Bike Tour & Meet Your Meat!

Sandy Plains Farm will be one of the stops on the Cycle-to-Farm tour this Saturday. The visitors will see the pastured poultry meat birds, the layers and even some pastured rabbits. A tent and table with samples of products will be set up so the the cyclists can do their own tasting. Russ will be giving tours and  proudly talking of the benefits of pasturing for both animals and consumers. 

Since the last update, more chicks have arrived, some future layers and some cute Silkies that I just get a kick watching them. Russ has processed many birds and is now offering cut-up pieces along with whole birds. 

The home layers are steadily laying and keeping the egg supply up. Besides offering eggs by the dozen, Russ is also offering eggs by a 1/2 dozen. Farming requires the farmer to be their own marketing manager!

The goats are now keeping the back pasture at the house trimmed. They are staying inside the fence for a change. 

The rabbits are doing good. We have processed two batches at the Foothills Pilot Plant and sales of rabbit seems to be climbing. I setup a table at the Mill Spring Ag Center a few weeks ago and served rabbit. It was a "Meet your Meat" event. I served Honey Glazed BBQ oven baked rabbit. Russ was serving his chicken that he cooked on the grill outside. It was a good day!

Problems, problems!

The past few days have been interesting to say the least. The other evening I received a phone call - the goats were out!

Russ had just moved them to a back field at a friends house. However, they decided to ignore the fence in the back of the new field and go site seeing. They didn't go too far and I, with the help of our friends, got them back in the front field. I felt bad that Russell had to drop what he was doing and drive 30 miles to find that all was ok. He did try to call me but I was playing goat wrangler and didn't answer. 

The next morning, he called me from the farm to say that rabbits were out. Oh no! The bottom wire on one of the grazer pens was not doing its job. I had seen that it needed some attention the night before. I should have taken care of it right then, but I didn't think that they would get out. Ha!

We did manage to get them all back, it just took a day. They really just want to be with the rest of the gang so they didn't go far. I am grateful that nothing made them into a meal!

The grass at the farm is lovely. So thick and long, but it has gotten almost impossible for Russ to move the chicken pens and the Feathernet. He hopes to borrow a bush hog in the next few days to get that problem solved.

The past few days has been hot. I have fans for all the rabbits in the Raken Port and we moved the buck rabbits under the house to the 'worm room' to keep them cool. (The bucks can go sterile if they get to hot. It is only temporary, but may last a few months.)

A fox has been trying to get the chickens here at the house. Even with our dogs around, the fox are very brave to come so close. I am sure it is trying to feed its young. We have to be diligent to close the chickens up every evening. 

So we do have problems but nothing that we can't deal with!

The First Home Hatched Chick!

The little Silkie hen, Moe, has been setting for a long time. When I saw that she was collecting her eggs and not going out to forage with the other chickens much, I shut her in her little coop. She was setting on 4 eggs for a week but was begging to be let out for a while so on April 16, I opened her door. 

I was puttering around the Raken port and noticed that there was only 1 egg left. Oh no! Some dog that had a very guilty look about him, walked away. 

Needless to say, I felt very bad. So I shut little Moe in her cage again. I took 4 eggs from the layers boxes and hoped that they were fertile. The chances of that were good as my Cornish rooster likes his time with the hens!

Today the long wait is almost over! Little Moe had one little yellow chick under her wings this morning. I noticed a piece of blue egg shell so I knew that at least one had hatched. It was one that I had taken from the layer box. So this little one is half Americauna and half Cornish. Moe is still sitting on the others so hopefully soon there will be a nice little flock for her. 

I really like the Silkie chickens. Their eggs are small but not so small that you feel silly using them. They are so people friendly and they don't travel too far. And they can't fly over the fence!

Some days are just quiet, thank goodness!

For the last few days, things have been quiet at the farm. The horses have been grazing nicely and staying on the correct side of the fence. The Barred Rocks are almost full size and seem happy. The Rhode Island Reds are laying, picking and plundering. 

The next group of meat birds are doing great with the daily move. Sometimes they sneak out in tiny little gaps under the pens or when they are being moved but are easily caught. They want to go back with their buddies!

The rabbits are growing like weeds on pasture grasses. They are so excited to eat new grass that they will graze and then eat pellets. A week ago it was just the opposite. I would walk up to move and feed them and they would scurry to hide. Now they can't seem to wait for the move to fresh forage. 

At the house, the garden has survived the huge rain of last week. The chickens are happy to roam the pasture instead of sitting in clusters in the 'Raken Port' during the days of rain. (Former carport that now holds RAbbits and chicKENs)

The brooder is holding the next group of meat chicks. It is amazing to see the daily changes in them.

