Next, we have ventured into dairy cows.  We brought home 2 Jersey calf heifers, Anabelle and Clarabelle.  They were 8 days and 3 days old, respectively, when they arrived.  We were expecting 3 week old calves so the 3 day old calf really scared me, she was very young and I was so unprepared.  I like to do things as naturally as possible so I really wasn’t crazy about bottle feeding calves, I would much prefer to have them nurse from their Mama’s.  But if we were going to raise them, bottle feeding was our only option.  I do not have a source for fresh cows milk to feed them and I wanted to feed them goats milk but with only 2 goats in milk we did not get enough milk to 100% supplement, we had to use a milk replacer (formula) to supplement the difference after they drank the goats milk.  I knew I wanted a non-medicated formula but knew nothing about them past that and unwisely chose a soy based formula.  After 1 week on this goat milk/soy based formula concoction we had a very sick baby cow.  Clarabelle had scours, dehydration, and depression so bad that she stopped eating.  I truly believe she was lying around waiting to die.  This sent us on an emergency hunt for a large animal vet, not an easy task on a Friday night.  But God was faithful and led us to a wonderful vet very close to us.  He was able to help us get her back on the right track to health and I am happy to say she is a happy, healthy, spunky calf at 12 weeks old.

 

Along with our calves my darling husband allowed me to buy a 15 month old Guernsey heifer.  I have wanted a Guernsey since the first time I read about them.  This purchase required a livestock trailer and a 3 hour trip to the mountains of NC.  We have no experience with cows, other than drinking their milk.  So when my sweet husband pulled his trailer up to this wild-eyed, terrified, feisty, bucking, snorting, stomping, cow with horns he almost said “No thanks!”  But I convinced him she was just scared and would calm down once she knew this was her home.  In my mind I was terrified of her, especially the way she would shake her head and horns at us when we got too close.  But time has proven that she is a gentle girl that loves those calves but loves food more.  She craves our attention and we have learned to read her “moo”, the soft gentle moo tells us she is content, she uses this moo to thank us for food or scratching/brushing her and when she is calling to the calves.  Her loud bellowing moo tells us she is annoyed, wants attention, wants the babies, wants food…wants something.  We are hoping to have her bred the end of May/beginning of June time frame if we can catch her in heat.

 

This is a bit of  information I found on www.Guernsey.net regarding the high quality and health benefits of Guernsey milk:

Guernsey Milk Quality:
Guernsey milk contains 12% more protein, 30% more cream, 33% more vitamin D, 25% more vitamin A and 15% more calcium than average milk (usually Holstein).

The unique qualities of Guernsey milk, especially flavour, have always been recognised. The unique golden colour of Guernsey milk, which comes from an unusually high content of beta carotene, has the potential of adding even more value for producers and consumers. The Cancer Fund of America Inc. recently published information stating that “Diets rich in foods containing Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and a precursor of Vitamin A called beta carotene, may reduce the risk of certain cancers”.

96% of Guernsey cows carry the protein Beta Casein A2 in their milk. There is some anecdotal evidence that this protein MAY be better for the health of some people than the Protein Beta Casein A1 that is found in most other milks.

 

GUERNSEY MILK & BETA CASEIN A2

Among the unique qualities of Guernsey Milk is the presence of the protein Beta-Casein A2 in the milk of approximately 96% of Guernseys as opposed to most other European breeds which carry a predominance of Beta-Casein A1. Guernsey cows can test A1/A1 or A1/A2 but the vast majority are A2/A2 cows.

Professor Keith Woodford has raised the global profile of the potential benefits of A2 milk through his book ‘Devil in the Milk’. This very well researched book brought public attention to a possible link between milk containing A1 beta-casein and a range of serious illnesses, including heart disease, Type 1 diabetes, autism and schizophrenia.

