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Rabbit Jailbreak

The rabbits got out this morning.  Again.

We have two hare pens.  They found a way out of one of them.  I couldn’t catch them so I put on my Elmer Fudd voice and went hunting wabbits.

5 fewer rabbits on the grass and 5 more in the freezer.  Little stinkers.  I’ll have to review the design of hare pen #2 because this is the third day they escaped.

How about a little backstory?  My sister is visiting.  We woke her up this morning with gunshots at 6:00.  She rolled her eyes and went back to bed.  Apparently there had been a conversation the night before about the frequency of gunshots in the city vs. out here…

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Another 100 Down

Today is chicken butchering day.  If you’re our customer you already know that…lol.

We had some operator issues with our Featherman scalder today.  I started with a propane tank I knew was not full, expecting it to run out.  It ran out…but I forgot to expect it.  Consequently, we were late getting started and slow going.  After the first 30 birds we thought we should go ahead and feed the kids breakfast.  We started again hoping to push through in record time and as always happens…we failed.  My pilot light went out in the scalder and I was paying no attention.  It took forever to get that water up to temp again.  Along the way we hand-plucked a ton of birds.  No fun.

So we did 100 birds in 3 hours including clean-up.  They aren’t packaged yet so I’m off to do that.  I also have to expand my compost pile.

I also want to note that this is the third time my hands have been shredded by the Featherman roto-dunker.  The baskets have sharp edges and twice today I cut my fingers as I was loading birds.  Every time I have to stop, clean the wound and put on a band-aid.  It’s another mark against the roto-dunker.  Be careful, kids.

OK.  Gotta go.  Can’t be lazy today!

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What do you Feed your Layers?


A friend said, “Chris, my wife wants to know what you feed those birds.  She doesn’t want to eat any eggs other than yours.”

That’s always nice to hear.

We grind the Fertrell rations on the farm.  In short it’s corn, oats and roasted soybean mixed with aragonite and Fertrell Poultry Nutri-Balancer.   Fertrell Poultry Nutri-balancer is mostly soft-rock phosphate and includes kelp, vitamins and probiotics.  Our layers get the layer ration free-choice along with whole kernel corn and oats.  They also get oyster shell free choice (makes the egg shell harder).  Finally, they get a new patch of pasture every third day so there are always fresh greens and bugs available to them.


This all changes in the winter.  We winter the birds (and rabbits) in our greenhouse on deep bedding offering them the same feed along with several flakes up to a bale of hay daily.  The deep bedding provides most of their protein requirements, prevents odors, generates warmth and makes great fertilizer for our gardens.  The hay gives them a source of greens and seeds in winter and helps build up the bedding further.

That’s the plan anyway.  Who knows what will really happen.  Might be even better once I get the other greenhouse built.

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Sweet Pea’s Twins

Sweet Pea had her kids today.   The darker one is male, the lighter is female…the opposite coloration Olive gave us.  No names until later.  Don’t want to become attached and get bad news.  You know, we have fought and fought to keep sick animals alive and it almost always ends in tears.  Last year it was a goat we named Shivers.  Poor Shivers.  I made her a sweater then buried her in it.  Nope.  No names yet.

I came home from work and my breathless son ran up to the house to tell me what was going on.  “Sweet Pea is having kids!  There’s a big problem!  The back feet are coming out first!”  Then he was off.

It was a problem.  She labored a long time with the darker one coming out breech.  Wife assisted with both as Sweet Pea was tuckered out when the second came around.

“Dad!  The second one came out!  There was a weird bag then the bag popped and we saw a head!”

What did your kids learn in school today?

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Feeding the Pigs

I was asked recently how I feed the pigs…or what I feed the pigs in since round pig feeders are not exactly cheap.  It isn’t a question I had given much thought to as we just solved the problem and moved on.  Our primary motivation is keeping the soil healthy.  After that we work to keep the animals healthy.  Within those constraints we work to find the best combination of durable, local, inexpensive/free and suitable.

If you give your pigs free access to eat throughout the day they will, unsurprisingly, gain weight faster and put on more fat.  If you feed them twice per day they tend to be leaner.  Many, if not most, farmers provide enough feed to last several days and go do other things.  We keep our pigs near our chickens and feed them when we open and close the hen house each day.  We give them roughly 3% of their bodyweight each day of the Fertrell grower ration as well as a little garden waste, some apple drops, acorns or whatever else is handy.  Really, we want them all to be satisfied and have a little feed left in the trough for a snack later.  This would be unrealistic if we were raising more than a few pigs as 4,000 pounds of pork need to eat 120 pounds of feed each day and I doubt my dainty wife is going to lug feed out to the pasture in that volume.