Our little Silkie hen has been sitting on eggs but I am not sure that they will hatch. She is doing a great job though! We might have to try again with her. 

Farmer Russ is about to put up a garage/tent to be the processing room at the farm. He found a double sink at the local thrift store and it has a lot of counter space. It will work great for him!

Here he is proudly wearing his Polyface 'lunatic' shirt, along with shorts and rubber boots, a true fashion hound!

New Rabbits, Processed Chicken & More!

After our great trip to tour Polyface, we went to pick-up the new Silver Fox does. A doe is a female rabbit, with a buck being a male, just like deer and goats. The Silver Fox breed is a heritage breed and is on the threatened list of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

I had been studying all the breeds of rabbits that are the best for meat. The Silver Fox is one of the top breeds. While I like my two breeds of rabbits (New Zealand Whites and Californians) I just couldn't stop thinking about the Silver Fox breed.

When I saw that Skyview Acres had Silver Fox does, I immediately contacted them about acquiring some. Since we would be in at Polyface in Virginia, it seemed like it was meant to be to go a bit further to pick them up. Arrangements were made and everything worked out!

We now have three lovely does. I have to admit that it took me a long time to name my other rabbits but these girls were named immediately. The two older sisters are Brie and Heather. They are named after the two girls that we met at the Polyface store. The other little doe is named Poly!

Whippoorwill Farm in Maine was making a big trip delivering his good stock of Silver Fox rabbits. I had contacted Jeff when I saw his trip plans and met him in Greer, SC.That is where I picked up Gilbert, my new Silver Fox buck.

The Silver Fox are still in quarantine for a few weeks. They are just lovely, friendly rabbits! I am excited to have my first litters!

Also talking rabbits, it was time to process some of the growouts last week. We loaded them into the chicken transport cages. They happen to work perfect for rabbits too! I felt a bit sad as we drove to the Foothills Processing Plant. But I just kept telling myself that I gave the rabbits a good life, I appreciated them and this is what I was raising them for. I still felt sad. As we waited for ours to be processed that day, I watched a few videos on my phone that had to do with processing. I did feel better after I watched them.

The plant is clean as a whistle, well run and very proud of the job that they do. I had decided to have my rabbits cut up, it costs a bit more but I think that is the best way to package them. After we brought them home, I put them in the refrigerator for 48 hours to age. Then I took some up to the Mill Spring Farm Store to sell. While I had eaten rabbit alot, it had been a while. Russell didn't remember eating it at all. So I cooked one up for us and we had it for dinner and it was delicious! Thank you rabbits!

A few weeks ago, Russell borrowed all the processing equipment for chickens. He set it up at the house as he still doesn't have the electric service at the farm (soon I hope!). He processed the first batch of Cornish X for the 2013 year. I even helped out, he showed me how to eviscerate and I did an ok job.

He now has 100 or so birds out on pasture and 100 or so in the brooder right now. The weather has been so cold and wet that he has lost some in the past few days. Hopefully they will grow enough so they will not smother each other to stay warm. And hopefully the weather will change!

So right now there are meat birds and rabbits at the farm in growout pens. The layers at the farm are safe in the feathernet fence and the Barred Rocks pullets will join the layers soon. The horses are doing well and respecting the electric fence too.

We have gotten some of the garden in between rain storms. Time will tell if some of what we put in will have to be replanted do to too much rain. However the blueberry bushes are doing great!

Our Trip to Polyface!

This last Thursday, Farmer Russ and I got up extra early. We ate breakfast (Eggs of course!), tended the over 300 animals that are now in our care, and then hit the road for Polyface Farm.

If you are following this blog, you may remember that last year when we first learned of the Polyface http://www.polyfacefarms.com/ method of raising chickens, we were hooked. Polyface offers several guided tours of their operation during the year. As soon as I saw the opportunity to purchase tickets, I did!

We had planned to leave at 7:00 am. Even then, we knew that it would be a tight timeline to make it to Swoope, VA by 1:00 pm. (360 miles!) We arrived just as the 4 hay wagons loaded with 98 other people pulled out of the barnyard. We were told by a nice young lady that they were headed up to the 'egg mobiles'. It was a nice walk to the group as we enjoyed stretching our legs. Six hours is a long time to sit!

When we caught up with group, Joel Salatin was telling the folks about the layers and the egg mobile. Russ was prepared with paper and pen to keep notes on anything that he wanted to remember.


The Egg Mobiles



Russ looked over the egg mobiles. He has a farm wagon that he is in the middle of tearing apart to remodel into his own version of layer mobile. Right now the layers at the farm are still living in the meat bird grazing pens. They forage and plunder the pasture during the day and then sleep in the pens. Unfortunately they are laying here and there as we still need a layer box setup for them. It was good to hear Joel say it was important to have two doors for the hens to go in and out. It has to do with 'pecking order'!