The latest edition of Guernsey World (see home page) includes two papers on this subject. ‘Polymorphism of bovine beta-casein and its potential effect on human health’ is a very clearly written paper by three Polish scientists. The European Food Safety Authority produced a report, ‘Review of the potential health impact of ß-casomorphins and related peptides’ (summary only published in GW) in which it found that ‘a cause-effect relationship between the oral intake of BCM7 or related peptides and aetiology or cause of any suggested non-communicable diseases cannot be established.’

However, the argument most strongly advanced by the proponents of the benefits of A2 Milk is not that A1 Milk causes these illnesses but rather that A1 milk is digested in a different way to A2 resulting in the release of a peptide or protein fragment called Beta-Casomorphin-7 (BCM7). If this gets through the gut and into the blood of genetically susceptible people it can have a detrimental effect by exacerbating underlying problems.

There is an ongoing debate about how compelling the present evidence is, but anecdotal evidence suggests that some people who thought that they were lactose intolerant may be intolerant to A1 milk through the release of BCM7. There is further anecdotal evidence that some autistic people benefit from A2 milk. Unfortunately most of the trials carried out so far have failed to meet strict scientific standards, notably the double-blind discipline. However, the International Journal Peptides recently published a paper by Kost NV et al. (see link to this paper below) who were able to isolate BCM7 in the blood of children that were fed formula milk. They also discovered that some of the children excreted BCM7 quite quickly while others did not. The children who failed to excrete it rapidly tended to exhibit delayed development. Specifically, the paper compared 37 breastfed babies with 53 fed with formula containing cow’s milk. The researchers found only one case of developmental delay in the breast-fed group compared with 16 in the other group. More research is needed but this seems to be a significant development.

Currently the largest volume of A2 milk sales is in Australia where over10 million litres were sold in the last reported year of trading by the A2 Corporation. Other countries have small internal markets for A2 milk and some Guernsey herds are benefiting from specific sales.

It may be many years before sufficient evidence of an acceptable scientific standard is available to confirm or discredit the A1/A2 hypothesis, mainly because of the scale, expense and difficulty of conducting meaningful trials, but many respected scientists are of the opinion that such research is merited. In the meantime consumers have a choice, they can switch to A2 milk if they find that it helps them. Guernsey breeders too have a choice. If they think that A2 could be important to their future profitability they can switch to using only A2/A2 bulls.  WL Feb. 2010

 

We are anxiously awaiting her next heat cycle due any day now.  Eric is avidly working to complete the stanchion and we have an awesome AI tech on stand-by to be here ASAP to breed her.  If all goes smoothly (there is always a chance it won’t take the first time…or second time) we will have a new calf and fresh Guernsey milk Spring 2012.  If not, we’ll just keep trying until it’s successful or fill our freezer with beef…but we’ve become quite attached to her so I hope it doesn’t go that direction.  So this is what we want to see next year at this time (except for the horns)…

 

Now…the update on our little goats.

 

Well, they aren’t so little anymore.  They are growing so fast and are absolutely beautiful and such a joy.

We had a tragedy in our goat herd the first day of March.  We had been tethering our goats in different areas of the property so they could take advantage of the little green available.  It was still pretty drab from the long, miserable winter.

Our sweet little Heidi, the Nubian/Alpine doe got tangled in her tether, flipped herself and broke her neck.  It was the worst animal tragedy I have ever experienced.  The guilt associated with this event is almost overwhelming.  We have learned a huge lesson about tethering goats and have now built a corral for them as well as adding portable electric fencing.  This woke us up from our lackadaisical attitude toward our farm.  We decided we needed to put our heart and soul into these animals if we were going to continue on this path or give them up.  We chose heart and soul.  

 

Along with adding fencing, we purchased 2 Alpine does…

Schneyhopli and her 2 kids, cowboy ( a black/white wethered buck) and Hazel (tan/black doe) and Daylight and her kid, Muriel (white/black doe).  We also brought home Daylight’s buck kid Phillip (cream/black)  but returned him once he was weaned.  We have been milking them and receiving the most delicious, nutritious raw goats milk for drinking, cheese making, etc.  So far we have made feta, chevre, mozzarella, and ricotta.  It has all been delicious although I have a lot of work to do on my cheese making skills. I am still overwhelmed every time I drink a glass of ice cold goats milk that this came from our precious goats.  We have learned not to let them munch on the onion grass, makes for yucky tasting milk but keeping them in the honeysuckles makes some delicious milk.

