Tag Archives: pigs

2012 begins

Posted on January 6, 2012 by | 4 Comments

Very exciting news- on jan 3rd, we found the VERY first duck egg of 2012! Now the year has begun for real! For the last 3 days, one egg each day, and if conditions are good for one of the ladies, chances are the other gals will follow suit. We may be delivering eggs to the Cities starting in February, we’ll keep you posted here. The predator has hit the trail for some time now, but we’re keeping the dogs on nightly stake out as a precautionary measure.

In about a month, the first goat kids are due to be born! The 3 older goat mommas are all showing the “baby bulge” big time, and we’re really excited for bouncing joyful kids on the farm again….as well as fresh milk for drinking and cheesemaking. Cultured goat milk only has so many uses, and the flavor is rather strong after 3 months. Did you know real raw milk will naturally culture itself into a type of buttermilk?

Eating from our pantry and “root cellar” had been amazing. We have one bowl full of the very last fresh tomatoes, but they ripened indoors, so they aren’t the primo tomatoes you’d think of. Still- that’s better than those trucked thousands of miles from CA! There are still some Napa Cabbages to use, they hold very well into winter, a big surprise. Turnips extend mashed potatoes, and are wonderful in organ meat pot pies. Winter radishes have been another surprise- the red meated ones are wonderful sliced in a vinagrette with carrots and napa! The only downside to eating at home all the time is all the dishes that never end! Winter crops are essential to get by without much grocery store shopping, and we’re planning to offer an awesome winter share next fall. These winter storage and use experiences will help us determine what and when to plant things this coming season. If we grow things we don’t use or eat, chances are others wouldn’t either, so we’ll put our winter-of-local to use in the winter share.

The first litter of Rabbit Kits is now at 3weeks. The babies are bounding out of the nest box, eating big-bunny food with momma, nursing and growing fast on her very rich milk. Psycho Suzy/Jill is a great mom, and is transforming into a very sweet rabbit with some patient coddling. We had the rabbit harvesting experience a couple weeks back with our local rabbit guru, and can now say rabbit is a very delicious meat. We simmered ours in beer, fruit vinegar, with caraway, lemon and diced salt pork. Yes, rabbit is very very tasty, and surprisingly filling! A little goes a long way -one small rabbit extended into 6 meals for us. We met our Amish neighbors and purchased two more young does, so we can begin supplying rabbit meat this year. Let us know if you are interested.

Our pigs are being harvested next week. It’s a relief actually, as these pigs have been such crazy rabblerousers. They basically ran off (while playing with each other) all the calories they ate…..all summer. There were the multiple times they got out to greet us at the door. The amount of damage an loose omnivore could do on our farm is mind-boggling! You cannot grab a pig as there is nothing to hold onto, and they are pure muscle. Needless to say, it’s been a memorable time with these pigs. They had quite a life here, and we still love them up each day with pats and scratches on the back. 2 or 3 pigs max at a time is highly recommended, and this is what you do- you learn as you go.

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Posted on December 30, 2011 by | Leave a comment

5 little bunny babies, the new LTD project is working!

turkey hens we're keeping over winter to try our hand at turkey breeding in the spring. Are we crazy? yes.

Belle is growing into a teenager pup!

beautiful Rosie, a pig who we loved so much. She had a good life here.

Happy New Year to you all! Will you be reflecting on the year you just passed through? Full of celebrations and joy, or perhaps remembrances and tributes, 2011 has been another incredible year. We’re all so blessed to have each day, each year we pass through. Make every day count, or do something to make it count!

 A reflection on our year here, the first on our new farm. We met SO many amazing new people. We got to continue relationships with our customers who are now friends. We worked our butts off gardening in totally new soil, with some successes and much learning (failures.) We held some awesome workshops with fascinating people attending and visiting our farm. We grew so much sustanence for ourselves and others from our land. We fermented, pickled and canned our hearts out. We learned about the predators we have to deal with here, in a very hard way. We learned how priceless good farm dogs are. We got exhausted, wiped out, and there was no end in sight. We continued to dream and experiment and will continue to do so in 2012. We lost the covering on our hoophouse right after the tomatoes were planted in it. We fell in love with the community of amazing people all around us. We butchered 3 goat bucks and 4 pigs, 100 broiler chickens and 60 turkeys. We learned that death is really hard with animals you’ve tended and loved, but part of the circle of life and being able to provide an alternative to grocery store meat is very important to us. We learned why it is hard to be small scale farmers and make a living. We learned that diversification is essential to make it on a small scale farm, but you must not drive yourself crazy with too much diversification. We learned what we love to do, what we need to do to continue farming here, what we do well, and what we excel at together. We got married and every day is a blessing on our farm. We learned that money is essential to pay bills on the farm, but it will never bring happiness. We learned that food raised on a real small scale farm tastes better, is more nourishing, and that our customers love it. We learned that no small-scale farm can be an island….. Farming takes a community of farmers and eaters. Thank you for being part of our farm. We could not do this without your involvement!  Thank YOU!!! We have a limited number of CSA shares for 2012 and are reserving them now. See our “farm products” tab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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pig ponderings