The Meat Birds on Pasture

The next stop was over to the meat bird pens. It was interesting to see the lay of the land. Much hillier than here in the foothills. I was wondering about moving the birds up a hill but they handle it fine. Google Earth makes things look flatter than they really are!


Meat bird chicks in the brooder house

They have 75 chicks in each pen. The chicks are in the brooder house for exactly 3 weeks and then moved to the pens. They are moved every morning, feed and watered. They do use hanging waterers. More birds can drink at once that way. Plus they stay level!

Russ has been doing the same basic things with his meat birds. But he got all excited when he saw the Polyface coop mover, it has bolts welded on for stops! As I don't move the coops, I didn't realize that he was missing such a handy addition to his coop mover. It will have stops welded on very soon!

Then we loaded back on the wagons and stopped to see the pigerator pork. During the winter, beef cows live and are feed hay in some of the barns. After the cows are out on pasture, pigs are then put in the barns to reap the leftovers from the cattle. When Joel asked the group what they smelled. (Russ said to me that it smelled like money!) There was no offensive odor to that much manure at all. The pigs keep it turned and plowed. Joel said that after the pigs are finished in the barns, they are walked up to the woods where they feast on acorns and such. The manure then is spread to enhance the soil even more.

Joel and his Pigerator Porkers!

Back on the wagon for a short trip to the beef cattle. They had just been out on pasture for a few days. Some of them had calfs and others looked like they were not too far from having their babies. They all looked happy and healthy! Polyface does no graining of their cattle. They are intensivly grazing all of the pastures and the cattle are moved every day. Joel calls it "salad bar beef". The ground is a mix of great grasses and plants. We have been trying to do this with the horses at the farm. Horses are very hard on the soil and grass. I have to say that after having our horses at the farm all winter, our hay bill is zero. I hate to think how much I had spent on hay last year, but then Russ didn't have the farm then. Our horses do not receive grain either and yet they look great! We do feed and hay the old Arabian that lives at the house but she needs the extra as she is old enough to order a beer.

Pastured Cattle watching the Pastured People!

Joel wished everyone that came safe travels and thanked everyone for coming. I couldn't help but to think how many lives this man has touched with his model of farming.

Daniel Salatin, Joel's son, who is now the farm manager, stayed at the wagons to answer more questions. I was very interested in his rabbits. Daniel has developed his own meat rabbit over 20 years of line breeding. He does have a closed rabbitry. So I had to peek in thru the doors of the raken house. They keep the breeding rabbits in hanging cages and then the chickens pick and scratch under the rabbits. They wean the rabbits at 6 weeks and then they go out into the "hare pens" until they are 12 weeks. Daniel can dress a rabbit in 3 minutes. He is a master at cutting up a chicken too!

The Raken House



The Raken House - about 50 holes for Rabbits



Rabbits with Hens & Roosters



Since Polyface has their own store, we just had to go in! Russ bought another of Joel's books, and we bought some of the products - bacon (delicious), hot dogs (who knew?!) and some 'salad bar' hamburger.

We then left Swoope and headed north to Winchester. I had arranged to purchase some Silver Fox rabbits from a breeder there. Skyview Acres http://skyviewacres.blogspot.com/ is also doing pastured meat birds, pigs and rabbits. We had a nice visit with Sharon and Greg. We loaded up my three new rabbits (I will do another post on the Silver Foxes soon.) and then we headed back to Tryon, NC in some of the worst driving conditions you can imagine. Rain, fog and crazy truck drivers going too fast. We arrived home at 4:00 am to our three dogs that were thrilled that we were back. 950 miles is a bit much to drive in one day!



And they just keep growing

Almost Easter already! The weather has been cooler than normal but it sure hasn't stopped the Cornish X's from growing. They are doing very good with the daily move. You can just about see them grow!



Five Weeks Old!



The Barred Rock pullets are just as pretty as can be. They are very elegant. They are so elegant that a rat, we are guessing, made its way into the coop and attacked a couple. We now have a couple of traps for their use! Poor little chickens.




Some nice looking pullets!



The little rat trap, yuck!

We moved another rabbit grazer pen to the farm. We took apart one of the coops that Russ had built last year. He was going to rebuild the chicken pen but then I asked if we could magically change it into grazer pens. So now I have to keep building more pens before the pieces get used for something else! Funny how that can happen.



More pastured rabbits!



I have to say that it is the farmer's birthday today! Happy 24th Farmer Russell!




Farmer Russ!