I took some slab oak lumber from my sawmill to the tablesaw and built a durable feed trough.  It works well for 8 small pigs or 4 larger pigs but, again, forces us to put eyes on our pigs twice daily.

We water them with a nipple on a garden hose.  It’s not exactly ideal having  three lengths of garden hose stretched across the pasture but it certainly has a light footprint and is easy to install.  It was also fairly cheap.  There is some concern about the pigs having access to cool water so, on hot days, we disconnect the hose and spray the hogs or their wallow to cool off the water again.  Honestly, I haven’t noticed that the pigs care.

The nipple is on a 3/4″ galvanized pipe.  Actually, it’s 2 pipes and2 elbows.  I use hose clamps to keep the pipe on an old, broken t-post with an elbow pointing over the perimeter fence.  The hose clamps allow us to raise the nipple as the pigs grow.  It’s pretty easy to move when we move the pigs.

Check your hog water several times daily in case the nipple clogs, the hose gets pinched, someone disconnects the water, etc.

Also, be sure to move the hose before you take the mower out to clip the thistle.  I really thought it was 10 feet over!  What a day Saturday was.

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Dear Diary…

Dear Diary…er…blog…thingy,

What a weekend.  I’m not even sure what happened on Saturday.  I took some allergy medicine on Friday that knocked me out.  Somehow in my antihistamine-induced stupor I hatched a plan for a new chicken house design.  Besides running over a garden hose with the mower (I blame the medicine), nothing else stands out until we went to a graduation party for Jane and David’s son on Saturday.


Our friend Jane makes the best BBQ pulled pork and didn’t disappoint.  We need to get that recipe.  Once again I showed the kids what cupcake eating contests are all about then we had to skip out early to get to church.

After church we made a few stops looking for a matress pad.  I prefer a firm matress but the wife needs a little more give.  We came home empty-handed after seeing the prices.  We made the regular Saturday stops to Farm and Home for a new chicken drinker, the library (permaculture book came in!), the gas station, pizza place (I know) and WalMart to get a new tarp for the new layer house.  I’m pretty jazzed to try the new chicken house design.  Stay tuned for updates.

Once home we tucked in the pigs, layers, goats, chicks, pullets, rabbits and children then stayed up late watching Downton Abbey.

The show is gripping but I’m amazed how many problems the writers could resolve if the characters had any firm basis for their morality.  Churches are just buildings in the show.  The only moral compass the characters seem to possess is a concern of what others might think…if they found out.  At the same time, nobody is really ashamed.  There’s no forgiveness.  There’s little in the way of love expressed between the main characters.  So many problems could be solved if one sister would just tell the other she’s sorry and they had a good cry together.  We stayed up even later to open up about where we, as a couple, are.  It seems that we had a few issues to resolve that I, unsurprisingly, was completely unaware of.  Mostly that we spend so much time working that she feels disconnected.  We are behind on dishes and laundry but, worse than that, we’re behind on emotional intimacy.  I can’t tell you the last time I’ve seen the clock after midnight but we stayed up, said we were sorry and had a good cry together.

The alarm goes off at 5:00 every morning…even if we stayed up late the night before.  We had planned to butcher 60 chickens (one whole tractor) on Sunday.  We’re trying to break up the processing to avoid the marathon weekend we tried last time.  We loaded up the trailer with 7 transport boxes, looked at the birds in the 5 chicken tractors and picked the one that looked like it had the largest birds.  Since we had a spare box we went ahead and loaded up another 10 birds, selecting the largest from the remaining four tractors.  It is important to load the chickens early so their digestive tract is empty…the birds are cleaner during processing.  Then we moved the chicken tractors and fed and watered the chickens.

We got the transport boxes in position at home and continued with our morning chores: take hay to the goats, feed the pigs, take oyster shell and feed to the layers and let them out of their houses, make sure everybody has water.  Dad stopped by planning to unload one wagon of hay.  I took 3 of the kids with me to help.  The youngest two took a handkerchief and some apples for a picnic in the barn.  They sat on the straw bales with their hankee spread out eating their formal meal.  It was really cute.  My oldest could just (I mean JUST) throw an alfalfa bale.  Dad’s bales are mostly grass and are considerably lighter than my alfalfa bales so he could help much more.  Dad unloaded onto the hay elevator, my son and I carried and stacked the bales.  When the first wagon was finished (50 bales) we were just warmed up so we went ahead and unloaded all three wagons (150 bales).  My son was flagging near the end and, I have to admit, I was wearing down too.

