I am T.I.R.E.D.! I can’t seem to catch up on my sleep this week. One day I put four chickens into the freezer, and realized how out of practice I am! Took hours and got me to bed late. Another day I had to drop my hubby off at school, go to the bank, stop at the feed store, get a key made, moved the rabbits, took the chicken coop apart, cleaned the chicken run, stacked the rabbits in the chicken run, put the chicken coop back together, harvested grass seed, then showered and got dressed up for my anniversary dinner with hubby, and of course got to bed late. Another day I had to put 8 chickens into the freezer and fix the fencing and door to the chicken coop. Today I put another 7 chickens in the freezer (I have GOT to get faster at that!).

It didn’t help that my rabbit cages don’t have baby saver wire in them (what a silly oversight. I haven’t had a litter in so long I literally forgot about that important requirement) so I had to schlep the kits in and out to their mom twice a day, requiring me to get up a half hour earlier than I otherwise would have needed to. The kits are now too large to fit through the regular wire and out with mom full time, so that should help.

In the middle of all this I find out my iron levels are too low. I sell plasma for spending money, and you can’t give the plasma if your hematocrit is less than 38, and mine was 34 – definately anemic. So that accounts for some more of the tiredness. I started a multivitamin and started eating more red meat and spinach salads, which got my levels to 37. I’m on another vitamin now (a prenatal vitamin, which my doctor calls a “women of childbearing age” vitamin) that has almost twice the amount of iron in it, so we’ll see if that helps. I want my money AND my energy back!

I’m ready for bed. Maybe I can catch up on some sleep this weekend.

In related news, all but 2 of my Cornish Rock chickens are residing in coolers. Yay! Nineteen down, two to go. The hens weighed 5-7 lbs, giving bone-in carcasses of 3-4 lbs. The roosters weighed 7-9 lbs, giving bone-in carcasses of 5-6 lbs. Plus assorted livers, hearts, feet, etc that I didn’t weigh. I’m excited. This is my first time doing my own chickens for meat, and they’re SO much easier than the dual purpose roosters I’ve done before. I’m very pleased. I’ll post exact cost and result numbers later, but it looks like these semi-organic chickens of mine are costing about $1.50 per pound. Better than the non-organic stuff at the store. Averaging those chickens out, I’ve put over 100 lbs of chickens into the fridge in the last week! Woo-hoo!