New Critters at the farm

Yesterday Russell added to his livestock at the farm. He now has four Boer goats. Boer goats are a meat goat breed. The four that he has are wethers. (In horse terms that means they are gelded!)

They are keeping busy eating the side yard at the store down for me. It had gotten very over-grown with grass and weeds, perfect for goat grazing. They are also very talkative.

Russ will move them over to the farm when he can get fencing up for them. We are hoping to use my mule as a companion protector. We will see what she thinks about that!

Other critter news is that the chickens are laying great! We have been selling eggs at our store and we have also become consignors with our eggs at the Mill Spring Farm Store.

The little hen that was attacked by a raccoon is doing quite well! She did lose her leg but hops or flys to get where she wants to go. I have dubbed her 'Peg' and she seems happy to be alive!

The rabbits are happy and the seven babies are growing. I plan on keeping two of the does for breeders. Their momma is very good at her job and I hope her babies will have that trait. We should have two more litters right after the first of the year.

We have also started to raise worms! The worm castings are great for adding to the garden soil. Since rabbits and vermicuture go together nicely, I thought why not!

More Chickens and Paula's Rabbits

We added to the layer flock last week. Now there are 11 Golden Comets that are settling in nicely with the girls. That brings the numbers up to 36 layers!

The light in the hoop house seems to have stepped up the egg laying, thank goodness. They now have 14 hours of light. Some of the message boards that I have read, especially the backyard chicken folks, frown on this. They think that it is messing with the natural cycle of things. We feel that the chickens are not being mistreated but just work a little harder. They sure seem happy enough as they do their picking all around the house and pasture all day!

We have had some predator problems with the birds that are at the farm. Seems that a raccoon has figured out that there are easy dinners for him. We need to fix his wagon! He was able to knock one of the coop doors to the inside and killed two birds. He did some damage to a third. We brought her to the house and I put some wonder dust on her leg and then wrapped it with vet wrap. She seems to be doing OK, but time will tell. She can walk on her other leg and can roost.

Now onto rabbits! When Russ and I took the Sustainable Ag class this summer, Lynn said that he wished someone would raise meat rabbits in the area. I had raised Satin rabbits about 20 years ago and got to thinking that maybe I could do it again. (Russ said that the rabbits would be my thing.)

Well, I researched about raising them and I did find someone that sold the two kinds that I had decided to try. So off I went one evening with the chicken transport cages to purchase six rabbits, two bucks and four does. The breeds I chose are the New Zealand and Californians. They are both recommended meat rabbits with all of the same coloring, The NZ's are all white and the Cal's are white with dark points.

I beat it to my second favorite store, Tractor Supply, to buy cage making materials and rabbit feed. I can write a book about making cages but maybe another post! (Lesson 1 - get really good wire cutters!) I did buy a few rabbit cages too.

The rabbits that I bought were all juveniles, almost of breeding age. I do regret not getting pedigrees with them. I might have siblings that probably should not be bred together. (Lesson 2 - get pedigrees!)

I let them settle in a few days and then put a doe in with a buck and stood and waited. Nothing. So back to studying and reading every website out on the internet. Needless to say, I had forgotten a lot in 20 years. I did learn that the bucks will do their thing when the does are good and ready! (Lesson 3 - be patient!)

My first litter was born on the coldest night we had a few weeks ago. No hair pulled by the doe at all but I messed up big time as I had the nest box in the wrong does cage! That is what happens when the does all look the same. The babies didn't make it but I bred her again and she is due in two weeks.
(Lesson 4 - tattoo ears!)

One of the Cal does fell out of her cage. She somehow popped the cage door and the snap came off. I heard an animal screaming one morning right after our dogs went out. I didn't put it together for 15 seconds or so. Well, dogs will be dogs. They are great with the chickens but the rabbits, well, not so great. I ran out and told them to "Leave it!" and they did. However she was too far gone and died a few hours later. Dang it! (Lesson 5 - Sh!t happens)

The other Cal had five babies this week, but being a first timer, she didn't pull fur and of course it was very cold! We were able to warm one of them up but he didn't make it past two days. I think she will be OK next time as she did pull fur the day after they were born. I will breed her again in the next day or two. (Lesson 6 - the first time is hard!)

