Visualization of rotational grazing

This photo shows you where we grazed the cattle.  We use electric fencing to create temporary pastures, let the cattle graze for a few days, then move them to the next area.  The area where they first grazed is already starting to come back!

This type of intensive grazing ensures that the cattle eat down all the grasses, including all the types they don't particularly like.  It also gives the pasture denser manure coverage which gives us stronger fertilization and helps the pastures grow back faster.

We love standing in this spot and looking at the differences in the three pasture areas.

Rainy days and Mondays

Chicken processing started on Sunday and continued into Monday.  Sunday was cold, wet and raw. Monday was no better. At times, it poured down the rain.

Chickens are dunked in the scalder to make plucking easier

Into the Whizbang Plucker Greg made

99% plucked chicken emerges

Rotational grazing

It's Spring. Grass is back. The pastures are looking beautiful. It's time to start rotational grazing again!

The first group to get some new grass is our five Ossabaw/Tamworth piglets.  We've had them in the barn, training them on electric fencing so we can safely put them out in the woods to graze on acorns and root around in the dirt.  The last time we tried this, the piglets were still too small and they easily escaped under the electric wire. Now that they are a bit larger, they were contained in the paddock area. They loved all the space, the green grass and all the dirt to dig their snouts into.  They immediately found a way to make a mud puddle.

The next group to move was the two steers.  They are used to rotational grazing and know that when we lower the electric tape, it's time to move to a lovely, munchy new location. They come running!  To put weight on them, they will be on intensive grazing. This means we give them a relatively small area to eat down, then a day or two later, move them to a new, small patch of pasture for another day or two.  We'll continue to move them until they get to weight and are ready to be butchered.

Then we gave the pregnant cows a very large piece of pasture.  Seven pregnant cows and three cows with calves were moved to where the grass really was greener on the other side of the fence.

They bottle-necked as soon as they walked through the gate. New grass is very appetizing!  With some mild encouragement, they moved through and let the other cows and calves come through.

Happy cattle on green grass.  It's great to have all our livestock on pasture!

This is not the grocery store

"You mean I can come to your farm... and BUY meat? From you???"

Yes! You do not have to purchase your foods in a grocery store. And you are not limited to what is available at the local farmer's market (although farmer's markets are wonderful places to purchase locally produced food!).  You can find a farmer through a website like Local Harvest and Buy Fresh Buy Local, make an appointment to visit them, ask all about the products you're purchasing and even see where it is grown.

For some people, this is a completely foreign concept. For them, it is incomprehensible that the grocery store is unnecessary.

But it is completely irrelevant if you want to purchase local produce, herbs, meats, breads and dairy products.  As long as you are willing to do the research and spend a little time hunting out your sources, you can say good bye to most products purchased at a grocery store and get them from a local farmer or producer.

What to Expect

• Expect to make an appointment and keep it.  Farms are busy places. Many farmers work full or part time jobs along with farming so always keep your appointment or call to let them know if you can't.
• Expect to have your questions answered. Ask anything! It's the only way you'll know if the product is something you truly want to purchase. And farmers take pride in their work and love to talk about their farms.
• Expect your purchases to cost more than grocery store products.  This is probably the most under-anticipated expectation for consumers when purchasing direct from a farm. There are a thousand reasons as to why the product costs more. A few - the cost of feed for the animals, time and labor, fresh, (usually) untreated products that are not picked before they are ripe and then artificially ripened with chemicals, processing costs for meat products that require USDA inspection, farm mortgage, equipment costs, organic certification costs.... Farmers shoulder a lot of up-front costs. 
• Expect to purchase a higher quality product than what you will find in a grocery store. If it's not superior to the grocery store, say something! Let the farmer know! He'll either huff and puff or he'll take the constructive criticism under advisement and try to do better.
• Expect a glimpse into what real, small family farming - not factory farming - is all about.

 We are not a grocery store. We're just a small farm, working hard to provide good quality products. Greg spent most of last week hand butchering and processing Cornish hens. In the end, we had birds that could sit on any grocery store shelf and compete with Tyson, Perdue and the others. But wow! What a difference in the quality and care that went into those birds from the day they hatched until we shut the freezer door on them.

Go find a farmer. Talk to them. Buy from them. Let them share their passion with you.

And this little piggie

.... went running around the farm, causing havoc and thoroughly annoying the cows!

We have five Ossabaw/Tamworth piglets.  They free roamed their farm before they were weaned and came to us. As soon as possible, these piglets will be out in the pasture and woods with access to forage and acorns. For their protection and to protect our investment, they need to be contained in electric fencing.