It was now 9:30 and we hadn’t begun to process our birds.  We got things organized and began scrubbing and sanitizing all surfaces.  The wife went to town for ice while we finished up the cleaning.  While we were discussing who was going to do what job dad showed up to help.  Dad makes a huge positive impact on our day not only by working but by making little jokes to keep the kids involved.  We did the first 40 birds in about an hour, took a break for lunch then wrapped up the rest in about 45 minutes.  I timed my kill/scald/pluck process and found that it takes 1 minute of my time per bird doing two birds at a time in the roto-dunker.  I think I’ll kick the scalder temperature up a bit to speed that up by a few seconds.  Then there’s another long cleanup and composting process while we wait for the birds to chill out.  Then we worked about another hour bagging and labeling the birds before popping them in the freezer.

This is a volunteer army...

To round out my to-do list I needed to restock the empty chicken tractor in the pasture.  We have 300+ 17 day old chicks in the brooders.  Though no chicks have died, I need to make a blog post about the problems we have had with the outdoor brooders this spring.  My dad, my oldest son and I packed 120 chicks in four boxes on to the truck.  Then everybody went inside to put on swimwear and we headed off to the pond.  Dad and I delivered the broilers to the chicken tractor.  120 in an 8×10 is fine when they are small and is far better for them than being in the brooder if the weather cooperates.  There was a 40% chance of rain, not a cloud in the sky so we thought we were good to go.  Dad headed off in the truck while I walked over to the pond.  Clear, sunny, hot afternoon.  Not a cloud in the sky.  No sooner than I arrived at the pond (150 yards from the chickens) the skies opened up.  A storm suddenly appeared out of the SW.  I may have been knee-deep in the pond when it was time to go home.  Kids rode their bikes quickly, wife and I walked.

We got soaked.  Soaked.  The kids were huddled inside fearing the wind and storm when we got home.  The oldest son was working to close up the greenhouse, close the sandbox and otherwise batton down the hatches…then the hail hit.  Then the hail got larger.  I would guess we got 2″ of rain in 20 minutes…then it kept raining.  Sometimes from the East, sometimes from the west.  The roof blew off of a hare pen, the clothes on the clothesline pulled in the wind taking the swing set the line was tied to for a tumble.

Ma popped a chicken in the oven for dinner and we headed to town to talk with a young farmer on Skype.  We kept him on the phone far too long discussing what we had tried, what we enjoyed and what was most profitable.  It was nice to just sit for an hour and talk.

Mom and Dad came by for supper and we surprised the kids with ice cream with chocolate and carmel topping.  The kids helped so much throughout the day we thought they deserved a treat.  Our 11 year old son had done a man’s work that day.  He really stepped it up and was tired.  Everybody was tired.

Bedtime came just in the nick of time but I fell asleep thinking of how much we had accomplished…dreading how much still needs to be done.  Garden to put in, cows to fence out, need to find someone to sharpen my bandsaw blades, need to order a load of sawdust, need to fix the bobcat….I could fill the page.  I can only do what I can do.

Hopefully our customers appreciate the work we do.  I know they like our chicken but I wonder if they really understand what it takes to bring that chicken to market.

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Olive had Twins

We’ll be dairying again soon.  Thank goodness she waited for good weather this year.

Here’s the little female, still damp.  She appears to be polled (hornless) and has lovely goat jewelry.  And look at those ears!

Here’s the little male, still a bit messy.

We believe they got a good bite to eat but haven’t seen them nurse on their own.  We’ll hold off on naming them until we’re more certain they are nursing and healthy.

Here’s a quick video:

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Vegetarian…Chicken…Soup?

Humanely-raised, vegetarian fed.  That’s what the label said.

My wife’s aunt called asking how she makes such delicious chicken soup.  My wife replied, “I don’t know how you can do it without one of our chickens.”  Nearly all of her siblings have our chicken in their freezers.  She should too…lol.

Well, that doesn’t help.  She needs chicken soup now and lives four hours away.  What to do?  What to do?  She went to the local supermarket looking for the next-best thing.  She found a humanely-raised, vegetarian chicken.

Now, I’m going to offer my wife’s chicken soup recipe in a minute but bear with me here.  How can a chicken be both humanely-raised and vegetarian?  Chickens are omnivores.  You give the chicken a choice between wheat and worms and the chicken will choose both.  They also seem to really enjoy flies and larvae.  I understand what they are really trying to say…the chicken wasn’t fed beef tallow.  But a lack of beef tallow does not a humanely-raised chicken make.

