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Hunting for Chicks

3/31/2017

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After last year’s poultry pickle, where I ordered way too many different baby birds all at once, I was so proud of myself this year that I managed to not order any. At All. But then I saw it, the TSC sign announcing the arrival of Chicks! And I knew I as in trouble. Nick and I went and looked on a Friday afternoon and saw some pullets we liked that were probably already a week-old and were a laying breed. We decided that the smart thing was to go home and figure out where we were going to put them before we brought them home.


We have two coops going right now; one is a permanent coop of two year-old hens and the other is a mobile coop of one year-old hens, and a bonus rooster. We decided that we would mark the two year-olds and sneak them in with the others in the mobile coop during the next morning’s feeding. We went back and forth on how to mark them so we could cull the two year-olds first if their laying dropped off. One idea was to put zip ties around their ankles. I was concerned about the ties getting too tight and injuring them, so I thought why not mark them with bright nail polish.

We closed the coop door the night before to avoid any chicken catching drama and pulled them out one at a time to mark and then put in a cage to move. I got my brightest hot pink nail polish and painted several tail feathers on each bird. We then released them in with the others to a calm reception. Well, except for the rooster, who was more than thrilled to have another dozen ladies to join his harem. The polish was very noticeable from a distance and I was quite pleased with myself for having the idea. That is, until about a week later, when all the nail polish rubbed off and now we have no idea who is who. But that is a problem for a different day, now we were in business with an empty coop! Since we needed to make some modifications to add more roosts and remove nesting boxes and they were too young to be outside, we set up the spare bathtub as a brooder again. Now we were ready for chicks!

Off we went to TSC to get the chicks we saw the day before. As we arrived and rushed over to the chicks, I saw the last of our chicks being loaded into a box for the guy in front of me and at a discount no less! Nick and I gave him the stink eye and then half hatched a plan to distract him and steal them, but we figured that our poor timing was his good luck. Off we went to the co-op, who also had their alluring chicks sign hanging up outside. In we went and much to our disappointment, found no chicks. We were then informed that "some guy was just here and bought us all out". Grrrrrr! It was probably that same chick thief from TSC going around town just ahead of us thwarting our attempts. We went home empty handed and sad that for once we planned ahead and it bit us in the butt.

There was no time to sulk, we had to head to the processor to pick up a hog we had butchered. On the drive, I started hunting around on Facebook for chicks and found a lady that happened to be in the town we were driving through who had some available. After several messages back and forth, we agreed upon two dozen buff orpingtons and a dozen black sex links for pick up in an hour.

When we get there, we were ushered into a garage by a lady and her very hyperactive three year-old grandchild, only to find a zoo. She told us she was opening a pet store and they were holding all the animals there until it was open in a week or two. She had baby bunnies, baby hedgehogs (of course I had to hold one and yes, they feel just like they look like they would), parrots, quail, hamsters, mice and on and on. She also had a very handsy Macaw who kept grabbing me through his cage. She points to a box on the floor with our chicks in them. She said several other people were interested in them and asked if we still wanted them. For fear of losing out on chicks again and to get out of there before being molested again by a bird or succumbing to the urge to buy a baby anything, we said yes, and got the heck out of there.

Once in the truck, I open the box to find the correct number of chicks but in all sorts of sizes and colors, not what we had asked for. We decided to just take what we had and head home. Lesson learned- order your chicks ahead of time or risk running all over town, going to a zoo, ending up with an odd-ball assortment of chicks and being felt on by a bird.

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Pigs, Pigs Everywhere

2/26/2017

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We are currently enjoying warmer than usual weather here in Tennessee, which has allowed us do some work on fencing a new pasture. We currently have 19 pigs and one of our sows just gave birth. Given our very dry summer last year followed by heavy fall rains, the pastures have taken a beating. We want to continue getting more pastures ready so we can do more rotation to let the grasses recover and provide plenty of forage. It’s been slow going with just the two of us working on it and trying to squeeze a little work in during naptimes, but we are hopeful to get at least one new pasture ready in the next month.
 
Given last season’s piglet chasing antics, we got smart and built a small catch pen in the nursery pasture. This is one of the few projects that has taken less time than we expected to complete and we were able to get it done in half a day. This left us a little extra time to work on lowering fence insulators in the areas the pigs have started to dig up in the pastures.
 
D is now fully mobile and has discovered the joys of the great outdoors. She is not yet very stable on uneven ground but seem to be enjoying not being stuck in her stroller while we do farm chores. She is not very helpful yet, preferring to sample the chicken scratch herself rather than throw it to the chickens. The piglets are not sure what to think of her squealing back at them face to face and take off running from her, much to her amusement.
 
