Well, I brought in the most recent batch of chickens in to be slaughtered. Since I had more chickens this time than before, I tried using cardboard boxes with 3/4" holes punched in them for transporting the birds to the processing center. Bad idea. I lost about 1/3 of my chickens in between dropping them off and the center opening up (I drop off for processing because I have to be at my day job by 6am, an hour before the center opens up). This kills our cost for the chickens - suddenly we just paid an extra 50% on each bird for feed and initial purchase price (but not butchering). The lesson to me - sometimes it's good to scrimp, because you can get away with little (the chicken's pen is old wood from pallets and scrap pieces of fencing from the egg chicken setup). Sometimes, like today, you pay more in the end for being cheap. So, sometime between now and 8 weeks from today, I'll be building cages of some type.

Alongside that, we got our next batch of 50 chicks and 6 Rouen ducks. The ducks are supposed to be good for raising, so I want to see if they'll lay eggs and raise ducklings for us. A few ducks every couple of months would be nice, and we'll have some ducks to keep around the farm. Compared to the chickens, the ducks have a lot more personality. The egg-laying chickens are very flighty and tend to make me think more of wild birds than pets. The meat-destined chickens are lazy and inanimate - they evoke more an image of white fluffy boulders than an active animal. The ducks, however, are a nice mix - alive and active, but not quite so skittish as the chickens. They eye us, one side of their face cocked to us at a time. When I approach the pen they flee as a group - providing comic relief as they slip and get stuck upside down, without big wings to flip themselves over. They vocalize much more in a chatter than the chickens.

Part of my goal is to track this batch of chickens more closely, so I can calculate approximate costs. Therefore, some of these posts may be low on story and high on concise details, so I can go back and find out when something happened, and get counts (bags of food, etc.) To start these chicks we have a 50-lb bag of chick starter from our local feed store.

Yaris Towing Hitch

One of my first projects welding was a towing hitch for my Yaris - our tiny but fuel-efficient car. Why a hitch?

• My generous father donated his old bike rack to us - it only fit the one car he doesn't like.
• Someday I'd like to own a car dolly. When I need to take one of the cars in, it's such a pain to need to arrange for someone to follow me and give me a ride, and then take me back when the car is done. Anything past an oil change requires too much time to wait, also. If I could haul the car there with the truck, then drive off with the empty trailer, I could leave either vehicle there. The other option would be a light trailer for my motorcycle, as that's just hitting the limits of what the Yaris can tow, and the trailer would have to stay with the car for now.
• Towing small trailers - even if I lose 10mpg, I'm doing better than with the truck. I've got a little Harbor Freight 4' x 4' trailer that should fit behind the car just fine. At some point I'd like to put a tiny Teardrop Trailer body on the same trailer, for winter camping when a tent just doesn't quite cut it.

Welding my own hitch was not only a good experience, but it saved a good deal of money - the main tube was a piece of scrap from work, the side pieces were cheap pieces of trailer suspension, making the actual receiver tube the most expensive part.

Aftermarket hitches for the Yaris seem to mount in a few different places - either to the frame rails under the trunk, or to the tow hooks that hang down under the car. Given that the tow hooks were already at about the right level, and have a few mounting holes in them, I decided that was the best way to go.

Here she is, on her maiden test:

I figured if I could pick the back end of the car up (probably around 1000 lbs), it'd be safe for towing anything I had in mind.

It still needs a little work - the tailpipe cutout (reinforced by a piece of 2" x 2" x 1/4" angle iron) is a little too small, and the pipe rattles something fierce. I was able to pull the tailpipe up a bit with the rubber hanger, but I'd like to extend the cut instead. I also forgot to weld on chain loops, so I can attach safety chains. Most setups I've seen put these on the receiver tube, but just in case, I think I'm going to put mine on the cross tube.