Our new flock of twenty-five laying chicks (including an all white Leghorn rooster) arrived last week. This coming spring we are striving for higher egg production so we ordered mostly Black Star females with a few Red Stars, Leghorns and Buff Orphingtons added to the mix. We have been looking into raising the chicks on a soured milk diet which means feeding the chicks raw milk that has clabbered or soured, meaning fermented. Clabbering raw milk is easy. We just fill a quart jar or two with some of the fresh milk from the mornings milking (either goat or cow will do), screw on a lid and leave on the window sill for a couple of days until the curds separate from the whey.
Raw milk is loaded with enzymes and probiotics. When raw milk starts to sour, it simply means that beneficial bacteria called probiotics have started to use up all the lactose or milk sugar which casues the milk to no longer taste sweet. Soured raw milk has a higher level of probiotics which have initiated the fermentation or clabbering of the milk. (By the way, this only works with raw milk. When store bought pasteurized milk goes bad it becomes a huge food borne illness risk to consume it and should be thrown out.)
All these probiotics can be used as a prophylactic against disease and illness, boosting the immune system and growing stronger, healthier birds. We are looking forward to an abundance of eggs in the spring.
p.s. It is still an amazing thing to think of how much the family cow adds to the homestead, everyone on the farm benefits from the by products!
So far I have made up the cage & installed it into the chook pen..
A hanging pot hook will be used to keep it from turning it into a chook trap 
Took out the 2 "Washing Machine" Wicking beds from the garden to make room for a few chairs & a small table.. Is nice to be able to sit in the patch with B? away from the spawn for a chat over a coffee on the weekend.. Well, thats the dream anyway.. I like to dream.. **nods**
Update shots... Left is from the 19th of July & the Right is from 10th of August... As you can see there is a bit of growth & will continue to get better from here with Nitrates now being present in the system...The Nitrites are still fairly high but they should settle soon as they are converted into Nitrates..
Todays readings are pH-below 8.2, Ammonia-.25, Nitrites-5+ & Nitrates are 80-160.. Added some Broccoli seed yesterday as it seems to be a plant we just cant grow enough of... 
Made up 3 new Wicking Barrels on the weekend, 2 for the Mary Washington Asparagus, Left & 1 for the Jerusalem Artichokes, Right... 2 Asparagus crowns went into each Barrel while the Artichoke corms are still in the fridge for 2 more weeks...
We got our first Capsicums off that didnt contain Grubs from a couple of feral plants that live in the Lime bed.. Can only put it down to the cooler weather... Will be making up some bags to cover the next crops of Capsicum with some bags that we will make up from an old Mozzie net the kids had over their cots.. That should keep the little buggers out this Spring & Summer.. Might have to make some for the Tomatoes as well for when the Turpentine Mangoes fruit.. A lot of people let them drop & rot which causes an explosion in the fruit fly numbers.. The pic also shows some of the first Amish Past Tomatoes we have harvested as well as some Caped Gooseberries & assorted Chillies..