Posted on October 7, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Our pigs have been quite an adventure this year. We bumped it up from raising 3 piglets last winter, to 8 this spring.However, spring brought NO PIGLETS for sale ANYWHERE. It was a nightmare, but we finally located some south of our farm. We were about 4 months behind our planned piglet raising period, but finally we had our piglets and put them to work tilling in the center of our farm, where we’ll be gardening next year.We decided to keep one of the over-wintered piglets, named Rosie, as she is stellar in body type ( a real bacon type, fatty pig), a sweet, engaging personality and, yes, we just loved the idea of raising up our own piglets, especially since it was so hard to find piglets for sale this spring. Rosie had been the pig we were going to make into wedding bratwurst for our reception, but we changed the menu to Goat Curry, featuring our goat bucks, Cedar and Romeo.

Lance courting Rosie

Enter Lance, a Tamworth boar pig, who arrived in June to be Rosie’s boyfriend, and hopefully the father of her piglets. At first we were mighty concerned he was not able to get the job done properly, as he was quite a bit smaller than she. We saw attempts, but never witnessed what would count as success. They were joined in their big wooded pen over the summer.

Pigs’ gestation is funny- 3 months, three weeks and 3 days. If Lance got Rosie knocked up in June or July, that would have led to October or November piglets. November is not ideal, with out rustic farm set up (no barn, just a farrowing hut in the pasture.) After a couple months of blissful cohabitation, Lance was moved next to Rosie, but separate from her. No December babies, thank you.

Rosie........pregnant?

After realizing we really couldn’t keep him on the payroll all winter, and attempting to sell Lance for some time with no luck, he was humanely harvested on our farm. There’s alot of info out there about boars being unfit for human food, being “stanky” and the meat tasting like boar piss. We had some encouragement from a friend in Andalusia who said she’s harvested boars on their farm and never had problems with bad tasting meat, and she wholeheartedly agrees that animals who are not scared when they die do not pass on hormonal changes in their meat (making a bad taste). If we had trucked Lance to the butcher, even just 10 minutes away, it would have scared the crap out of him, and adrenaline most likely would have been surging through his muscles. Instead, he was being calmly talked to, adored and then he was gone.

look at the belly change-------Rosie!

We took his hams, several roasts and hocks and placed them in our charcuterie tub with a strong sea salt brine, in a fridge, for about a month. Most of this was cold smoked after the brining. Everything else from Lance went into our freezer and he tastes amazing, like a good pig does. He spent his last month eating organic apples, clover, oats, etc in company with the best lady pig ever. Good pigs are, unfortunately, delicious.

One of Lance's massive loin roasts, which was smoked after brining. We could have cut it into chops, if we were so inclined, but a nice big roast was so.........

After doing the numbers, we can’t really afford to raise pigs on the scale we did this year. Without machinery to do all the hauling of feed around for us, it has become back breaking to be hauling hundreds of pounds of grain all of the place, to keep up with their rooting frenzy and continually move them over and over and over…we love pigs, but we’re barely getting paid to do all the work it takes to raise them well. And we do raise them well, and love them up. Until we can figure out how to do it more efficiently, we decided the hassles and hauling are too much to continue next year.  Maybe………..

Farming small scale means you must choose your projects to suit your abilities and time frame. We’re focusing more energy on our ducks and their eggs, our CSA gardening, the goaties, as well as raising fantastic broiler chickens and the lovely turkeys.

That being said, after many nervous observation periods, we’re quite sure Rosie IS pregnant. The earliest she would be due with piglets is in about a week, but there’s no way that’s happening. Her body and appetite seem to be more in order with piglets due in a month. Oh boy, the dreaded November delivery. Our first too. What a crazy adventure. Pigs are amazing, wonderful creatures. They are recycling eating machines, and they till any turf you want tilled. And they are incredibly friendly, intelligent beings. It is a joy to play hide and seek with Rosie, watching her try to find you when you dart around the corner of the farrowing hut, or race through it, and she waits for you on the other side. I’d just say small equals better for anyone thinking about raising pigs, and don’t try breeding your own for a good long time.

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spring’s tragedies and triumpths

Posted on April 4, 2011 by | 3 Comments

It’s April 4th, and we still have snow all over the farm. In fact, the past two days it has been snowing! Not that it is accumulating, but how very disheartening to have more snow coming down to LTD Farm. We thought by now we’d have our field prepared and ready for sowing and planting. We pictured carrots sprouting, lettuces and cold hardy greens planted in the ground on April 1st. Alas, all our little seedlings still sit in planting flats in our grow room and hoophouse….waiting. There is a huge variety sprouting up already- curled green endive, cabbages of all sorts, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet peppers, hot peppers, many kinds of tomatoes, peanuts, cucumbers, basil, parsley, lettuces, arugula, spinach, creeping thyme, mesclun salad mix, kale, collards, chard, mache, pea shoots, brussel sprouts, chinese cabbage, celeriac.