 

We believe our Oberhasli Doe, Daisy, is pregnant and due to kid in late June/early July time frame.  (After spending some time with her this morning I think it might be sooner)  If I had it to do over again I would have waited until this fall to breed her.  This would have allowed her a little more time to grow before breeding season.  But she is strong and eats well although small so I am praying she is strong enough to safely handle the delivery.  If all goes well, we will have an Oberhasli/Nubian kid (or 2) this summer.  I am hoping to have a higher butterfat content (Nubian trait) along with the large quantity (Oberhasli/Alpine trait) by crossing our Nubian buck with our Ober doe.  Cross your fingers for a doe kid.

 

 

Our bucks, Petey (Nubian) and Dusky (Oberhasli) are big and gorgeous and happy to accommodate when the does come into heat.  Probably not until the fall though, sorry boys.  In the meantime they have been working hard at clearing out some of the brush in the back of our property.

*WARNING:  THIS POST CONTAINS SOME GRAPHIC PICTURES OF CHICKEN PROCESSING*

I want to continue the discussion and update of our chicken raising adventure to focus on the processing procedure.  The chicken processing experience is a new one for us and the idea of purposefully killing an animal was a hurdle that took some nerve to begin.

 

The night before the big event we separate the birds to be processed.  We give them access to fresh water but no food.   Eric made kill cones to place the chickens in head first:

 

The processing table with bowls, bags, knives, the ready to work garden hose and the cooler filled with ice water (aka chill tank) are ready to go.

 

 

This is our scalder.  On non-chicken processing days it is a Turkey Fryer.

 

 

Once the equipment is set up and arranged, a bird is placed in each cone upside down and their legs lightly tied to keep them from backing out of the cone.

 

They are surprising calm.  Their throats are quickly slit and they are left to bleed out.  They don’t complain or struggle.  They just seemed to calm down and fall asleep before they die.

 

 

At this point, they are removed from the kill cones and dunked in the scalder to loosen the feathers and clean them up a bit.

 

 

Next we start plucking…

 

…and plucking…

 

…and plucking.

 

At this point, my camera died so the rest will have to be sans photos.  After the oh-so-long process of plucking the birds we eviscerated.  Be glad that the camera died when it did because eviscerating involves cutting the bird open and cleaning out the insides.  Also the legs and head are removed.  The legs make a delicious broth known for it’s fabulous healing properties for colds and flu, just ask your Jewish grandmother.  After the bird is fully eviscerated it is washed and spends a while in the chill tank.  Once the process is complete the birds are tossed into freezer bags, weighed, and stacked in the freezer.  The one part we need some improvement on is tucking the legs in so it looks like the birds you purchase from the store.  The legs on our birds stick almost straight out which makes it hard to put into a bag or put on the roasting pan without being awkward.  Even though it takes a very long time to pluck and is messy it is a skill I am glad my children know.  We are pleased with the excellent quality of the Freedom Ranger chickens.  The flavor of the meat is superior to any other chicken we have tried.  We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Chicken plucker to see if it makes as big of a time difference as we are anticipating and our newest batch of chicks.

 

Stay tuned for the next segment:  Southern Sky Farm: pt. 2 Goats

 

 

It’s been a while since I posted anything truly farm related.  My desire is to write consistently but my time is limited so this usually drops off the bottom of my to-do list.  I am writing now to journal the amazing progress we have made over the past few months.  Our farm is no longer a farm-in-theory but an active, thriving farm with an official name:  Southern Sky Farm.  The sky is always an eye catcher on the farm, day or night.  The intense blue against the lush green trees and grass on a clear day;  the millions and millions of bright, flickering stars in the clear night sky…it’s always breathtaking, so Southern Sky Farm it is!

