Paddock Shift Rangeland Management

So the paddock on the right had the cattle on it for 4 days, the paddock they're being moved onto on the left hasn't had any cattle on it for just over a month.

It's interesting to watch from one paddock to the next what the cows eat versus what they leave untouched.

The new 1.0 joule, 25 mile Zareba energizer has done a great job in teaching the cattle to stay off the fence. Our herd bull, who has figured out, to my chagrin, that he can pretty much walk through 5 strand barb wire doesn't want anything to do with the electric fence.

This paddock shift has a two fold purpose, first to rest the main pasture for a month going into fall and second to give the Belties and Arial as much good grass as we can before they start calving in October. I can't quantify it, but I expect the manure run off into the swales will also encourage the trees' growth. I'm hoping in the future as we free range the chickens they'll help with spreading the cow paddies.

We've seen a continued improvement of the grasses in the paddocks, and hope that continues on in the future. We'll probably run them through one last time in November, then let the ground rest until March.

I've attached a lot of pictures below of this paddock shift.

Homesteading is hard.

Yes, you heard that right. Homesteading is hard. Mother nature is a cold hearted wench. She, along with nature, will conspire to kill you, your family members, your livestock, your crops, tear down your fences, and wreck your equipment.

My heart breaks with each animal we lose, be they family pets or humble chickens. No matter how many hours I spend after work or on the weekends working on the homestead, there always seems to be another dozen projects that needed to get done. I get up at 4:15 the days I work so I can feed before I go to work. I feed again after I get home, and set up to speed up my work the next morning.

So why do we keep doing it?

Because it's real.

Because we know exactly how our food is raised.

Because there's no better way to raise your children than on a farm. Especially if you want them to make their own way in the world. A farm is a PhD level course in problem solving, empathy, and effort.

Because for Millennia, our forefathers had this struggle, they made it and that same blood flows through our veins.

We've accepted the challenge. I'll do my best to share our triumphs, tragedies, lessons learned, to hopefully make your journey a little easier.

This Little Piggy

As time progresses I'll do my best to take pictures of the hogs from this angle so that you can watch them progress size wise. To date they haven't been affected by the heat or rain that we've had this summer. I expect to see them really take off growing with the cooler fall weather that's just around the corner.

If turning table scraps, cracked corn, spent brewers grain, and pig pellets into bacon isn't Alchemy I don't know what is.

They should graduate to the freezer shortly after Thanksgiving. We're hoping for about 150 pounds of meat from each hog, it'll be interesting to see how they dress out.

Ideal 236 Chickens

On July 28^th we had 55 chickens show up at the local post office. 30 were Cornish Cross and 25 were the Ideal Nursery’s 236. The 236 is a proprietary breed that Ideal has been selling since the 60’s, apparently involving a Leghorn crossed with a couple of other chickens. The 236 chickens will become the foundation of our laying endeavor.

The 236’s on the other hand were all fully feathered by the end of week three. Zero have died of natural causes, and even though their coop isn’t 100% snake proof, I haven’t lost any of them to snakes since week 3 due to their ability to fly and roost as high as they can. The FrankenChickens on the other hand have had 2 succumb to snakes over the last 3 weeks, in part, I think, due to their inability to fly and/or roost above ground level. The other thing I’ve been impressed with since I started letting them free range during the day is how little feed they’re consuming.

We won’t know until they actually start laying how truly efficient their egg production is. That’s the real baseline I’m concerned with is how close can I come to breaking even on my feed costs through selling the excess eggs. They love going outside to forage and as it starts to get dark they head back into the coop without too much prodding. They all sleep off the ground, roosting like chickens should.

Overall, I couldn’t be any happier with the 236 chickens. They have been easy to raise and vigorous growers. 

We’re 5 weeks in and what a difference in the 236 chickens from the FrankenChickens. They’ve been vibrant, active, curious, and healthy. They were the same size as the Cornish Cross when they arrived, and while the Cornish are now roughly 4 times bigger the Cornish look rough, and are nowhere near being completely feathered out.  Yesterday I found one of the Cornish who looked as though he’d just gone to sleep and didn’t wake up. No abuse from his buddies, just dead.

Rib-Eye Super Hero or Dinner?

The Belties and Dexters should start calving in the early part of October. Between the birth of the new calves and the two years it'll take to get them ready for the plate we needed something to fill the freezer. Enter Rib-Eye.

I found him on Craigslist from a farm that I've seen selling livestock pretty consistently over the two years I've been hear. They do a great job of telling the story of their animals, combined with good photos they got me to their farm without too much hesitation.

Their farm was spotless. I don't know how they do it. The grass was manicured, the stock yard did not have the multitude of cow patties that you can see in the picture above, and the house looked like sane people lived there. :-)

Rib-Eye will have until early December next year to roam the paddocks, munch on native Texas grasses, and enjoy being a steer. We went with a full size breed to fill the freezer and maximize the fact that we only have 5 cows on the pasture right now. Should my Belted Bull keep walking through fences, he may wind in the freezer first...

Chorizo and Bacon

On August 18th we added three new team members to the Snow Compound, Rib-Eye a Short Horn steer and 2 hogs. One is a pure blood Red Wattle, the other is 75% Red Wattle and 25% Duroc. The full blood is named Chorizo, and the Duroc/Wattle cross is named Bacon.

They've added a lot to the farm. Their is something oddly comforting about hogs grunting and oinking. 100% of our kitchen waste is now being turned into bacon. If that ain't magic, I don't know what is.

The hogs have tilled their pen completely up. We've had enough rain recently for them to dig a couple of epic wallows. They are gaining weight at a really good clip. To date they've both seemed immune from the heat and humidity that have stalked us like a crazy ex-girlfriend.

I will say this, there is an intelligence in their eyes that the cows and chickens simply don't possess.

Photo Credit: Serena Garcia-Diaz

Who's Afraid of FrankenChickens?

Well, we're just about halfway to putting 25 or so Cornish Cross chickens in the freezer. To date, most every time I do an internet search about anything Cornish Cross related I get nothing but bad press. They die mysteriously, they grow faster than their bodies can handle, the list goes on and on.

We've lost 3 to snakes. (How do I know they were snakes? It's pretty obvious that Mr. Snake got the fat chicken about a quarter of the way down and realized that though he'd been able to constrict said chickens, his eyes were bigger than his stomach and had to cede defeat.) In unison with the case of the partially eaten chickens, I noticed a lot of our eggs disappearing. After some research I ordered some faux eggs from Amazon. As the wooden eggs disappeared, the chickens stopped dying. Eventually I'm sure we'll find a couple of snake skins with several wooden eggs in them... :-)

The remainder of the Cornish have grown at the advertised phenomenal rate. They run around, though not nearly as much as the Ideal 236s. I do find it really strange how content they are to sit and eat, I've never seen another chicken do this. They've handled the Texas heat and an unseasonably humid summer like champs.

In the future when we raise more I think having them in a Salatin like trailer will do a lot to help them to further express their chickenhood. I wouldn't raise them with traditional chickens again. The smaller, more active chickens this week started to pick at the Cornish, causing us to separate them into two pens.

Hopefully I'll get a couple of guys at work hooked on knowing the name of the chicken they're eating.

Saying Goodbye to a Friend

Life on the farm is hard. We are at the mercy of nature for just about everything, and in Texas, as in most places, it seems nature is out to kill everything we do. That's the deal, so you roll with it.

Last week, I had an early show for a flight, and like a hundred times before I left the front gate open thinking it would make my wife's trip to school a bit faster. Around 6:45 I got a call from my wife. She was hysterical, as were the girls in the background. My initial thought was that one of them was hurt.

Thankfully they were all safe and sound. Katniss had been hit by a car and killed instantly.

I moved into the farm on the first of August 2014. I found Katniss through a shady Craigslist ad. She was 1/2 German Shepherd, and 1/2 unknown. She was kind and loyal, smart and fierce, gentle and patient. I'd never had a dog so well trained and so good natured.

My wonderful wife didn't get here until late May 2016. During that interim Katniss was involved in every project, adventure, and trial the farm could throw at us. She planted trees, dug swales, herded cattle, protected chickens, and made me smile more times that I could count.

Since Andrea arrived Katniss had stopped coming into the master bath as I got ready for work. That day was different. She came in, never stopped staring at me, loved on me before I left. I'd told that dog a dozen times how blessed I was to have had her in my life. I like to think that she knew her time with me was at an end, and that was her way of saying good bye.

I came home to bury her, in tears most of the way. My dear wife had been kind enough to wrap her up in a sheet. I wrapped her in the blanket she'd slept on since she was a pup, and drove her down to our favorite place on the farm.

Little Red went with me, and was so very sweet. Little Red had just gotten a new dog, and I'm so happy that her dog was ok, it would have been more than I she could have handled along with starting a new school. She's also a Harry Potter aficionado, and understood implicitly why I needed to dig the hole myself, rather than borrow the neighbors backhoe. It was humid and pushing 90 by the time I finished. That time made it clear why we place so much emphasis on rituals. Digging the grave, talking with Little Red and Katniss while I dug made it so much easier to finally say goodbye.

Katniss will not be forgotten. I'm a better person for having known her.