The pigs had a tough spring…their plot was pretty muddy and wet. They are perhaps undersized yet, but are going to the butcher tomorrow. They were supposed to go in last week, but a loading debacle wherein one pig refused to go anywhere near the trailer until we had given up and were trying to get the other pig out of the trailer forced us to postpone their fate.

We have purchased our first tractor, and spent some time starting to repair last year’s pig pen spots. I’m hoping to plant some grass in an effort to improve appearances. I don’t intend to raise any more pigs until we move out to our new property.

The final straw of this rotten spring was the day a young raccoon climbed into the brooder coop and wiped out 30% of my flock. We had a large bonfire that night…with a dead raccoon to top it off.

So here’s hoping for a smoother summer. The goat kids are sold, and school is nearly out. I think things can only go up from here!

Nellie is due to kid in two short weeks. We are working on getting a new coop built for the various layers, so that the broiler coop can be used for kidding before the new chicks arrive the first week of April.

Our second pair of pigs seems quite happy to laze around in the sun while waiting for the ground to thaw. I’m hoping they will be finished by the end of the school year.

My bees didn’t survive the winter–we had some pretty serious cold snaps this year. The new package is due to arrive at the end of April, so once the snow melts I’ll have to get out to the hive to clean up.

Right now I’m planning on letting the garden have a year off. We have plenty on our plate for the summer, and since the pigs lived on the plot all winter, some composting will be required before it is suitable for much.

Here’s to warmer weather and longer days!

We successfully winterized my bees two weeks ago. We made them a candy board since their honey stores were low, and got them wrapped and mouse-protected. Now I just need to hope for the best!

I’m pretty sure the goats are both bred (neither has come back into heat) to two different bucks from Haycreek Farm in Red Wing, and we’re hoping for kids in late March/early April. I dried both goats off just before Thanksgiving, and am missing the milk, but not the milking.

The pork was so good I invested in two more feeder pigs to eat my parents’ bumper crop of squash over the winter. They are growing rapidly, and should be ready for processing in the spring.

I’ve had more people asking about if I have more chickens for sale, so I’m thinking that I will do two batches of 75 this summer. Once I confirm the due dates for the goats, I can order the first round to arrive shortly thereafter!

My laying hens went into molt this fall, and are still laying sporadically. Both of the surviving chicks from this summer’s hatch appear to be pullets, so I will have seven chickens laying in the spring, and hopefully six ducks as well.

We have the makings of another busy spring, so I guess I should just sit back and enjoy the peace of winter. But waiting is so hard!

I saved all of the chicken necks for making stock and the organs for my cats, but decided not to go to the trouble of saving the feet. I’ve heard there is a market for them with people who want to make stock, but I wasn’t ready to go that far this year!

The pigs are scheduled to go in to the butcher in one week. While I’m not sure they quite hit the target weight of 200 pounds, I think we’ll get some good meat off of them. After a close call with one pig suffering heat stroke last month, and the general disposition of the pigs, the jury is still out on whether this will be a repeat project. I guess the quality of the bacon may be the deciding factor. I’m also interested to see if I can make some goat milk soap with the lard. I should have the pork back for Labor Day weekend, so will have some time to play around with it then.

The goat milking is now going quite well, and the cheese making continues. The cheddar curds were a success, and I’ve discovered you can make a form of cheesecake from the ricotta–so with our fresh cheese and eggs, the dessert ends up being very locally produced, and tasty to boot.

The ducks have been turned out to forage for themselves now that they don’t have to be fenced in with the meat birds. They are slowly expanding their territory, and I’m trying to figure out what their permanent housing should be. The hens should start laying in a few weeks, and I haven’t yet decided if/how many of the excess drakes I will butcher.

The school year is coming up fast. It’s hard to believe we started this whole crazy “farming” plan a year ago when we bought the goats. I think I’m ready for the winter break from excessive chores, but am already looking forward to more goat kids and birds in the spring…

I’ve got our whizbang chicken plucker up and running (with motor installation done by my husband!), and we’ve processed the first 10 birds from the flock. More roosters have taken up crowing, so I’m anxious to get more vacuum bags so we can continue whittling down their numbers.

Cheeky the Araucana chicken hatched three of her eight eggs exactly 21 days after I gave them to her. She ended up with two Welsummer chicks and one Java. I’m hoping for at least one pullet out of the deal!