However, today has a much happier story! NZ doe #2 had a fine litter of seven babies last night. She pulled fur, made a nice nest for them and seems to be a good momma. Success! (Lesson 7 - sometimes things DO work out!) Things could still go wrong. My fellow rabbit/chicken/goat raising brother Allen reminded me that there is a reason that rabbits have so many babies - many of them do not make it. But I will take the good omen of three bad things in a row and then a lucky number 7 today!

The Roast Beast!

This is a picture of our first oven roasted, home grown, pasture raised, hand processed, Cornish chicken!

We brined it, rubbed it with herbs, filled it with secret ingredients and then we let it sit for about 15 minutes after it came out of the oven.

We fixed some tomatoes, (a few of the last ones from the garden) cooked some summer squash from the freezer and I made good corn bread. And then we ate.

Russell and I each had a leg and I cut of a nice piece of meat and said "Here goes" and he popped a piece in his mouth too. We looked at each other and both said at the same time, "Oh thank God, this chicken is delicious!"

Just a minute or two later Tyler, Russell's best friend since 1st grade came. What timing! We set a place for him and he cut into the breast. Once, twice, three times and then I said to please save me some breast meat! Oh my, but it was good!

It may sound odd to be so excited about eating chicken but we were so worried that it would be, well, kind of bad.

We need to order more chicks now!

Chicken to Eat!

After waiting what seemed like forever, we now have chicken in the freezer!

The night before last, Russ and I went to the farm and with him on/in one of the mobile coops and with me at the top hatch, we grabbed 32 birds. We were trying to just get the roosters but they are a slippery bunch! He ended up with three crates with 2 crates of roosters and the other of hens. We took them to a neighbor, Restoration Farm, that had the high schools processing equipment all set up.

Yesterday morning Russ went back to Restoration Farm and he along with a class of about 20 students from the high school processed them. He said that they did great! After they finished he came with the birds, all in ice water in tubs in the back of his truck, to the store. We weighed each one and put them in bags and then into the freezer at the store. We bought home two, I will put them in brine and tonight we will eat chicken!

He has already sold some of them. What a good feeling to get something back for your labors!

I think the plan is now to process the remaining roosters and keep the hens for layers. He does want to rebuild the coops. After using them for 3 months, he realises that he needs to make a few changes.

Back to the layers that are at the house, they are moulting so egg production is way down. Plus the day light is now shorter. We have egg customers at the store and I feel terrible that we have no eggs to sell! This week I put a light on a timer and hung it in the coop. I hope this helps. Maybe I should hang an axe in there too!

An update on the local election - Russell didn't make it. However he plans to run again in two years. He feels that it is very important to stay involved in the local state of affairs! I am proud of him.

Politics and Farming

Since this blog is about Sandy Plains Farm, I feel that I should talk about what the farmer, Russell, is currently doing. Besides tending to chickens, horses and the land, Russell is running for the honor to become a county commissioner here in Polk County, NC.

Election day is fast approaching and his campaigning is geared up into high! Last week he participated in a forum and as a mom, I could not have been prouder. He was well spoken, used a bit of humor and stated his opinions and hopes for Polk County in a clear manor.

He is the "young guy" in what you would normally see a more seasoned person doing. He has been campaigning for months now. Yesterday was the first day of early voting and I was very humbled to put a check mark by his name!

Holding the door for Mom to go vote!

Columbus Farm Festival

Sandy Plains Farm had a great time today at the Farm Festival. Like anything else when going somewhere offsite, there was a lot of packing to do!

We had a wonderful tent (borrowed from a good friend!), a table with books on raising all different animals, chairs to rest on, a table with Nester, our New Zealand buck, and a table with the Silkies and Peepers. Folks just loved the chickens!