My plan was to play catch-up in one blog post but have realized this will be the never-ending post that no one would be capable of reading in one sitting. It is now broken up into a few posts, a series if you will, on the happenings at Southern Sky Farm.  Today we will catch up on our chicken adventures:

 

When I last posted we were just beginning to receive eggs from our laying hens, recently purchased meat chickens, and adopted 4 kids.  So let’s start with the hens, they are thriving and we have added 3 more hens and another rooster (the additional rooster will be joining his siblings in the freezer shortly).  We collect between 7 and 11 eggs on any given day.  It’s wonderful!  At this point we are trying to find the time to build a larger chicken coop/house to accommodate 5 to 8 more chickens.  I would like to add a few more Americaunas and a few Marans.  The Americauna that we have lays the most beautiful blue eggs and the Marans are supposed to lay eggs that are chocolate brown.  Anything the color of chocolate must be good…well, almost anything, as the brown I’ve cleaned up behind the cows comes to mind but even that is goodness in it’s own way.

 

 

Our adventure into poultry chickens has been an interesting one.  We have processed our own chickens without any equipment…meaning, no chicken plucker.  It is not hard or particularly gruesome just VERY time consuming to pluck & pluck & pluck & pluck & pluck & pluck & pluck & pluck & pluck & pluck…and pluck some more.  My goodness they have a lot of feathers!  We processed (the nice way of saying killed, scalded, plucked, eviscerated, cleaned, chilled, bagged, and froze or cooked fresh) several and are now down to 10 final chickens.  We started with 62, if you remember.  They were ready to be processed the end of December, it’s now the end of May, so they might be a little tough for roasting but perfect for the crockpot.  These have been the best tasting chickens we have ever experienced, so much flavor and amazingly delicious.  The younger ones were delicious roasted and we made the BEST chicken salad with the leftovers.  Store bought chickens, even the organic, are so far behind in flavor it’s like comparing apples and donkeys.  We have purchased a chicken plucker and should be receiving it in the next week or so and are excited beyond words.  The plucker is capable of completely plucking 4 to 5 chickens in 20 seconds as opposed to an hour or so for each chicken.  This should be a huge time saver making this a more consistent activity in our lives.  We plan to process 15 or so chickens once a month to keep the freezer stocked.  Our next batch of chicks should arrive the first week of June.  The chickens are raised in a brooder until they were around 4 weeks old.  At that point, they are moved outside to the chicken tractor.  The chicken tractor is a moveable (I use that term loosely) enclosure that keeps the chickens protected while allowing them to forage in their contained area.  The enclosure is moved on a regular basis to ensure access to new grass and bugs.  We also give them chicken feed and allow constant access to fresh water. In the picture, the chickens outside the tractor are a few of the Freedom Ranger hens we saved from processing to add to our egg laying flock.  They are surprisingly good layers.  They like to hang out by the meat chickens in case any feed lands outside the tractor.  When we build a second tractor we will focus on making it lighter (a LOT lighter please) and add handles.  Right now we are using a dolly and a lot of man/woman/child power to push.  It works but could be improved.

 

Check in Thursday for the details and pictures of our first attempt at processing chickens.

 

 

We really did.

But the warm weather was calling and we got distracted from our math books and instead plotted the area for our Sunflower House garden.

We meant to pull out those science books but these caught our attention instead.

Oh and The Handbook of Nature Study was high on our list of books to read but we lost track of time while we were playing with the goats and cows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

History, we are studying the Civil War and we didn’t get in a single chapter because we were sidetracked. 

And for Literature we are reading Heidi but we didn’t even pick it up because we spent too much time here.

Feeling very unaccomplished academically today, maybe tomorrow we will work on “real” school.