Our sow Rocky gave birth last Sunday to a small litter of four large piglets. We think that the litter was so small because we put her in with the boar at the end of her heat cycle. She had a difficult labor, with more than an hour passing between piglets so I had to intervene and pull two of them. If you had asked me several years ago, if I would ever imagine having to reach my hand into a 600lb sow and pull out a piglet, I would have looked at you crazy. But here we are and some days on a farm, you just have to put on your big girl pants and do what needs doing.

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Into The New Year!

1/14/2017

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The winter is our down time without a garden to tend full time and rain and cold weather most days. We try to use this time to work on projects waiting on our to do list and one of these is to work on the big garden. We broke ground on it three years ago and removed untold tons of rocks, leaving behind mostly red clay, unsuitable to grow much other than crabgrass and weeds. Over the last few years, we have been slowly improving the soil with compost and other organic materials.

Last year, the garden got off to a good start but with the addition of all this fertile organic material, it also gave a boost to the weeds, which ended up outgrowing much of our vegetables. So the goal for this year is to cardboard the entire garden as a weed barrier and then add several inches of compost and organic material on top. To plant, we will cut holes in the cardboard for transplants and hopefully starve out most of the weed growth. Over the next couple years, the cardboard will decompose and eventually be tilled in.

I didn't quite realize just how big the garden was until I found myself breaking down box after box for days and only managing to cover half of it! Thank goodness I had some help from family in town for the holidays. Probably not how they intended to spend their holiday vacation but that's what happens when you take your vacation at your sister's farm.

 I have found a source for appliance boxes in town, which dramatically speeds up the process, but they only seem to put the boxes out on Wednesdays when I'm at work! It does make one feel kind of creepy to be cruising store dumpsters and digging out boxes, but a girls got to do what a girls got to do!

One bonus is that I found a patch of carrots growing in the garden that had been starved out by weeds but made a comeback when the weeds were all bushhogged this fall. The pigs were thrilled for such an odd January treat.
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Changing Seasons

10/23/2016

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Ahh October, my favorite time of the year! I love the colors changing, the warm days and cool nights, when you can finally break out that favorite sweater. The animals seem to be enjoying the cooler weather as well and have more of a pep in their step. The last cut of hay is done and the winter garden is doing fairly well. I just hope I get peas before the first frost.

We got the hives ready for winter last weekend and found that we had lost two more and one was weak and needed to be combined with another to make it through winter. We are back down to five hives and just can't seem to make forward progress growing our numbers. I dread the impact of winter on the remaining hives. We got a meager harvest of about 10 frames of honey or around 35 pounds. Most beekeepers harvest after the spring nectar flow and again if the fall nectar flow is very productive. We harvest just prior to closing for winter to ensure we don't take too much and to protect against lean summers.

This is the time of year were things finally slow down a bit and we can shift our attention to the long list of projects we have been wanting to get started on, which have taken a backseat to the daily chores and immediate must dos. We are looking at fencing our next pasture and possibly getting a few calves in the spring so we can offer grass fed, grass finished beef that people have been asking for.  

We hope everyone is enjoying the fall weather!
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Pickin Pears and Processing Turkeys

10/8/2016

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Last weekend Nick and I processed our first turkeys for the freezer. Of the six we started with, we only managed to get two fully grown to harvest. Four others were picked off by different predators over the last few months. We were excited that at least two made it. They ended up going in the freezer at 21 and 26 pounds. We will cook the smaller one before Thanksgiving just to make sure we did everything right, since you sure don't want to invite twenty people over for Thanksgiving only to have an inedible turkey. We are pretty confident we did everything right, but you can never be too safe. For the first time in many years of hosting Thanksgiving, we will have homegrown ham and turkey.

A few weeks ago we had our inspection to get our farm based retail meat license and now have a large freezer full of retail cuts ready to sell! This batch of sausage is especially nice and lean!

This weekend, D and I went to a friend's house to pick pears while Nick got a rare morning off to go fishing with a buddy. It was a perfect day for it, sunny and 65 degrees. We came home with 6 five gallon buckets full of giant Kieffer pears and the canning marathon began. So far I have made a case of spiced pear butter and vanilla diced pears and only got through one bucket. The pigs and chickens were pleased to have the cores and skins and will likely benefit from plenty of whole pears once the canning fatigue sets in tomorrow. I put the spiced pear butter recipe up on our recipe page if anyone is interested.
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While the Farmers Are Away the Pigs Will Run Amuck

8/31/2016

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We recently took our first vacation as a family to Ohio and Michigan so we could see family and friends, ride rollercoasters and take a much needed break from life. Between us both working full time jobs with an hour plus commute each way, the baby, and trying to run a farm, we were getting burned out. Don't get me wrong, we love our life, it just gets to be overwhelming at times, with the endless to do lists.

We had a wonderful time, but since this was the first time we left the farm for any length of time, we dreaded what we would come home to. Our niece took on the huge job of farm and dog sitting for us and she managed to keep everyone fed, alive, and mostly contained. She had been giving us updates daily and we knew we were coming home to down fences and that the big tom turkey had been harassing her and tried to make her his girlfriend.

What we found when we got home was even worse then we feared. We had three age groups of piglets mixed together, no electric fences working, huge holes in the woven wire fences and the pigs had destroyed the electric bird netting. It took Nick two days to get the fences mended and hot and the pigs in the right pastures. Now I know why farmers never go on vacation!
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Farm News

7/23/2016

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Since my last blog, things have been moving right along on the farm front. We have weaned and sold half of the most recent litter of piglets. We had a fella coming to pick up five of them and we had tried to trick them into the foaling stall so we didn’t have to chase them all over the nursery pasture. We almost had them in and I closed the gate behind them. Upon realizing they were trapped, they all went berserk and charged the gate, which Nick (who’s a strong guy mind you) was holding closed. The combined strength of ten little piglets is astounding! They pushed that gate and manage to lift it off the ground and squeeze under, despite our best effort to hold them back. Plan A was an epic fail. We tried again but they had caught on to our little game and were having nothing of it. An hour later, a kind gentleman and his young son showed up to get the five piglets and we had to sheepishly inform him that our plan failed and we were going to have to run them down. It had just rained and so those already fast and squirmy boogers were now also slippery with mud. An hour of piglet chasing later, we finally sent him on his way with an apology, five slightly traumatized piglets, and a muddy son.
 
We harvested several of the older hogs for the half and whole hogs we sold over the last few months. We kept a half for ourselves and I have to say, pasture raised Berkshire pork is something wonderful! We are also in the process of applying for a farm-based retail meat license and have scheduled an appointment to have our first hog processed and packaged under USDA inspection so we can start selling by the cut. Because let’s face it, as much as most people like bacon and chops, they rarely have the space for a 100-200 pounds of them.  We’ll keep everyone updated on this for those interested in getting their hands on some juicy natural pork!
 
Our garden has been producing fairly well and we have already harvested our spinach, lettuce, rashes, beets, peas, kale, cucumbers, peppers and the tomatoes are starting to come in. Unfortunately, due to the baby, working full time, and all the other farm tasks, the large garden has been completely taken over by weeds. The only plants making a stand against them are the enormous squash plants that came up first and a few puny stalks of corn. Oh well, there’s always next year. D came with me on several wild blackberry picking trips and we managed to pick 4 gallons of blackberries for the freezer that is destined to become blackberry merlot jam on a raining day. Any extra or overripe produce is enjoyed by the animals. Interestingly, pigs love, love, love raw kale! Who would have thought?
 
One last note; our farm logo has been finalized and we are ready to roll it out. So here it is!

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Happy Mother's Day

5/14/2016

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This post is a little late but happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there! This year was my first true mother's day. Prior years were celebrated as a fur babies momma, which some don't count but when that's what you have, that's what you celebrate! To cap off the day, our sow Natasha delivered 11 piglets. One didn't make it due to a birth defect but as of today, we have 10 happy rolley-polley piglets. Natasha is a great mother and has adapted well to her larger litter.

D and I had a little mother-daughter overalls photo shoot before chore time. She is a good sport about spending a lot of time outdoors helping with farm chores from the comfort of her stroller. Although she calls the shots and when she is over it, everybody better be ready to be done too!

In other news, we have now found a local source of 100% non-GMO feed for all of our animals through Taylor Family Farms and are so glad to be able to make the switch over to all non-GMO feeds and still stay within budget. Click on their name to check out their website.

We have moved the guineas and some of the chicks out on pasture with the portable coop and portable electric fencing. We placed it in one of the pig pastures and the pigs found it very interesting until we plugged the fence in and they got a snout full of shock. After that, they decided chewing on the fence was not such a good idea and so far have left it alone.

I can't wait until we can move the last batch of chicks out of the bathtub and the 6 turkeys out of the hobby room and onto pasture as well. I'm getting tired of the house smelling like poultry. We will have to plan better next year!


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A Poultry Pickle

4/24/2016

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I'll be the first to admit that at times I put the cart before the horse when making decisions about getting animals. I tend to get swept away by the idea of them and of course how cute the babies are. That is what lead us to the most recent situation of too much poultry and not enough room.