If you deny an omnivore the chance to eat meat you are denying it an expression of self.  That’s pretty inhumane.  Though humans are omnivores in their natural state, some people choose not to eat meat.  That’s fine.  They make a choice.  I promise you, no chicken on earth would make such a choice.  Further, I almost guarantee these chickens are raised in a building, with fans blowing to keep the ammonia smell down.  They can’t see the sun, they don’t get fresh grass under their feet daily, and they never escape their manure.

Our chickens thrive on a diet of mixed corn, oats, roasted soybeans and fish meal.  They also get fresh alfalfa daily and all the worms they can eat when it rains hard and the worms surface.  That is, I think, more humane.  The chickens are on pasture, in the sun, eating a variety of feed they enjoy.

Now on to chicken soup.  Buy a bag of Chism Heritage Farm backs and necks.  Place 3 backs and necks in a stock pot and cover with water.  Add a quartered onion, 6 sliced carrots, 6 sliced celery stalks and a little salt.  Bring that to a simmer for at least 24 hours, adding water as needed.  Stewing them for 3 days would be better, resulting in a dark, rich, fatty broth and soft chicken bones.

Strain the broth into a fresh stock pot.  Here’s a picture of broth we intend to can.  We’ll strain it and place it in a smaller stock pot which we will refrigerate overnight.  Then we’ll skim the fat off of the broth and can it.  We like to use chicken broth when we make mashed potatoes among other things.

Pick the meat off of the bones and add back into the broth.  Chop an onion, slice 6 more carrots and 6 more celery stalks and add in garlic, oregano, pepper, salt and maybe a little basil.  Maybe a bay leaf toward the end.

Set this to boil while you make the noodles.  You need:
1 cup flour
1 egg (Chism Heritage Farm happy chicken eggs!)
1/2 egg shell full of milk

Mix these together in a mixing bowl.  Flour the countertop, roll out the dough to 1/8″ thick then slice into 1/4″ wide, 4″ long noodles with a pizza cutter.  Add the noodles to the soup stock and boil for 30 minutes.  Remove the bay leaf and serve.

Now you have a humanely-raised, omnivore-fed chicken in your soup.  If you want to do even better, buy a Chism Heritage Farm stewing hen in the fall…if you can.

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The New Kestrel

Each year we find an American Kestrel or two in our yard.  This year is no exception.  They appear to nest in the elm tree in the corner of the yard.  You know, the one with the big burl up high.  You don’t know?  Come by and I’ll show you.  Anyway, this little fella posed for pictures on Wednesday.

Not quite flying yet but very spirited.  There are probably another three or four around somewhere.  I would guess they are hiding in the tall grass on the other side of the fence.

They are fun to see each spring.  Last year one was just getting it’s wings as it chased a group of starlings.  It couldn’t quite turn as fast as the starlings could and it crashed into our house.  I found it hiding in the spirea under the window of the front room.  Boy was it ticked off!

Keep an eye out for little raptors but keep your hands off.  They are entertaining but very, very strong.

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Mulberries, Hay and other Delicacies

Do you have mulberries where you live?  Do you even notice them?  We have them here.  When I was a kid in New Minden we had one in our back yard next to the gate that led to the alley and Mrs. Ruth’s yard.  There was a crotch in the tree just right for a 7 year old to park in and make himself sick eating berries.  I did.

Today we baled hay in the bottom where mulberry trees abound.  I picked a handful while I was walking out to where dad was ready to bale.

I picked another handful when the baler went under a mulberry tree.

I picked yet another handful for good measure.  Don’t mind the hay hook.

I also took inventory of the dewberries crop.  Not as many as I would like to see…

…and the blackberries.

We pick and freeze as many as we can get my hands on but we really don’t go past the edge of the woods because there’s a bumper crop of poison ivy out there every year.  This year is no exception.

Each spring we clean out our freezer and find forgotten gallon bags of berries and make a big batch of mulberry, dewberry, blackberry, strawberry mixed jam.  Yeah.  It’s pretty good…better on ice cream.

So anyway, we were out there to make hay.  I’m a little allergic to hay.  On the third pass I started sneezing.  By the fourth pass my hankie was soaked.  Dad runs the baler clockwise around the hayfield.  Both of dad’s main fields are on a slope so it’s an interesting ride.

Between the two fields in the bottom and the barn lot we put up another three wagons of hay.  We have had an unusually dry spell so this is far and away the best first-cutting hay we have put up in years.  Isn’t it pretty laying in windrows?  That hill made about 65 bales.

Hang on…ACHOOO!!!!