Now that the hens are laying it is time to dabble in raising and processing chickens for our own consumption.  As with everything else we have done there have been many hours of research prior to our purchase.  I wanted to know what is the best meat bird available for the backyard homestead.  After wading through tons of information we decided to purchase Freedom Ranger chickens from Freedom Ranger Hatchery.

The first and most available choice for a meat bird is the Cornish Cross.  The problem with these birds is they are so lazy and unhealthy that they will drop dead of starvation and dehydration rather than forage for food or walk across a field for a drink of water.  Their legs are prone to break under their weight and they have numerous internal health issues if not processed quickly.  This did not sound like a fun bird to deal with nor an experience I wanted my children to share.

We stumbled upon the Freedom Rangers while looking for alternatives to the Cornish Cross and after a little research decided this would probably be a better all around experience as the birds seem to be healthier and more robust while still reaching a hefty dress weight and offering delicious meat.  A quick run down on the Freedom Ranger.  They were developed in the 60′s for the Label Rouge program in France.  This program was developed to produce the best tasting birds through the most efficient and nutritious means available by bringing the consumer and farmer together.  These birds have been offered in the US since around 2000.

JM Hatchery is the only hatchery we found that offers the Freedom Rangers.  The demand for Freedom Rangers has grown so much that the orders have now moved to www.freedomrangerhatchery.com.  We placed our first order Monday evening, our chicks hatched on Wednesday and were in our possession on Friday morning.  We ordered 60 and they sent a few extras to make sure we still had 60 when they arrived, shipping can be stressful for those little birds.  We now have 60+ chicks happy and healthy, chirping to their itty bitty hearts content.  I am more than pleased with the quality of birds we received.  I expected them to be quite stressed from the travelling but they have been perky and happy from the get-go.

They will be ready for processing between 9 and 11 wks, but I’ve heard others say they waited until they were 12 weeks or older.  I’m sure it depends on how they are raised…feed ration vs forage, what type of feed, free-range vs contained, etc.  We will be raising ours in chicken tractors moved each day to fresh forage along with feed and plenty of fresh water.  I am looking into a local feed mill to see if we can have a special feed prepared for our birds.  This would include organic grains and additional vitamins and minerals to produce the best tasting and most nutritious birds.  We’ll keep you posted on our progress.

Yes, yes, yes…we have eggs!  Aren’t they gorgeous?  Finally those little garden eaters are giving back.  Well, some of them anyway.  The Red Sex-Link is a faithful 1 egg per day layer, she is our prized bird right now.  The Rhode Island Reds are running a close second giving 1 egg per day from the 2 of them, after that is the Barred Rock and Wyandotte laying sporadically, maybe 1 every other day between the 2 of them.  We are waiting on the Light Brahma’s and Americauna to lay.  The Americauna eggs will be easy to spot, she should lay green or blue eggs.

Rosie, the Red Sex-Link, started her nest in the woods.  My older daughters heard her squawking and fretting as if  something was threatening her.  When they found her she was deep in overgrowth and brush, my girls thought she was stuck.  They reached in to free her, lifted her up, and saw she was sitting on a nest of 4 eggs.  We were beyond excited!!!  The girls found 1 more egg that had rolled out of the nest and she layed an egg for a total of 6 eggs found the first day.  That was about 2 weeks ago so we are still waiting for the other ladies to get into a consistent routine but right now we are getting a little over a dozen a week from our chickens.   I know that as the weather gets cold they will slack off on laying but hopefully by spring they will be giving a decent amount of eggs, I’m hoping for 2 dozen a week from them.  I am also planning to increase our flock soon so they will be laying by spring also.  My goal is at least 4 or 5 dozen a week.  We  use a dozen at a time when we eat eggs for breakfast and then more to bake, make smoothies, & all the other yumminess you can do with eggs…we need lots!

Since then the hens have decided that the nesting boxes we made for them are not so bad after all.  The kids can’t get enough of  opening that nesting box door and finding eggs, such a thrill for the little ones.  They are gorgeous eggs with hard shells, nutrient-rich deep orange yolks and melt in your mouth deliciousness!  I half-way expected them to have a slight tomato flavor for as many as they ate but I guess I’ll never know how those tomatoes tasted.

