Recap of Chicken Butchering Weekend

On Sept. 20th of this year, we took 23 meat chickens from coop to freezer. By "we," I mean myself, the wife and kids, Wife's 7 siblings, and some of the siblings' significant others.

The experience exceeded our wildest expectations.

Two chickens, mid-pluck, proudly displayed by six volunteers and led by Thing #1 (lower right).

It was a beautiful day, everyone was excited, and we accomplished our goals.

WARNING: Very graphic depictions of chicken evisceration to follow.

Nest Box Upgrades

Due in part to our apparent egg eating epidemic, and just to upgrade in general, I decided to add some extra padding and such to the nest boxes.

Right: Nest box with 2 layers of green astro-turf base.
Left: Wood shavings on top of the the turf, with dummy wooden eggs inside.

Previously, I'd been using hay on top of the wood. I upgraded this week to astro-turf under wood shavings.

Reinforcing Combo Panels II

In the first installment of reinforcing combo panels, I took some 2x4's and nailed them onto the metal panels. This worked great - they were stronger and more easier to manipulate.

Unfortunately, time (and animals) worked many of the nails out, causing the boards to flop and the panel to bend. So, last week, I took some scrap metal cuttings and some heavy-duty screws and reinforced them....again.

The metal pieces wrap around the panel wires and screw into the wood.
I also overlaid it across the chicken wire to add extra durability there.

 The panels are now 10 times stronger, at least.

"The System"

I was fortunate enough to capture almost the whole "system" in place in one picture:

Left: the first product garden.
Middle pen: The pigs.
Right pen; The chickens.
Foreground left, the cow cart.
Foreground right, Bridget.
Also, that is a hose, not a large green snake.

It's especially exciting because, although this picture doesn't show it, there are a dozen or so "wild melon" plants growing where the pigs just vacated. Although, we did feed them extra watermelon and cantaloupe innards.

I hope for rain this weekend. I'm going to sow the garden with some seeds, but the soil needs to be wet.. I'm thinking carrots, sunflowers, tobacco, green beans - things that can be sown in larger section. The transplants will go to the "old" garden.

Oh yeah, and we reversed the flow of the system. We were heading (from that angle) left, but we're now moving right, and the chickens are going first. The chickens' egg quality declined (paler yolks), and they severely compacted the soil rather than loosen it. So now they lead and scratch/trim the grass, readying it for the pigs to go deeper.

I can't wait until the "system" hits its stride.

To Tether a Cow

My property does not have fencing.

There are a few privacy fences, and about 200' of mangled field fence, but all of these end and do not form an enclosed area. In the very back, there are a few lines of barbed wire that the turkeys, deer, and whatever else have made more decorative than functional. I also have the movable reinforced combo panel garden paddocks, and the movable, solar-charged electro-net, but there are not permanent enclosures.

Instead of fully-fenced permanent pastures, I use these tools for an intensive managed grazing system. But the electro-net and paddocks do not account for the cows. The paddocks house the chickens and pigs, and the electro-net contains the sheep.

The cows? They're tethered.

Tethering cows: taking managed intensive grazing to new frontiers.

Hay Day #1

A few weeks ago, I made my own hay using my scythe, some rakes, a tarp, and free child labor extremely wonderful, helpful children.

It was the first cutting of the year, and the first time cutting the complete hay field. Last year, I only got about 2/3 of it done. I did the whole cut in one shot, then the kids and I raked, tarped, and stored it on another day.

We then celebrated by playing baseball in the fresh-cut hay field. It was great.

The older kids helped rake and tarp the hay. I carried the hay to the shed and stored it.

It's Official! We Have a Garden

While still starting this year's garden later than we wanted to (and I have no idea why), we were ahead of last year by several weeks, plus sprouting time. So when our big spring garden-starting weekend rolled around on Sunday, it was a whole lot easier than last year.

Laying the infrastructure up front really makes a difference.

Transplanting lettuce seedlings into a garden bed this weekend.
The brassicas in the seed tray went to a different spot.

My legs are killing me and I tweaked my knee somehow, but it was nevertheless a very fun Sunday spent gardening with the family.

And So It Begins....

This week, I moved the chickens to the second "paddock" area, and the pigs to the third. I then took down the fencing to the first, revealing the garden area below.

Pigs and chickens use their natural abilities to work the land.
The combo panels keep in the pigs. The chicken wire keeps in the chickens.
The end result? Fluffy, tilled, picked clean gardens.

The utter destruction these two species cause in succession is startling. And for a garden, that's a good thing.

Easter Octave Homestead Update

I've been slacking on posting lately because things have been so busy lately. From Easter preparation to baseball games, from plumbing disasters to chicken introductions, and from buying a new car to attending the funeral of a dear family friend, there has been A LOT going on the last 14 days. Really, the untimely death of Pancake set off a whole string of very stressful events that have precluded me from posting more often. I hope to be back on track now.

To start it off, look how pregnant Pot Pie the sheep is!

Actually, this is a terrible angle that doesn't really let you see it.
But trust me - she's about to pop.

