My Block Hand

31/08/2026

Hello, spring. 🌱🐐

Spring officially arrived at Block Hand this morning — with four legs, floppy ears and pretty good timing.

A new Toggenburg buck kid, with Dad keeping an eye on things in the background.

There’s something about the first day of spring on a small farm. New lambs and kids arriving, grass starting to move again, paddocks growing faster, and suddenly the list of jobs seems to grow just as quickly.

After a long, wet winter, I’m pretty happy to know spring is here, even though it doesn’t feel like it today being cold and wet.

What does the first day of spring look like on your place? Any new arrivals yet?

— Block Hand
Small Farm. Smart Tools.

31/08/2026

Month’s up — and August’s eggs cost me 60c each.
That’s a fair improvement on July, when they cost an eye-watering $1.77 each. 😅
Interestingly, I didn’t save any money. Costs actually went up by $28.80 — but the birds laid nearly 3.7 times as many eggs as they did in July.
The flock results were quite different too:
Barred Rocks: 23 → 80
Light Sussex: 12 → 65
Lavender Araucanas: 27 → 59
Appleyard ducks: 2 → 32
Each chicken flock has nine hens. The ducks have four females. They’ve all had another month to mature, and the days are getting longer, but it’s interesting how differently each flock has increased.
One thing I got wrong was entering the feed costs against all the poultry together rather than against each individual flock. That means I can’t yet work out whether a Barred Rock egg costs me less than a Lavender Araucana egg, yet. I’ll try to keep track of that in September.
At 60c each, they’re still costing me $7.20 a dozen — but at least the number is finally heading in the right direction!
Does anyone else know what their homegrown eggs are costing them at the moment? It’s definitely added another interesting layer to keeping chooks.

30/08/2026

📱 Quick My Block Hand update

We’ve fixed a couple of bugs this week, including issues around the Feed Store and Weather Widget.
If you haven’t updated My Block Hand recently, please jump into the App Store or Google Play and make sure you’re running the latest version.
Thanks again to everyone using the app and sending through feedback — it genuinely helps us find these little issues and keep improving Block Hand.
My Block Hand — Small Farm. Smart Tools.

And just because I can, a couple of piglet photos because who doesn't love a few piglets.

24/08/2026

24/08/2026

🐑 A busy couple of weeks. Lambing's done, I've got twins on the bottle, and both sows have farrowed.

I forget every single year how fast it goes from nothing to everything. A fortnight of watching — same ewes, same unbothered look on their faces, wide as a bus and in no hurry at all — and then it's all over almost at once.

Every ewe's lambed now, and I've ended up with a set of twins on the bottle — which is its own small routine, and the reason I've stopped pretending I'll remember what happened on which day. And somewhere in the middle of all that both sows farrowed, so the block's gained a few new animals to keep track of. I find myself counting the bodies every time I'm out and about, just to make sure they're all still there.

The hard part now is what comes after. Four sets of twins on the ground within the same week, and you are, frankly, guessing. I've got the numbers recorded, but which lamb belongs with which ewe is another thing entirely.

Here's the thing I keep landing on, though. This is the only stretch of the year the block asks something of you that you can't reschedule. Fencing waits. The shed waits. That gate's been waiting since March. Lambing doesn't — it happens at its own hour, at its own pace, and all you get to decide is whether you're out there when it does.

Anyway. If you're in the thick of it too — go easy, wear the right coat, and know that the ones that go well look exactly like the ones that go badly right up until they don't.

☕ How's it going on your place?

12/08/2026

Well. It's been interesting to see which of my chooks are carrying the place and which are on holiday.

Since I started tracking every egg, the app quietly works out what one egg actually costs me and also does the same for each individual flock. Last month I posted the number for the whole flock. This month I split it three ways, by breed.

Araucana: 54c an egg. Light Sussex: $2.42. Barred Rock: $2.50.

Same feed. Same farm. Same family doing the feeding.

Now — before anyone writes in — I know that's not a fair fight. The flocks are the same size, they're not the same age though, and they're not all at the same point in their laying year. I'm fairly sure that explains most of it. I'm just not sure it explains all of it, and I'd like to know what the rest is.

So, genuinely asking:

🐔 What's your best performing breed — the ones that just quietly get on with it? 🥚 And which ones are freeloading? Beautiful, useless, and you keep them anyway. (I'm not naming mine. They know.)

Days are stretching out now and everything's picking up off the winter floor, so it feels like the right month to compare notes.

11/08/2026

Couple of mixed piglets this week on the farm. They are just amazing little things and love the colours. I love having animals.

08/08/2026

The weather's rubbish, so here's something to look at from inside.

Three paddocks on my place, photographed yesterday. Same morning, my hand in each one for scale.

One's been rested 42 days. One 37. One 24.

Have a look before you scroll — which do you reckon has had the longest? 👇




They're in order. 1️⃣ 42 days · 2️⃣ 37 days · 3️⃣ 24 days.

So the paddock I rested 24 days has more feed than the one I rested 42. 😐

Number 2 is the one I've grazed hard for months, and it's never been properly sown. Number 3 was resown in ryegrass and clover last autumn and I've been careful with it all winter.

Which is the whole lesson: the days aren't the only thing. What matters is what you left behind last time. Graze it into the dirt and the plant has to rebuild from its roots before it can grow a leaf — so it starts every round further behind and never catches up. That's not resting. That's convalescing.

And here's the useful bit.

If a paddock's had a fair rest and come back badly, will more rest fix it? I could give number 2 another fortnight and it'd still be number 2. It needs work, not patience — pull it out of the rotation for a couple of rounds, oversow it, or redo it properly.

The trap is that a bad paddock looks exactly like a paddock that needs more time. So you give it more time. For years.

(Three photos isn't a trial — rest, grazing history and species all differ here at once. But the practical bit holds.)

What do you plan to do with your poor paddock this spring?

31/07/2026

Who keeps track of their eggs? Month's up, and I've got a number that's better than expected. July was the first full month I've written down every single egg. Thirty seconds at the back door each evening — tap, tap, done.
Every day the app has quietly worked out what one egg from my chooks actually costs me to produce.
I'll let the screenshot do the talking. It is not a great number. 😅
In fairness to the girls: this is the worst month of the year to measure. Short days, cold, a couple of them moulting, a couple too young to be laying at all — and every one of them eating the same feed regardless of whether they're contributing. The number should come right down as the days stretch out, and honestly that's the bit I want to see. Not what July cost. What the line does between now and Christmas.
The cost doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would — because what you're actually buying isn't cheaper eggs. It's knowing exactly what the bird ate, being able to walk out in your pj's and get them. I just didn't know the price of that until this week, and now I do.
So — over to you lot, because I reckon there's a huge range out there:
👉 Do you know what your eggs cost you? And if you've ever worked it out, what did you get?
No wrong answers. I suspect half of us have never added it up and the other half added it up once and decided never to do it again.

30/07/2026

Winter isn't all bad. What a beautiful morning in Northland.