Russell would take one or the other Silkie out and let the kids (and adults too) pet them. Many asked questions and learned a little bit.

Nester was a big hit too. We had taken the cage roof off and had a stool for the little folks so that all could pet him. He was the most perfect rabbit!

We sold a lot of eggs and even a few aloe plants that had just been re-potted.

We also had a "mini hay baler" on display. We had grass clippings and a sign that said you could make your own bale if you wanted. It didn't attract much attention. I was surprised at first until someone asked what a hay bale was. Oh.

It was good to get home.

The layers!

The 26 laying hens stay busy all day. While not officially located at Sandy Plains Farm, they are an important part of the farm and live "uptown" at our small farm where the house is. I guess that needs a name too, so I will dub it "The 440"!

The girls are a group of 4 Rhode Island Reds and 22 Americauna hens. The first thing in the morning they are let out of the hoop house, fed a scoop of layer feed, and then they begin their morning wanders. We have found that leaving their water by the barn/garage is much easier to deal with, no lugging the waterer to the coop. Since they are out all day and are only in the hoop house at night, they can trot right over to it at anytime. And the dogs like to drink out of it too!

The picture shows them having their morning "crack". It is the custom that at about 8:30 or so every morning, they are thrown a cup of cracked corn. You just can't help but smile when you see 26 chickens come a trotting and a clucking to you for their big treat.

We have 5 nest boxes that are located just inside the former carport. It has long ago been taken over by hay storage for horses and is now home to the brooder box and other "stuff".

The girls roam the 3 acres all day. They are great at picking through the horse manure, getting chased by the cat that thinks he can actually take one of them down, clean up any goodies that the rabbits have dropped and until very recently, liked to redistribute the fall garden plants. They were very disappointed to find that they were no longer allowed access!

We try to collect eggs all during the day as it keeps them cleaner and less chance of someone breaking an egg by sitting on them. It is a satisfying feeling to carry a dozen or so eggs into the house. The eggs are all different colors, no white ones at all.

They get a late afternoon scoop of feed and then like all good chickens, put themselves to bed. We go out and shut the hoop house door as they softly cluck and coo goodnight.



Traveling Birds

Since Russ has had the coops with the meat birds, they get to take a hike every morning. They get very excited when they see him coming and will come to the front of the coops.

Can you tell which picture is taken before the coop is moved and which picture is the ground after?

They are thrilled to have fresh pickings! Bugs, worms, grass and they will even have more chicken feed. A bunch of happy birds!

The First Chickens

It has been a few months since the chickens arrived. Well, first I bought 3 Silkies, why I don't know. But they are supposed to make good brooder hens. Of course when I got them I was hoping that they would all be pullets (hens) but we really didn't know. We do now. I have a rooster that when he crows, sounds like a cat with a very bad cold! He is getting better at it though. I didn't want a rooster at all but he isn't too loud so I guess he can stay.

Silkies with Peepers!

Shortly after the Silkies, I went and bought 5 Rhode Island Reds. With no cage ready, I put them in a dog crate for the ride home and then transferred them to the movable coop that Russ had just finished building. No place for them to roost but they were safe.

RIR - not happy about things!

The next Sunday I again found an ad on Craig's List for Americauna layers. So the Silkies were put in a tiny little cage that we had sitting around. Then we headed up to Lake Lure at 9 pm to get 22 birds with the fancy (not!) cage that Russ slid in the back of the truck. The couple that sold us the birds were very nice, and it turned out that the young fellow had apprenticed at Polyface! Holy Cow!

We now have a nice number of layers. We have sold many dozens of eggs and I have even stopped buying cold cereal to have for breakfast as we have so many eggs. We even feel better!

Now for the meat birds. They are 8 weeks old today. Russell would be ready to process them but SOMEONE (me) bought Cornish and not Cornish Crosses so they are taking another couple of weeks. He moved them to Sandy Plains Farm a month ago and it is crazy to see how far the coops have been moved! We ordered 120 birds, so far we have lost 10 I think. Russ called them "little murderers" when they were in the brooder as they would smother and squish each other. The brooder is big enough and Russ put 2 lights in it, but they are pretty delicate when small. Now that they are out on pasture, they still run over one another but they can handle it now.