Choose Your Own (Homesteading) Adventure

In the wide world of project management, there's an old saying that goes something like this:

You can do this project fast, cheap, and correct. But you can only pick two. -Old Saying

I would call the setup of a farm, the initial infrastructure build, as a "project." And in something like building a portable cow care station, or constructing a winter dry lot, or designing a movable chicken coop, this "law" still hold sway.

Where's the "all of the above" bubble?

But what about everyday life? Is there a pattern that can look at the bigger picture of managing the day to day activities of a homesteader?

I believe there is. I've found that day-to-day life on a farm follows a similar pattern - you can't have it all. I've said it before, and I guess now I'll say it in print:

You can make farming as difficult or as easy as you want it to be. -Bubs

For example, if you wanted to cut a hay field, driving a tractor with a sickle bar mower is faster than hand-scything it. However, there is a trade-off. You gain something and you lose something in each of these two very simple scenarios. In the first, you opt for "quality" and "speed," but pay out the nose for the equipment. In the second, going for "quality" and "price" means it takes longer.

Projects are one thiung, and we all undertake them. But I've been thinking about the everyday activities - stuff we do every single morning and evening, as opposed to one-off or once-in-a-while projects. I like to call this daily flurry of activity "farm management." I think farm management, especially hobby farm management, boils down to a dance between four distinct elements:

The Cow Cart

I truly believe that within certain reasonable guidelines (like how long it takes to walk from one side of the farm to the other, how long it takes to hand-milk, much much you can lift, etc.), homesteading can be as difficult or as easy as you design it to be.

Taking care of the cows could involve multiple trips back and forth, first with cow, then lugging buckets of water, then staking them out, then lugging manure back, and so on. But it doesn't. I've designed a simpler approach. Presenting the cow cart:

The cow cart has everything I need to stake out (and clean up after) a cow for a day.
Except, of course, the cow herself....

Like all of my crazy, wacked-out schemes well-thought-out, rational designs, this one does not have "plans" associated with it. I basically used scrap wood pieces on top of a cart I bought from Northern Tool.

Using it, I can make a single trip per cow to wherever I need to go on the homestead and get the cows everything they need.

Dairy Experiments

Yeah, so our counter now looks like this:

We had to start labeling all the glass jars containing various white-colored dairy sundries.

In addition to the raw milk butter, buttermilk, yogurt, chocolate milk, and cream cheese and whey, Wife and I also started clabbering some milk last week Clabber is just curdled, slightly solidified raw milk. We set a jar on the counter, stirred it twice a day, and let it be. After several days, it started separating into the slightly solid clabbered curds (similar to the cream cheese, but less "finished") and the beige-tinted liquid whey.

We drained some off to feed the chickens and the pigs (clabber to the chickens, whey to the pigs), then topped off the jar with fresh milk.

The chickens LOVED it.

Homemade Raw Milk Cream Cheese & Whey

Wife is a rock star. After I somehow cajoled her into getting a freaking cow we discussed our goals and our future together and added Bridget Da'Cow to the family, Wife has been busy making some delicious and nutritious raw-milk dairy treats for us all to enjoy. The latest one to finish out was this homemade cream cheese and whey:

Front, raw-milk cream cheese.
Back, a mason jar of raw-milk whey (at least, what was left after feeding some to the pigs).

It was incredibly easy to make, although getting used to handling raw milk (i.e., letting it sit out at room temperature for days at a time) is taking a significant shift in mindset. We're working on clabbering at the moment, with the goal of using the clabbered milk as a starter culture and as a chicken feed.

But for now, we celebrate the achievement of cream cheese.

Building a Portable Pig Shelter

Since adding the piggies to the movable pens, they really haven't had much shelter they've nested in a pile of hay with no roof. So, I spent some time this weekend building them a little something-somethin. It's essentially a (roughly) 45-degree sloped roof set up in a lean-to fashion. The bottom end of the roof lays on the ground, and is supported on either side by two 2x10 boards that act as "legs." Here's a shot of it set up in the pen, providing instant shade:

The portable pig panels in the piggie pen providing potent penumbra for Poomba, et. al.
Perfection!

Sidenote: I really like this^ picture, as it shows the pigs in one pen, the cows in the next two, and the chickens in the background. This area will become a great big garden once the animals get rotated off of it in a few weeks.

Anyway, back to the shelter.

UPDATE 3/25: We just had a freak snow storm come through. I went out to feed the pigs a bowl of kitchen goodies, and they were all snug under the shelter, dry as a bone. They came running out for the food, of course, but it's nice to know they're enjoying the shelter.

Homemade Raw Milk Dairy Products

Whilst I am busy each day milking, shoveling manure, and tethering two cows in the back yard, Wife is busy taking the milk I bring in and making the most amazing dairy stuff EVER. We've never been huge into dairy in the past, partially because of lactose-intolerances in the family, and partially because we never really cared much for the taste of store-bought milk. The rancidity that sets in soon after opening (and often before we finished a full gallon) tended to sour us to industrial dairy (pun intended!).