Greg set up a small area with electric fencing inside the barn. If they got through the electric fence, they'd still be contained and safe. We really want them out on pasture as soon as possible so we decided to expand their electric fencing today. They would have access to a small paddock with lots of room to run around and lots of grass to eat.

 

Meeting of the meats

The cows were incredibly curious. All of them came up to the paddock, surrounded it and moo'd at the piglets.  Then, a piglet made its way under the electric fencing and under the gate.

Complete bovine mayhem!

Those cows went nuts chasing the piglet! He just wanted back in with his siblings ... and some tasty grass. So the cows chased him around the pasture for a bit. Those big, pregnant girls can move!  There was some bucking, some charging and lots of mooing.


The piglet eventually found another way back into the paddock.

Then two escaped.

Run, Wilbur!! Run!!

We got them back in and headed off to feed and water all the rabbits. 

Who knew cows could be such great alarm systems?  Lots of very loud mooing alerted us that all five piglets had escaped!  They ran around the pasture, out into the yard, down the driveway, around the vehicles, down to the wood pile and all around that pasture.  Then somehow, and I'm not very clear on this, they ended up back in the driveway, then in the barn.  At least they were contained!

We herded them back into the barn stall area and shut them in for the night.

Then I let a rabbit get away from me and we had to chase it down too.

I'm ready for some ice cream.

Nesting box swap

It seems my teachers were right. There will always be a use for math in my adult life.  When you raise rabbits, there's a lot of multiplication happening, that's for sure!  But this past week has been filled with addition and subtraction making sure everyone is where they need to be.  Let's look at the numbers...

Typically, we hope for our does to produce seven to nine kits per litter.  That's the ideal litter size for us.  Because a doe only has eight nipples, excessive numbers of kits means that you have to watch closely for any kits falling behind in feedings.  Even litters of ten give me cause for concern during that first week of life.  I check the kits several times a day to make sure they are being fed.  RabbitTalk.com has some great photos to help you discern if your kits are eating or not.

Silverado is an eleven month old Am Chin x NZ Champagne mix doe. She's a meat mutt.  She is an excellent producer and wonderful mother.  She just kindled her fourth litter this past week - an amazing litter of fourteen kits. Yes, fourteen!  There are many people who would jump up and down with joy at such a large litter.  Based on the numbers, that's basically two breedings and pregnancies in one litter.  I'm not too thrilled about it though.

Larger litters mean smaller birth size, slower growth, more possibility of loss, difficulties keeping all the kits fed until they are weaned. 

There's no way that this nest of kits can all keep fed if we left them all in the nestbox together.  This many kits means there will always be weaker kits shoved to the bottom of the pile.  Those kits are more likely to suffocate or never make it up to the doe to eat when she comes in to feed them.  The solution? The nestbox swap.

Seven kits were put in a different nesting box. Does feed their litters twice a day. Kits can survive on only one feeding a day.  Two is better, but one can suffice.  At night before bed, Greg takes out the one box (those kits received the evening feeding) and puts in the other box.  The second box of kits will receive the morning feeding.  Then he swaps them back again during the day to start the cycle over again.

This ensures that all fourteen kits are eating well and growing.  It also gives us added incentive to check them several times a day to make sure they are doing well.  In the wild or without any intervention, most of these kits would die.  If we were pure naturalists, we'd let nature take its course. But I can't. I know that with some additional effort on our part, we can raise fourteen rabbits.  Hopefully the fast growing genes from the sire will help compensate for the smaller birth size of these kits and they'll come to butchering weight right on schedule.

When I started counting the kits in that nesting box, I thought for sure they were tumbling back into the nest and I was recounting the same kits over and over and over.  It was like a never ending clown car!

Training cattle

A few weeks ago, ten pregnant cows were brought to the farm. Since they arrived, one has delivered a beautiful bull calf and we're waiting for the rest to calve.

One of our first priorities was to train the cattle and to gain their trust.  Yes, you can train cattle. They must come when we call them.  We must have that control over them;  not just for rotational grazing but also for their own safety.  It is an imperative that they answer when we call them.

We also need them to trust us and not run away from us.  With cows ready to give birth, if something goes wrong, we need to know that our presence will not add more stress to the cow in an already stressful situation. The last thing we need is a cow fighting us when we're trying to help her push out a calf.

Just like with most animals, food is the great motivator.  We raise and finish our cattle on pasture, but in order to train these cows and to get them used to our presence, we call them up to the barn once or twice a day with the lure of sweet feed laced with mineral supplements from time to time.

So. How do you call cattle? Any call will work as long as you're consistent, but we shout out, "WHIRRRRLLLLLL"