I will explain Peepers (picture above) sometime. Right now she thinks she is a Silkie and I don't want to burst her bubble!

Farm mowing

The weeds were 8 feet high but now it looks like a park!

You Can Farm!

As I write this first post, Sandy Plains Farm is becoming a reality.

My son Russell has wanted to farm since he first took Ag class as a freshmen at Polk County High School. After receiving his degree from NCSU in May of 2011, he came home to Polk County. He found that starting to farm with basically no land, and most importantly, MONEY, was impossible. He started to apply for various positions in his field of Agronomy. Some interviews, no jobs.

This summer I (Paula, the Mom) decided to take an 8 week evening sustainable agriculture class put on by the local community college and the Mill Spring Ag Center. Russ said that I didn't get out enough! I told him that I was taking it and he signed up for it too. Cool, going to class with my son, cough cough. Well, I have to say that it was one of the best things that I have done! (Another was moving to North Carolina in 1994.)

The first few classes were interesting, mainly dealing with gardening. We had started on a garden this year after not having one for 4 years or so. More on the garden another day. But hold onto your hats - the class that got us very excited was how we saw a different way that chickens could be raised!!!

OK, you may wonder why I am so excited about this information. Having lived in one of the counties in the Catskill Mountains for 20 years, you learn to hold your breath driving on certain roads. Chickens raised in huge barns, the manure spread on fields just as thick as frosting on a cake. Probably good for the local economy but bad for the neighborhood. I will not go on about that, but the memories are not the most pleasant!

A nice fellow by the name of Kirk showed the class how he has his meat birds in a thing called a tractor. Being an old farm girl, I don't like the term, a tractor is something that you drive and costs a chunk of money. I know this as Russ bought one this spring. Big, handy, but not something you can keep a chicken in! Anyway, Kirk also showed his processing station (yes, the chickens meet their end here, but after he thanks them, I am not being silly, he really does thank each one.) We also saw how he moves both the egg layer hoop house and the chicken tractor. No smell, the manure goes right into the ground, did I say no smell? NO SMELL!

I was hooked. Before we even left Kirk's driveway, I said to Russ that we, he, could do this. Kirk had told about this place in Virginia (Polyface Farm  polyfacefarms.com) and the fellow that owns it has written books on how to farm. I ordered a couple of books right away. One of them was about raising chickens and the other was titled "You Can Farm". When they arrived, Russell read them cover to cover. I have not seen him so excited since he graduated from State!

We have birds! I will tell more about them later. I feel they need their own story. We now have 110 meat birds, 26 layers and 3 silly little Silkies. Oh and one meat bird that we will never eat. More about her later too!

Now to the farm. Since we only have 3.26 acres of over grazed pasture, Russ was planning on using 19 acres that some good friends have. It would have worked ok for the chickens but he doesn't want to stop there, oh no. He wants cows, goats, pigs, you know - the whole farm animal thing. (We already have horses, thus the over grazed pastures!) One day about a month ago I was talking to someone about what Russ wanted to do and she said "Talk to my husband, there is 20 acres right behind the store here." So the next day Russ went and talked to the owner and he now has Sandy Plains Farm for at least the next three years! I will post some pictures of why I think it is the most perfect place for Russell's farm.

We have moved the meat birds to "the farm". Every morning we go down and move them 12 feet to new grass. I say we as Russ is still working on getting a coop mover so that one person can move the pens. Right now we use two hand trucks, one of us in the back (Mom) and one in the front (Russ). The rest of the "we" are the dogs. Russ has found that his dog Nugz is great at chasing the chicks that may sneak out when the pens are lifted up enough to move them. He will chase them and put his paw on them till Russ gets there. It is great to watch. Some mornings the dogs are so disappointed when no birds escape!