Last year, I got a dozen chicks of unknown breed (turns out they were Barred Rocks) from Tractor Supply because I was tired of waiting for the breed I really wanted to become available. What do you know, the next week the Co-Op had the Buff Orpingtons I had been searching for, so I got a dozen of them too. At the time, we had two empty bathtubs that were easily converted into brooders. This year, one of those is now the baby's tub.

So this spring I decided we needed a dozen more Barred Rock pullets since last year's so called straight run turned out to be 11 cockerels and one hen. I also wanted to get another rooster since both of our two Barred Rock roosters turned mean and went into the stew pot, so I ordered a dozen straight run of Buff Orpingtons. Then I though about how nice it would be to raise our own turkey for Thanksgiving and wanted turkeys too. The Co-Op offered three breeds and rather than just pick one since I didn't know which was best, I chose to order two of each, seems logical right? Then I found out they also offered guineas so I ordered some of them too.

The Barred Rock pullets came in three weeks ago and then two weeks ago the 10 guineas. We put the dozen pullets in the available bathtub but had nowhere for the guineas to go. Luckily the baby's highchair arrived in the mail in a perfect size box, so I cut one of the sides out and put the guineas in that.

The new arrivals put us in high gear to get the mobile coop finished especially because there was no way to know when the other dozen chickens or six turkeys would arrive. This project took longer than expected due to Nick coming down with a nasty cold that pretty much sidelined him for a week and a half.

The other thing that put a little fire under us was the fact that the guineas were starting to escape their box and are a booger to catch. It's amazing how fast those little guys are and boy do they crap everywhere!

This weekend, the turkeys arrived, which really put us under the wire to finally get the coop done and transfer both the chicks and guineas out there. Because they will be on pasture and we have a lot of hawks, we want the guineas to bond to the chicks and vice versa,since guineas are very good at sounding panic alarms when predators are around. Below are some picture of the mobile coop, the chicks and keets are separated by wire until they get used to each other and then we will let them mingle. Or rather, until they figure out how to hop over to the other side.

Nick played around some with the design of the new coop and made some improvements over our other coop. The first was to reduce the number of nesting boxes and increase the number of perches to cut down on the amount of poop in the boxes and keep the eggs cleaner. I also painted the inside of the boxes a dark red because I have been told that chicken will only go into dark places to lay eggs. We also kept the nest boxes lower because chickens and guineas like to perch as high up as they can.

So the next project will be getting a turkey roost and enclosure ready for when they outgrow the bathtub, which will be sooner then we know it. But first, we need to finishing fencing another pasture because Natasha is due to have her next litter in the next couple weeks. Oh yeah, and there are still another dozen chicks coming. It seems as if we are always rushing to complete animal housing of some sort. Maybe next spring I will learn my lesson and not order too many animals. Maybe, but I doubt it.
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Farming With An Infant

4/9/2016

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Spring is finally here to stay it seems and with it comes a never ending list of things that need doing. Now that we sort of feel like we have gotten the whole baby thing down, the new challenge seems to be trying to get all the farm chores done while caring for an infant, especially since it has become clear that her nap boycott is not a passing phase.
 
When we first started on this farming journey, a baby was never a part of the vision or planning process since we had been told long ago that we were not able to have children. Don’t get me wrong, she is a true blessing in our lives and we would not trade her for anything, but it has been a big adjustment. We now have to regroup and make some modifications of our vision of the development of the farm but are even more motivated to move forward since we see this farm as a big part of our daughter’s future.
 
Nick and I have started to learn how to tag team between baby and farm projects the best we can. For some things though, we just tote her along. For example, last weekend we had to wean the smallest piglets and get momma back in the big pig pasture. Nick put the baby in a front carrier to help herd momma pig and I ran around with the feed bucket trying to lure her in the pasture. I’m sure it was quite a sight. Luckily, she does seem to enjoy being outside and is not very mobile, so we can put her in her stroller or a carrier and work for as long as her patience allows. I’m sure things will get even more interesting when she is crawling and walking!
 
In other news, we welcomed 12 Barred Rock pullets who are residing in our bathtub brooder for the time being and we also got 10 Guineas. We hope they will help with our major tick problems when they get bigger. It’s our first experience with Guineas and I’ve been told by some that they are not the most intelligent of creatures and have the propensity to stand in the road and watch each other get run over. We plan to keep them in the pig pastures which are far from any roads.

 
We are getting ready to send some of the pigs off for processing in a month or so and Natasha will be having another litter around the same time. We are still offering pastured Berkshire pork by half or whole hog if anyone is interested, just contact us.


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D and I painting beehives
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    Ellie
    Resident beekeeper, gardener and farmer.

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