Chore schedule for my day 'off'

Today I had the day off. By off I mean I didn't have to go to the place that gives me a paycheck. So on my day off I would like to relax but unfortunately, I'm a chicken farmer and farmer's never truly get a day 'off'. We have chores every day of the week. There's always some animal that needs fed or cleaned up after. Thankfully my daily chicken chores are pretty easy. 

It takes about 1/2 hour every morning to feed/water the chickens, switch out dirty bowls and let everyone out. In the evening it takes about another 1/2 hour to feed/water & count every bird then lock them all up for the night. Usually youngest son does afternoon feeding so I get to sit that one out. When I find some time during the week I scrape poop boards and fill feed bins. I clean out brooders at least twice a week. It only takes a few minutes here and there. Nobody really wants to come home from work and start cleaning coops, so the big cleaning comes on the weekend.

Chicken farm chores

This is what I did on my day off:
Morning chores: 1/2 hour (feed, water & open doors)
Met with customers, gave farm tour: 1 hour
Moved chicks out of Silkie coop to grow-out pen, fixed led light in silkie coop: 1/2 hour
Cleaned Guinea coop (20X12 building): 1 hour
Chased Guineas back into coop: 15 minutes 
Washed food and water bowls that have accumulated all week: 1/2 hour
Cleaned out the brooders in the garage: 15 minutes
Evening chores: 1/2 hour (fill waters, lock up & count them all)

I can end up meeting with customers any day of the week actually. Some like to take some time and ask lots of questions about the birds, others like to pick their chicks and go. Some want a tour, some don't. It could go either way. I schedule appointments around my work hours, but sometimes people just show up. 

Coops get cleaned more often in rainy weather of course, or when they have lots of chicks in the summer. Every weekend I clean a different coop, some more frequently then others:

• The Silkie house needs cleaned far more often then any other coop.
• The D'uccle coop can practically get forgotten...it never seems to get dirty. 
• The Guinea house takes the longest of all the coops. It is the biggest and also has the most birds.
• The grow out pen can be done in 10 minutes. No lie.  
• The Wild West coop needs the most poop scraping during the week. The big cleaning only takes about as long as the Silkie coop, but needs done half as often.

I sorta got a routine, but it gets interrupted by spilled waterers and doors that were open when it rained. It's ok, I'm flexible like that. The funny thing is, until I started thinking about it today (prompted by someone at work yesterday asking what I'm doing on my 'day off') I never really considered how much I do. 

It didn't start like this. No one starts like this. We all started with 1 coop, right? There was supposed to be a few chickens, then suddenly it got full and another coop was needed. 4 years later I don't get a day off. *sigh*...but I do get faces like this looking up at me begging to be picked up for treats...so it all balances out!

~Lisa

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