Maybe that should read drenching through the trenches.  I had intended the first post about our goats to be a sweet fluffy piece all about our adorable little flock.  I’ll start there but nothing about drenching is adorable.  If you know what I’m talking about, well then, you know what I’m talking about, it’s not pretty.  If you don’t then stay put, I’ll get to it.

First, we adopted a Nubian buck and an Alpine/Nubian doe, they were about 3 weeks old when we brought them home.  Cute doesn’t even come close.  We bottle fed them, they love us, we love them, they cry for us when we leave them, our hearts melt.  They eat everything off the trees, bushes, weeds, grass.  Then we brought home 2 little bitty precious Oberhasli’s.  At this point, I don’t think the cute factor on our as-yet-unnamed farm could get any higher.  The Oberhasli’s remind me of tiny deer.  They are more skiddish than the Nubians but I think that has a lot to do with us bottle-feeding the Nubians.  But then it happened, my worst nightmare.  OK, not my worst nightmare but definitely high on my list of please-don’t-happen-to-me fears.  Our Nubian/Alpine doe, Daisy, started with diarrhea.  It wasn’t bad at first.  Our pasture is extremely rich and lush so I thought she was just getting too much moisture in her diet…it could happen.  But as it persisted, even after I upped her dry brush and roughage, I knew I would have to take action.  I have resources all over the place for goat info.  Natural Goat Care by Pat Coleby and Storey’s Guide to Raising Dairy Goats by Jerry Belanger are my go to books.  On the internet I spend a lot of time reading through Fias Co Farm and their pet herbal site Molly’s Herbals.  There are a few other sites but nothing I go to as consistently as Fias Co Farm.  I have been purchasing most of our goat supplies from Hoegger Supply Co.  After reading through all of the above I am still not certain what is causing her diarrhea (scours in the goat world) but I am trying a serious protocol of dolomite powder/copper sulfate/Vitamin C.  At first we put this in her bottle, picky little thing decided she wasn’t really interested in her bottle after all.  The next day we tricked her into eating it by offering her raisins in between bites.  She cried and sneezed and warned all the others to stay away…they ran to the neighbors yard and then didn’t know where to go.  But then…progress…pellets, beautiful pellets, woo-hoo!  That only lasted for 2 days and then it was back.  Now we tried the above formula and an herbal dewormer (just in case) mixed in the bottle.  She very politely said, “No thank you” and proceeded to eat the tree she was nibbling.  Today, here where it gets icky, today we took a more proactive approach.  We started by cleaning her bottom, basically bathing her to clean off any residual nastiness.  Then we cleaned out her hooves and trimmed them.  Then, now here it comes, it took 3 of us to hold her still and get the syringe in her mouth filled with dolomite formula and the dewormer, a little stevia and water.  It was not pretty.  She cried…loudly!  She spit while she criedBut then it was done.  It had to be done.  I was covered in all sorts of muck.  Since I was already covered in ick up to my boots I headed into the goat pen, cleaned it out, and piled it into the compost.  Then, ah yes, then I headed in for a  sweet, cleansing shower.  I would love to end this story with a tale of complete success and a thoroughly healed goat but that’s not my reality right now.  She is perky and happy and playful.  I know she feels better but she is not completely healed.  I look forward to that post, the one where I get to focus on the total cuteness of my little kids.  I’ll let you know.

UPDATE: I wrote this post about a month or so ago and have been so busy I wasn’t able to get back to proof and add pictures.  As I sit here today, I can relay good news that all of our goats are healthy and happy.  The cure came when I added free access to baking soda mixed with kelp and remained consistent with the above mentioned Dolomite/Vitamin C/Copper Sulfate mixture.  She hasn’t had a problem in a few weeks now and I am so relieved to be over that hurdle.

