Matt would like this blog to be all cows, all the time. But really, this time of year, they make for rather boring photo subjects. They just hang around, waiting for the grass to green up or to give birth.
Chickens, on the other hand, are interesting. All. year. round.
The colors. The clucking. The antics. I keep chickens as much for entertainment as for eggs.
1 year ago:
The 4-H pigs are finally out of my garage. They really seem to be enjoying their new digs. Theirs is the small port-a-hut that you can barely see, with large round bales on either side and squares stacked in front of the entrance to cut the wind. (The large port-a-hut behind it will be for farrowing next week!) Today when I went out to check on them they were laying in a pile in the doorway, getting a little sunburn on their butts!
My house no longer smells like a petting zoo…for a couple days, anyway, until 150 chicks arrive on Thursday.
4 years ago:
1 year ago:
Saturday morning, about 6:30 a.m. There’s not a whole lot that needs to be said about this one, except maybe…wow.
First calf of ’09 (and some random chicken)
Today’s predicted winter storm never did bring any snow…but it brought us our first calf! Good ‘ol number 68 dropped a nice big bull calf this afternoon.
Oy, those ears! Kill me with cuteness. What a wonderful way to go.
4 years ago:
3 years ago:
2 years ago:
1 year ago:
This little pullet made me laugh! Some days are like that. You find yourself just wanting to bury your head and shut out the world for a while.
The weather forecast is calling for 6 inches of snow this weekend. I’d like to shut out that bit of news!
3 years ago:
2 years ago:
1 year ago:
These girls have been in the works since late last summer. One of our farmers market customers mentioned that the farmer they bought pork from was getting out of pigs. I asked if he had breeding stock to sell, since we were looking to cull our Chester Whites. (Here’s the backstory on that saga.) He didn’t but hooked us up with this really wonderful pig guy, Marlan Braet, and we arranged to buy some gilts bred to farrow in the spring.
Last Sunday it was finally time to go and pick them up. We met Marlan in Lowden, and then trekked all the way over the (Mississippi) river and through the woods into Illinois. Marlan had actually sold his breeding herd to another farmer, who was nice enough to sell us our pick of his bred gilts.
Here’s what we came home with, 3 (predominantly) Hamp gilts bred to Duroc:
You can see that our new pullets formed a welcoming committee!
They’re really nice handling pigs! As you can see, they warmed right up to Matt.
It was a long day, but I’m very hopeful it was worth the trip. The farm these girls came from was very similar to ours – it wasn’t a confinement setup and they were not at all pampered 🙂 And they’re just so calm and easy to work with.
Marlan is a guy that knows pigs, and pork, and obviously had put a lot of work into developing this herd. Here’s a great article about him [PDF] from Iowa Edible River Valley magazine. He was such an interesting guy to spend the afternoon with!
We should be farrowing in just a couple of weeks. Hopefully I’ll have good results to report then!
4 years ago:
1 year ago:
Pullets explore outside their coop
Yesterday was the Leopold Center’s Marketing and Food Systems Initiative workshop. I was there to co-present on a little side project I’ve been working on. That meant I also got to sit in on some of the sessions. And what I found out is that there are some really cool things going on around the state to develop local food systems.
One session I attended was about new tools for building local & regional food businesses. One is the U.S. Food Market Estimator, which helps you calculate potential demand for over 200 individual food items for every county in the United States.
Another is a web-based local food ordering template, which I’m quite excited about. It will be released around May 1st through the Leopold Center’s website, free of charge for you to integrate into your own website. It can be used by individuals or groups. I’m hoping we’ll be able to make this work for ordering for our winter deliveries next year. Or possibly for pre-order for farmers market this summer.
The project I was there to talk about is a website I’ve been developing with Penny Brown Huber for the Grow Your Small Market Farm program. It’s still under construction, but take a look at what we’ve got so far.
Conferences like these are one of those things that “fill me up”. (And this one also literally filled me up with a wonderful all-Iowa lunch!)
Tomorrow…I’ll introduce you to our 3 newest residents. Stay tuned!
4 years ago:
3 years ago:
2 years ago:
1 year ago:
Piglets are very obliging when it comes to photo opps.
3 years ago:
2 years ago:
1 year ago:
Ava, on the job
It’s hard to see in the picture, but up until Sunday this was the arrangement in the garage. Pig pen to the front, pullet pen to the back. But the pullets didn’t actually stay in their pen. They were everywhere – all over the garage, in the pig pen, and outside when we’d open the garage door.
The first time we let them venture outdoors a few of them hid out somewhere when we rounded them up for the night. The next day I was walking by the kitchen window and noticed them hanging out on the deck behind the garage.
And also hanging out back there? Ava. And she was worrying about those chickens. She didn’t chase them, which is good. She was just sort of pacing around, keeping an eye on them, keeping them in place. And possibly hyperventilating. If she could talk she would have said, “Ohmygosh, I know these chickens aren’t supposed to be here but the garage doors are all closed and I can’t herd them back to their rightful places and I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THEM!”
We moved the pullets out to the coop on Sunday, so the pigs have the place to themselves for a couple of weeks. They have to be out before the first batch of broiler chicks arrives – there’s not room enough for the pig brooder and the full size chick brooder. Haven’t yet figured out where the pigs are going…
4 years ago:
1 year ago:
