Knot4Fun Book Giveaway
The women at 5 Minutes for Books are hosting a giveaway for our book, Why Not Knot for Fun? A Kid Friendly Guide to Knots and Adventure.
If you want a chance for some educational summer fun, check out the links above! Hurry now! The contest ends on June 30th. Follow the link and register your comment today for a chance to win a free copy!
Pig Post
I’ve got a post up at Homestead Blogger’s Front Porch covering some details on how we raise pigs. Check it out!
What Makes a Good Rooster?
We’ve had a lot of roosters. A whole lot. Too many usually. It is best to have only one or two, depending on the size of the flock. Our flock has varied in size from 6 to 60. The books will tell you one rooster to 12 hens is a good ratio. This depends on the rooster.
Our favorite rooster is MiniBooster. We think he is a fine rooster. This is not so much because he’s handsome. That he certainly is.
MiniBooster, A Fine Rooster
We think MiniBooster makes a good rooster for a number reasons:
- He’s always looking out for predators. MiniBooster was raised by one of our original Game Hens. These Game Hens are very good trainers. Within hours of hatch, these hens have their chicks trained to spot predators of all varieties. MiniBooster understands the difference between a perceived threat (a crow flying overhead) and a real threat (a hawk). He makes a certain noise that even we understand that says “Hey, there’s something strange going on over there. I’m nervous but not sure if it is a problem. Perhaps we should keep an eye on the situation.” He doesn’t waste our time or his hens’ with false alarms.
- He takes good care of his hen harem. MiniBooster is always looking out for his ladies. He finds the best tidbits for them, never eating them himself but always giving sacrificially to his hens. MiniBooster understands the health of his hens is all important to the success of his progeny.
- He’s never aggressive toward his human keepers, no matter what they do to his hens. Some roosters will look at their human keepers as competitors. We’ve found this to be the case, in particular, with our hand raised mail order chickens. If we feed the hens some old, stale bread, the rooster(s) think we are another rooster trying to gain favor with the hens. MiniBooster understands his place relative to ours: we are the keepers of the flock, not roosters. He has never attacked a human. Now the mail order vs. hen-raised rule doesn’t always hold. We had a very aggressive rooster that was raised by a Game Hen a few years back. This aggressive rooster attacked our youngest child at the time. He didn’t last long…a human predator took him out.
- He’s survived.
MiniBooster has been our top rooster, head of the flock since the Spring of 2006. That’s pretty good for a free ranging rooster surrounded by large hawks, neighborhood dogs, foxes, and coyotes! Not to mention, no other rooster has been able to knock him off the top.
Butter and Grass
This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays sponsored this week by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
Spring Butter Ball (l) and Winter Butter Ball (r)
Springtime grasses are green. Combined with the rumen and mammary glands of the bovine, that green grass turns butterfat from white to a golden yellow.
In times past, people knew that yellow butter and cheese meant higher quality milk & dairy products. In fact, the yellow or even orange color of high quality dairy was so well known that cows like the Jersey & Guernsey breeds were selectively bred to produce a more yellow butterfat. Annatto is still used today to dye cheeses that unnatural orange to fool you into thinking it is a higher quality product. And Ma Ingalls used the juice of carrots to turn their winter butter orange in On the Banks of Plum Creek from the Little House on the Prairie series.
So why did people in centuries past value dairy products by the richness of their golden color? They may not have known why but today we do:
- The yellow is an indication of high Vitamin A content.
- Golden butter means more Conjugated Linoleic Acid.
- The darker yellow tells us the butter is higher in Omega-3 Fatty Acids.
Lois Grazing in the Garden
In our experience, it doesn’t take a lot of grazing to get that golden yellow color. An hour or two on our limited pastures is sufficient to change the color as you see in the above picture.
Looking for more information?
- Check out this excellent post on butter, including a myriad of ways to use it, from GoFrolic.
- Kelly the Kitchen Kop blogged about the Health Benefits of Real Butter for a recent Real Food Wednesdays Carnival.
- Learn how to make butter using your food processor right here at SolarFamilyFarm!
And of course, EAT MORE BUTTER!!
Another Excuse to Eat Lard
O.k. not that we needed an excuse to eat lard. We eat all the lard we can get, even if our three little pigs were a bit smaller than we had hoped.
But lard, real lard from naturally raised pigs, is clearly gaining in popularity. And not just because it tastes good.
Lard-fed Kids
Lard is a healthy alternative to shortening and other vegetable fats.
Hat tip to Pop for the Lard Link.
Cow Love
It has been 3 months since Lois calved Mr. P. To keep a cow productive, it is best to breed them so they calve every 12 months. To humans, that may sound harsh or cruel but cows develop health problems when they do not go through the reproductive cycle on a regular basis.
Lois, our Family Milk Cow
There are three options when it comes time to breed your cow:
- Keep a bull for breeding.
- Take the cow to a neighbor’s field for a “date” with his bull.
- Artificially inseminate (A.I.)
Keeping a breeding bull on our small property is not practical. Besides, bulls, Jersey bulls in particular, are dangerous. There aren’t too many neighbors keeping dairy bulls around here. Not that we couldn’t breed her to a neighbor’s beef bull but that is not always practical given Lois needs to be milked twice a day. We’d have to go to Lois to milk her and haul the milk home or bring her home twice a day. It is a possibility but not one we find practical at this juncture.
This leaves us with option 3) Artificially inseminate with semen of our choice. Finding an inseminator can be difficult. We found ours by contacting Select Sires, a company that specializes in providing semen for the dairy and beef industries. They pointed us to Mr. Osburne. Fortunately for us, Mr. Osburne lives a mile or two from us and, coincidentally, travels by our home regularly. He is also renowned for his 90% first time success rate! Bully for us, eh? He’s also an interesting & resourceful fellow and darn nice to boot.
Mr. Osburne is the first to say that heat detection is the key to successful A.I. What is heat? It is the period of time in which a cow is open for mating. Signs of heat are:
- Loud and persistent bellowing
- A drop in milk production (perhaps 2-8 cups below normal)
- Mounting of and by other cows
There are other signs but these are the most prevalent and noticeable. Lois has always had strong heats in the past but we had not noticed a definite heat since her last calving. We had already delayed her last calving for many months to get her back on a Spring calving cycle and did not want to delay again. To avoid a delay in breeding Lois, we opted to give her Lutalyse. Lutalyse is a hormone used by larger farmers to keep breeding on a set schedule. It causes a healthy animal to come into heat within 3 days of injection. Injecting the Lutalyse was not so easy. The Powermeister was assigned this task as I didn’t want to be the one to stick Lois Lutalyse should not be handled by pregnant women (technically speaking, I’m not still pregnant but why take the chance?).
Lois was pissed off somewhat resistant to being injected so it took The Powermeister 2 tries after 2 different milkings to actually administer the shot. The needle bent but it didn’t break! The Powermeister survived the experience was relieved to have completed the task successfully. Three days later, Lois came into full heat. Mr. Osburne was called to the task and Lois was inseminated with Milking Shorthorn semen (I’ll explain another time why we chose this breed). The Lutalyse worked so well that Lois actually bellowed for 3 days!!
We should know within the month if the insemination was successful and Lois is in-calf!
Selecting Sheep for Meat Production
We got a call today from John. He’s looking to start a small sheep herd to provide meat for his family. You see, a few years ago, John purchased some acreage and built a nice home with the future intention of providing for some of their food. And John has done this without incurring any debt. Way to go, John!
Now John is looking for sheep to provide said food. He called to ask for suggestions on how to go about selecting his sheep. Here’s what we told him
- John is looking strictly for meat production and does not want to shear so a Hair breed is the way to go.
- Look for parasite resistance and general hardiness. Like most of us, sheep don’t like to take medicine either. Worming sheep is generally an arduous task so it is best to select sheep breeds and individual animals that are naturally parasite resistant. Generally, Hair Sheep are more parasite resistant than other sheep breeds because they originated in warmer climates where parasite exposure was year round. But breeders also select individuals according to parasite resistance so over time you can develop a parasite resistant flock, regardless of variety or breed.
- John wants a breed of sheep that can produce meat well in the environment on his property. This includes some pasture as well as brushy areas. Hair sheep are adapted well to John’s environmental conditions. They like to browse brush as well as graze pastures.
- Twinning is an important characteristic. Ewes come equipped with two teats on their udders, perfect for feeding two lambs! Not to mention, you get twice the output for feeding that one ewe.
- The ability to lamb unassisted and mother those lambs is critical. Some sheep are prone to problems like uterine prolapse or toxemia. You want to wake up to find a pair of healthy lambs bounding around, not a dead lamb or ewe that needs special attention. And sheep don’t always care for their young. It is not unusual for a ewe to reject one or both of her babies. This leaves you to care for the “bum” lamb. Feeding an orphaned lamb is like feeding a newborn infant. It requires round the clock care. So good mothering instincts is important.
John and his family were heading out to the local Mennonite Animal sale. Knowing many of the families in that community, it is likely a good place to look.
Tool of the Week: Garden Rake
Standard garden rake
We use two kinds of rakes. One is the leaf rake, which has flexible tines and is useful for raking leaves. The focus of this discussion is the garden rake, which has a wide head and stiff tines.
We use the garden rake to smooth garden beds after tilling. After tilling a small bed the dirt needs to be consolidated and pulled back from walkways. The garden rake is perfect for this task. Also, when we hill up potatoes, the garden rake does good service. Spreading compost over an area of pasture or garden is effectively carried out with this tool.
While clearing land, we create large piles of logs and brush that require burning. As the fire burns low, the garden rake is the perfect tool for pulling scattered embers and unburned material back to the center to completely eliminate waste wood.
The garden rake is also useful for removing undesired clumps of dirt from a garden bed. Anything that doesn’t fit between the tines, such as a clod of dirt, is culled and placed in a compost pile.
While not as picturesque or traditional as the pitch fork, the garden rake can be used to good effect in a rebellion. Afterall, when storming the lord’s castle, there are only so many pitch forks to go around. Don’t show up to such an auspicious event empty handed.