Now I can talk about a few things we’ve have learned so far.  First of all, disbudding should be done within the first few DAYS after the kids are born not a few weeks after they are born.  All of our kids have mangled horns due to late disbudding.  The Oberhasli’s are the worst, the poor buck had a paste used to dissolve the buds.  The paste is acid based and caused him to scream and cry for the entire process…this information was relayed to us from the people we bought them from, we did not do this to him.  Then after a few weeks they used a disbudding iron.  This was done a few days before we brought them home.  No wonder they are so skiddish around people.  After we brought them home their horns began to peel off/fall off and bleed.  An unpleasant  experience for us and a very uncomfortable experience for them.  The Nubians were not as bad, their disbudding just didn’t take and it caused our buck to have VERY pointy, sharp tips on his horn which have since broken off.  Not the whole horn, just the sharp, dangerous point.  He doesn’t seem to mind though, he’s such a sweet boy.

Our plans for this small herd are to expand our doe population through breeding and have a steady supply of fresh milk for cheese, yogurt, ice cream, kefir, and of course to drink.   We are not planning on keeping more than 2 bucks at a time, that may change but that is the plan right now.

As I type this, my daughters are moving the pasture location for the bucks to give them some new area to forage.  The Ober buck has been moved and our Nubian is impatiently waiting his turn, he is crying for company and thinks he has been left alone forever.  He is so noisy, I can hear his sweet mahhhh, mahhhh as he calls to us.  I hope I never grow tired of the amazing sounds of life that surround us.  I get a happy thrill every time I hear our rooster crow or a goat call.   I can’t wait to see what awesome noises are next to join our little homestead.

The end of summer is fast approaching and although the cool days of Autumn seem as if they will never arrive, it is time to plan for them.  We did plant a spring garden this year but it was very small, to match our experience.  We started with 4 raised bed…3 measured 4′x4′ and 1 is 6′x4′.  These were filled with the recommended soil from Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew and kept the gardens small and simple.  Cherry Tomatoes, Peppers, Yellow Squash, Pole Beans, Watermelon, Spring Lettuce, Cilantro, Basil, Cucumbers, Honeydew, Carrots, Onions, Beefsteak Tomatoes, Nasturtiums, Broccoli, and Beets.  A small amount of each but enough variety to get a feel of eating from our garden.  The biggest thing we learned was that our garden was way too small to feed all 9 of us.  The second thing I learned is that chickens love tomatoes & squash…so we didn’t get very many, seriously, maybe 3 cherry tomatoes.  The third thing I learned is that you really can over water watermelons and when you do the bottoms rot…ask me how I know.  Another thing, broccoli does not like heat.  Rabbits really do like carrots…and onions.  Pepper plants won’t grow if under the shade of the tomato plant.  Cucumbers will grow under pretty much any condition…we have tons.  Honeydew melons taste a lot like cucumbers if you pick them too early.  Nasturtiums are really pretty, grow like wildfire, and are super yummy in a salad…even without tomatoes.  Beet greens are still my favorite greens, sauteed with butter and garlic and they do taste better right from the garden.  Just because you put a pretty trellis up for the pole beans doesn’t make them grow faster and doesn’t keep the tiny green bugs and beetles from eating them…we dubbed them Swiss Beans. The first garden was a wonderful learning experience but now we are ready for the real thing, the garden that will provide a bountiful harvest for the family, the one that we will use to keep us full and well nourished during the fall and winter.  So we researched and researched, found out our Hardiness Zone (which is 7b in case you are wondering) searched for local information on what grows well in our area, read The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan and Rodale’s Gardner to Gardner Almanac & Pest-Control Primer and spent copious amounts of time reading through my favorite seed store’s website Sustainable Seed Co. The seeds arrived a few days ago.  Now we are counting backwards from the anticipated first frost to decide when to plant.  We have spent time drawing out the dimensions of the garden and identifying what we are planting and where it will be planted.  Most of our planting will begin around the end of August.  But for now here is what we plan to grow:

onions

carrots

broccoli

parsnip

kale

cauliflower

beets

Dk Red Kidney Beans

turnip

sugar pumpkin

lima beans

cabbage

lettuce

chard

radish

Great northern beans

spinach

brussel sprouts

collards

rye

soft white winter wheat

hard white winter wheat

I have handed over the square foot gardens to my oldest who is devouring information about herbs for all uses;  medicinal, culinary, tea…she loves them all.  She should have enough room to expand her herb garden.  She will be planting:

oregano

rosemary

Cinnamon basil

sage

Fennel

winter thyme

German chamomile

Italian basil

More to come as progress develops.  Feel free to share wisdom, experiences, anecdotes, and advice.

After 4.5 months of living with chickens we are in no way experts. Ours aren’t even laying eggs yet, but we have learned so much already.  We wanted the whole experience, raising them from chicks up to full grown egg laying chickens and beyond (if you know what I mean).  Or is that from a grown chicken to hatching eggs, which comes first, the chicken or the eggs?  Anyway, our starting point was chicks.  After a lot of research, shopping around and then 1 impulse buy we ended up with a small but manageable flock for our family.  We started with 2 Rhode Island Reds, 2 Light Brahmas, 2 Barred Rocks, 1 Red Sex-Link, 1 Americauna, and 1 Silver Laced Polish, all hens.  We chose 1 rooster, also an Americauna.  A total of 10 chickens, all 1 week old.  The Silver Lace Polish was our impulse buy, she was so cute…she was also the first to be killed.  She was smaller than the others and had a beautiful ornamental tuft of feathers on her head that made it difficult for her to see.  She was easy prey and our Beagle got her.  Lesson learned…when your goal is eggs, don’t go for pretty, go for hardy and productive.  We have since learned that one of our Barred Rocks is actually a Silver Laced Wyandotte.  She is a beautiful bird and should be hardy and a good layer. 

One of our original ideas in raising chickens was almost completely free range.  We are a very small homestead, functioning on less than 7 acres but that’s a lot of room to roam for 9 chickens.  We built a coop and run for the chickens to be sheltered and protected at night and we added nesting boxes for them to lay their eggs…but they prefer hanging out in the woods around our farm.  They are naturally jungle animals, did you know that, that was new to us when we started learning about them.  The free-range idea is great in theory but from a practical standpoint it’s not the best option.  They have decimated the cherry tomatoes and summer squash from the garden, devoured our wild blackberry bushes, and dug up the pine straw around the base of our trees to make dust baths for themselves, which is good for them but not so good for the trees.  Luckily they have not wandered up onto our deck or into the kids play areas so the poop factor hasn’t been a problem, but we only have 9 chickens right now.  This was our jumping off point, not our final bird count.  We are hoping to add 30 to 60 chickens in the spring…free range is not going to work.  So after a lot of research we are going to move toward portable paddocks.  Are you familiar with Joel Salatin from Polyface Farm and his egg mobiles?  This is what we are going for, plenty of sunshine, vegetation, & bugs in a free range feel without the damage to property and more safety for the chickens against predators.  Another resource for the pros and cons of different styles of raising chickens is here. 

A few other resources we use in raising chickens are Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow, Chickens in Your Backyard by Rick & Gail Luttmann, and Pastured Poultry Profits by Joel Salatin. And never discount the experience of friends and neighbors that have been in the trenches raising chickens. Our friends have been an amazing source of information and experience that gave us the courage to take those first steps to purchase and start our flock. Feed at the trough of experience and wisdom whenever you get the chance.

Our next step is to purchase fencing and set-up paddocks in areas with diverse vegetation and rotate often to keep the poop level low enough to stave off disease but high enough to allow fertilization. Along with our new paddock system we plan to add Turkeys to our farm in the next few weeks to make sure they are nice and plump by Thanksgiving, otherwise I’ll be sending my farmer man out with a gun…not sure when Turkey hunting season is though…I guess we better get those Turkey chicks to be on the safe side!