March brings us baby goats. Metallika’s sweet triplets, born mid- March, are thriving under her excellent care. Prince knows what is most important- food, so he constantly runs to Mom for nourishment. Nobella and Segway are more vivacious with spritely curiousity over everything. They clamour at our legs hoping for a chance to jump up on our backs, if we’d just kneel down for them! How fun, and what a great way to spend some breaktime between all the hard labor we are doing in preparation for gardening time. Sometimes that last wheelbarrow-full of duck bedding to the compost pile takes you to the limit of exhaustion, so babies are a lovely distraction while resting one’s muscles for a few minutes.

baby goat cuddlin'

the adorable triplets!

But we have to honest, it isn’t all fun and sweet times- Goats are bullies and brutual to the underlings in the herd. There is always a bully in the group, the boss goat. All winter long, that was Cedar. Cedar actually was butchered a week ago, as we didn’t need to keep his excellent genetics on our farm anymore, with his daughters around. Inbreeding is not a good thing. After trying for over a year to find another goat breeder interested in giving him a new job, we decided to butcher Cedar. One too many times he was way too rough on the pregnant goats, demanding prime placement in front of the hay, and keeping the underlings away. When a goat is growing little ones, she needs to be able to eat as much as she needs. So off went Cedar, to goat heaven, in a very respectful and peaceful harvest. They say buck goats are no good to eat, but we have to tell you that his meat actually tastes delicious!

Cedar in all his glory.

butchering Cedar's meat, just part of it.....

So, bully removed, and a new one steps in: May.We had a tragic incident with Metallika’s daughter who was born last spring, our little girl Trixie. She’s a robust, vigorous little bombshell of a goat, and we were so excited for her kids due in two weeks. Trixie has the best genetics, as her Mom is our best lady milker, and her Dad, Cedar, like Metallika, has been so ridiculously healthy his whole life without any chemical inputs that are the norm for goat farmers. But May hates Trixie, and cornered her while she was munching hay, her head in the hay panel. I saw this happen- May dive bombed Trixie’s belly with her massive horns, and an hour later I found two TINY kids in the straw in the barn. The tiny beautiful boy kid was dead, unreviveable despite CPR attempts. The other baby was crying out, but they were both soooo premature that the little girl did not live long. We even tube fed her colostrum, a blow dryer pointed near her belly to warm her. Their eyes weren’t even open yet, they were so premature, and probably their organs were not quite ready to handle life on earth yet either. A terribly sad and horrible loss for Trixie and us. Because of the trauma that induced this early birth, her normal placenta delivery did not happen. We watched and watched for two days, hoping she would be able to overcome this situation, but finally we had to intervene with some uterine contraction inducing drugs, to help her expel the remaining afterbirth. Then there is the worry of infection, and after much debate, we put her on the antibiotics our vet gave us. What happened to Trixie was not her fault, and she should not be put to the test of how strong she is, just so we can keep to our non-medicating philosophy. However, this really has been a hard blow for her. She’s still rather lethargic, but seems to still have that spirit we know and love and everyday is getting more active. I crawl in next to her at night, giving scratches, handfuls of grapes (her favorite snack) and lots of love. Poor girl.

Trixie riding in the back seat last fall!

Still we wait on two more girls to have their kids. Desti has been due since March 29th, and looks bigger and bigger each day. The afore-mentioned May, our bully, is also HUGELY pregnant and due any day. To feel these girls’ big bellies, and the kids swirling around inside, is purely astounding. We will announce their births as soon as they happen! May may have triplets, she’s so huge.

she's huger every day, that May...

What else… our 10 turkey babies are still in the bathroom brooder, but they are growing so fast, it is time to upgrade to the hoophouse. We’ll put them out there in a larger brooder-type container (they still are fluffy, not feathered, so need extra heat and protection from drafts) once it stops snowing and being so windy! One thing turkey babies do well is jump up and out of their box- we’ve had many mornings where there is a turkey baby or two running around in the bathroom, or hiding and pooping in the bathtub. Oh boy. That’s when they get the nickname “turd-keys.”  Never a dull day!

Our three pigs, now about 250 lbs each, are out of the hoophouse now, tilling up new gardens for us. When we moved them out last week, the ground was still all covered with snow. We’ve moved them two more times since, as they are making quick work of the the sod and turf as they discovered it under the snow.

the pig-a-riffic Penny!

Even though it doesn’t feel like spring, we see it’s evidence: MUD PATHS. Any trail we take frequently has turned to pure slushy, slippery mud. This is pretty different from a week or so ago when we could run out in our slippers over the frozen crust to check on the goats. Of course this would also be the time of year when your muck boots develop cracks.

We’re so grateful for all the wonderful people who have signed up to be CSA customers this season! We’re totally committed to providing as much goodness as we can from this little chunk of the earth. XOXO to our LTD Farm!

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