But raw, grass-fed, backyard cow's milk is another substance entirely. It is rich, sweet, and causes us NO intolerance. In fact, we've consumed more milk and yogurt in the last 2 weeks than I think we did all of January and February. Wife has been a driving force for that, using her incredible talents to make some amazing stuff, like this butter and buttermilk:

Butter and buttermilk made from raw, grass-fed backyard cow milk.
The kids all say it's way more delicious than store-bought. I agree with them!

She made buttermilk pancakes for the kiddos this morning, and they LOVED them, especially with the REAL butter (made by putting cream in the food processor). They said it tasted much better than using store-bought buttermilk and butter.

So far, Wife has concocted a few homemade butters, buttermilk (both sweet cream and cultured versions), yogurt by the bucketful, and a rich paleo chocolate milk (which I'm sipping as I write this). She's also currently working on a cream cheese and whey.

DIY Hand Milking Cow Stanchion

Hand-milking Bridget the family milk cow has been a very rewarding experience for me. Unfortunately, it's also been a bit of a trial with the fine, thought-out hand milking station T-post in a corner that I had set up. Wife and I also have been discussing getting a more comfortable sleeping arrangement for her. We're going to end up building an extension of sorts from the shed, creating a roof and a small "barn"-esque area for her right where the sheep's overwinter dry lot area is. Included in these plans was a milking stanchion.

So, the last several days, I worked on getting that done. Here's Bridget in the (nearly) final product:

Bridget Da'Cow munchin' some hay in her shiny new stanchion. The yellow stool is for me.
The rope is there in case I need to cinch her whilst kicking. I built on side wall to keep her
from shifting around too much. the chain link fence is part of the sheep lot. The remaining area
to the left, and behind me from this angle, will become her "barn."

It was super easy, aside from my drill continually running out of batteries. Using some 3" exterior wood screws and some scrap lumber, I put it together over 2 days (pausing only to recharge my drill).

Reinforcing Combo Panels

As part of out big plans for 2014, I bought sixteen 16'-long by 52"-inch tall combo panels. They are a very thick gauge wire, and the horizontal wires are spaced progressively closer as you go toward the ground. The reason for these specific panels will become clear in a few weeks. Stay tuned.

But in the meantime, the cows have been hanging out in here while we wait for the grass to start growing so we can tether them out. Despite the wire gauge thickness, the panels are very flexible. After a few days, they all started bowing outward as the cows gently nudged them to bite off a few more lingering blades of grass. With the expectation of progressively more and more, uh, wear and tear, I had to upgrade them. So we made a Saturday family project out of it.

Finished product from the weekend's labor. Chicken coop in the distance.

This picture shows the reinforced edge of the corral at the moment. I only got halfway done on Saturday (8 out of 16 panels). I'll have to finish another weekend. But, let's step through how I made the combo panels stronger.

DIY Fermented Chicken Feed

Fermented wheat, barley, oats, sunflowers, and kelp. Served on a plate.

Wife and I have been looking into different ways to feed our chickens a healthier diet. After all, they produce food that WE eat, and we'll only consume healthy eggs if THEY are healthy. Common sense, right?

So we've been gradually moving toward "healthier" since we started. For a while, we were getting the brand-name cheap stuff from Tractor Supply. It was a pale brown, underwhelming mystery feed comprised of mostly (we think) grain by-products. Yum.

Then, we started getting the "All Natural" stuff from the local farmer's co-op here in town. While certainly better, it lacks the....um....naturalness that you'd expect. "Hydrolized corn proteins" just don't scream "all natural" to me. But hey, at least it's better than "modified grain by-products," right?

So, that wasn't the answer either.

Economics of Backyard Gardening

I explored the economics of backyard egg-laying chickens and the economics of a milking cow last week. Today, i want to look at the ubiquitous backyard vegetable garden.

"Garden" is such a loose term. It can refer to anything from a few flowers set by the house, to a tomato and pepper plant in a pot, to a raised bed or two, to a 400-square foot plot of mixed results (like our garden last year), to perfectly manicured coifs of flowers and decorative trees, to anything and everything in between.

Yeah....there's no way I'm doing that.

In this piece, I'm going to focus on a garden that is totally dedicated to growing vegetables for a family to eat. Flower gardens are great and all, but for the practical homesteader, a veggie patch gets more return for the money.

Refreshing the Nest Box Bedding

The nest boxes in my DIY movable chicken coop are built of wood. As such, the bottoms are hard (duh). So, to soften them and prevent eggs from cracking, I need to keep it full of hay.

Well, I've been slacking lately on that, and since I had to cut some to change the baby chicks' bedding anyway, I went ahead and topped off the 5 nest boxes.

The Rhode Island Red in the upper right, and an Australorp in the lower
left. For some reason, the nest box right above the feeder is the favorite. The
favorite is without new hay, the other 4 are with new hay. Quite a difference.

Now, the hens will be able to lay in peace and comfort, and I will not have to worry about eggs cracking in the box. That would adversely affect the economics of the backyard egg laying flock, and we can't have that.