. All pullets (girls), no roos! Will only sell in groups of 3 or more. Birds available now for purchase are listed below. Will update as they sell. Gold Laced...

04/14/2023

Savvy Sisters Fowl Farm just posted their first ad on Craigslist. This is a child owned endeavor. With a small flock they are hoping to sell a little over 2 dozen chicken eggs a week. Please show them your support!

Farm fresh chicken eggs! $4 a dozen. Gathered daily. This is a small flock, owned and cared for by children. Small orders only please. Currently can produce a little more than 2 dozen eggs a week.