Our pig experiment continues, with mixed results. Yesterday afternoon the smaller brown pig fell ill with apparent heat exhaustion, and I was worried he wasn’t going to make it (he wouldn’t eat or drink and acted like he was in a stupor). Why he fell ill this week and not last week when the heat index was over 100 practically all week, I have no idea. But with advice from the vet and the help of our dairy farmer neighbors I got him some fever reducer and he’s up and at it today…but I’m glad that they’ve only got four weeks left until they go to “freezer camp” for the rest of the summer!

This summer’s trial runs for “pastured” poultry, goat kids and milking, and even the pigs has been mostly good, and I’m looking forward to refining and expanding the process.

1. I’m getting better at milking the goats. They are getting better at tolerating it. I finally gave them a good “dairy clip” today, and I’m planning to start keeping the milk rather than feeding it to the pigs and kittens.

2. The tragedy of the month was the death of Nellie’s buckling. He got himself tangled in the netting I had protecting my garden and strangled. I hadn’t considered that danger before, but I guess I know now.

3.  Immediately after taking care of the dead kid, I was putting down fresh litter for the chickens in the garage, when they managed to break out of the their draft shield and started to run loose. Most voluntarily came back in to their food, but some were definitely not interested in being “inside” anymore.

4. Since the poultry clearly needed to move outside, I set up the electric poultry netting.  I started by moving the ducks out, since they are easier to catch. The promptly squeezed through the fence and commenced a terrified run about the property. Herding ducks is actually pretty easy, but I felt pretty bad for them.

5. Since chickens are not quite so excitable (and more easily bribed with food), we put the chickens out in the electric fence, and they stayed put all afternoon. Finally, a victory!

6. Until we came home from a late lunch in town, when 40 of them had decided to ditch the fence. We installed a secondary fence until the chickens until they got big enough to not squeeze through.

7. We set up an automatic nipple watering system for the chickens, and it works like a charm. The ducks also use it.

8. We got the ducks a wading pool this week, and they were thrilled to have a place to swim.

9. We got seven inches of rain yesterday, and in their panic to get out of the rain, three chickens managed to get trampled/suffocated/drowned. I was worried about them catching a chill, but I was worried about the wrong thing. The ducks were none the worse for the wear, however.

10. My Araucana chicken went broody last week. Since we have no rooster and she was sitting on “duds,” I procured some fertilized eggs from a coworker. In a few weeks I should have a small flock of American Java chickens to complement the rest of the layers. I will also have some roosters to get rid of!

11. I have a buyer for my two remaining goat kids and a home for three of my five kittens. As cute as they all are, I’m ready to have a few less animals around here!

The kids are doing well. We had them disbudded last week, and after they forgave me for that, we’re becoming good friends with the help of a few raisins. The goat tips from Molly Nolte at Fias Co Farm have been a real help as we learn the goat ropes.

This is the third year we’ve done meat chickens, but it is the first time I’ve ever had chicks pick at each other so much. By the time I noticed what they were doing, one had a completely bloodied rear end. I moved him out and put him with the ducks, figuring the ducks wouldn’t pick. Sure enough, they didn’t–they were completely terrified of him! I ended up putting another weak chick in with the ducks to keep the first one company, since the ducks kept running away frantically whenever he approached. As of tonight, the ducks and chicks all seem to have made peace with one another, and I don’t see any more getting picked.

My cat Taffy and her five kittens also seem to be doing well. The wild cat abandoned her kittens after a tom cat attack, so Taffy has been stuck in the old chicken tractor most of the time to keep the kittens safe. At least there will be plenty of felines around to protect the poultry food this summer!

This last weekend I was busy helping out at church, and didn’t get much done besides some fussing over the goats. The twins are preferentially nursing Nellie’s right side, so we’re milking out the left side until they start to need more food. Nellie isn’t much liking this process, but I think she’ll settle down into a routine soon.

Monday night my cat Taffy snuck into the garage and had a litter of five orange tabby kittens. Tonight I relocated them to the old chicken tractor, because I picked up my 10 ducklings from the post office. Taffy thought the new poultry looked a little too much like dinner for us to trust her in the same building with them. Ducklings are way messier than chicks, but are also pretty entertaining.

Friday the last of the critters should be arriving–100 chicks. It’ll be good to get set up and in a groove; I’m waiting for school to be over so I can relax and enjoy the process a little more.

Pictures to follow soon!

Last night Nellie finally had her kids. She had triplets, but the third one was stillborn. So we have one buckling and one doeling that will be for sale in about two months, with more on the way this week! (Pictures on the kids page will follow in the next week or two…)