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Genetic Scientists Develop Sheep With Brain Of A Goat

Five for Friday: Taking A Breath

The past 8 weeks have been pretty trying - we have been going all-day, everyday with old projects (rotational grazing of the lawn and pasture, meat chickens, garden starts, and goat birthing season) and new (turkeys, selling goat kids, pigs, ducks, new front garden). So here is an all-encompassing "Five for Friday"

1. Pigs Pasture Pretty Perfectly - pigs are now on their fourth 40' x 40' patch of pasture. They spend just 7 days per pasture patch and do a good job at ripping out the roots for about 50% of that area. The remainder is "pooping ground" that they don't disturb and some space that they probably just don't like. Carol reseeded the previous patches this week, minutes before a soaking T-storm rolled in. More about that mix later. Here they are sleeping it off:

2. Turkeys Are Poop Machines - the turkeys are 4 weeks old today and have been out on pasture for 2 weeks. They aren't supposed to get that kind of outdoor exposure so early, but the hot spell in early June brought us up to the 90s. Now it is in the 70s, but they are big enough. Big enough to eat, poop, and grind up beaucoup lawn. I can't tell if much of it is being flattened by poop or grazing. We are moving them (15 turks on 96 sf) every 3 days right now (they are eating 2 quarts of 22% feed per day, the graze supplements that).

3. Selling Goats is Sometimes Frustrating - this is probably true for almost any business, but we have had our first case of a customer backing out, pre-deposit. They dithered about the deposit, all the while raving about the opportunity. When the deadline came, we received an email citing $ concerns and a phone message citing vacation concerns. The answer probably lies somewhere between, but they strung us out for 2 weeks - next time will be easier, just more legal about the deposit policy. Here are the kids, walking the tight rope, err, tight plank and you can't see it, but they "SPROING" off when they come to the end of it.

4. Milking Goats Actually Do Make Milk - Carol is milking 11 does right now (6 seniors and 6 first fresheners, 1 senior begins milking Monday). We are running out of quart jars! The pigs have gotten some of the extra whole milk (today they will be getting some whey) and we have made some thin yogurt and our first cheese today. It isn't a special cheese (the cultures and cheesemaking equipment are coming on Tuesday) - it is panir and will tasty in some Panir Potato Rounds on Sunday night (shush, don't tell Carol).

5. My Girls Will Be FarmGirls - Just look, this is their favorite post-dinner pose. Precious.

Climate Change in the News

• NPR "Talk of the Nation" - Climate Change (already) Affecting US Water, Agricultural and Forests. Duh. 12 minute story.
• NPR again, Is It Better to Eat Locally or Eat Differently? 12 minute story that looks at local vs transported food, conventional vs organic, grass-fed vs grain-fed. In the end, eating lower on the food chain is better than eating higher, regardless of how it is grown.
  
• Falls Church News-Press: Why is energy supply so iffy these days? Newspaper commentary by Tom Whipple about the little-seen electrical grid troubles (Zanzibar power outage in its second week). Just adding in renewable or nuclear power and replacing coal/natural gas may not be the solution.
  

What We Should Be Doing Today?

He:
She: What is wrong?
He: I am thinking about all the things we have to do...
She: It's a short list. Really short.
He: What?
She: A short list of many things.
He: So, not infinitely long.
She: Right.
He: Really you can boil it down to just two things.
She: What?
He: Survive and reproduce.
She: You are such a biologist.
He: You too.

Chicks, turkeys, ducklings, pigs, hens, and goats, oh my! Oh, and the garden too!

What We Have Learned So Far: TURKEYS 1

1. Broad white breasted turks are messy and stupid compared to Slates.
2. Turkeys are very quiet compared to the baby chicks. Precocious too - at 1 week, they are already trying to jump up and out of the brooders.
3. They eat a lot of feed too - much more than a comparably sized (older) chick.
4. We went with newspaper bedding for the first few days - then went with second cutting hay as a bedding/supplement. Much better, especially with messy turks. And they eat a bit of it, prepping them for mowing our lawn for us.
   
5. Carol's new style of brooder works really well for ducks, turks, and chicks.

from Poultryhelp.com, we don't have our brooders over carpet!

And this weekend (at 9 days old and with temperature forecast to be 90-92 F), they are going out onto pasture, a la Salatin.

The fashion show

What Darcy, Mike, and Barbara missed on the next day. Can we say the girls were a little excited about their girlie clothes. I have no idea where that came from, I was always a tom-girl.

What We Have Learned So Far: PIGS 1

We got pigs two weeks ago - three gilts (intact females) from a man (Mr. Larsen) that I met around the corner from our butcher (Eagle Bridge Smokehouse). We had to wait longer than we wanted, but when we got them, 11 of the 12 goats had birthed. I guess that was a good time to start another set of animals!


We set up the pigs inside of temporary electric netting from Premier1. The rule-of-thumb is that pigs must be trained to electric fencing. Mr. Larsen had the pigs on a 12" single electric wire, so the girls knew about it. But to be sure we could train them to the white fencing, we put them inside of one of the goat paddocks for a week. They tilled the beejesus out of the ground under their shelter (the pigloo) and some of the fenced area (about 20% of their 40' by 40').


What We Have Learned

1. Pigs really, really do till very well. Make sure you have pasture seed mix to lay down after you move them.
2. They can be friendly enough that you can reach down and pick them up by their rear hoofs, one pig at a time.
   
3. They can scream a bloodcurdling shriek when scared. Amazingly loudly. Make sure the neighbors know you are not practicing vivisection on them.
   
4. Keep them a little hungry and they will do a little more tilling for you.
5. They don't eat oranges or orange peels.
   

References to Pigs

• Monty Python's "Holy Grail" on Youtube - "Camelot, good pig country that." (right at 3:20)
  
• All around the world we luuuvve us some pigmeat (WikiP on Pigs)
• Finally, how "pig in a poke" and "let the cat out of the bag" are related to each other. (WikiP on pig in a poke, in multiple languages!).
  

Durin's Day and Toys

"The Keyhole on Durin's Day"
by Anke Eissmann

There is a passage in Tolkien's "The Hobbit" where a very special day (Durin's Day) that is computed by a calculation of when the last moon of autumn is in the sky just as the sun sets at a particular peak.

But the chief dwarf notes, "It passes our skill in these days to guess when such a time will come again."

Yesterday, we went to the box store to buy a replacement CD player when the Strawberry Shortcake CD player crapped out after just about 2 yrs. It still plays the radio, but the CD player often takes forever (or never) to recognize the CD. So as we stood in front of the two choices, Bri asks me:

Bri: Will this one break?
Me: Of course, all things break in time.
Bri: Why?
Me: I don't know. They just do. It is just a question of "can we fix them?"

And that is when I realized that toys today are like Durin's Day to the dwarves - it passes our skill to repair most of them. We have the will but not the skill to fix small lasers, electronic circuits, etc. So we toss them out. Bah.

And this is what happens to all our unrepairable toys:

The guilt is palpable!!!

Goat Kidding Stories

Selene - When first-timers prolong labor until everyone gets bored.

• Carol is sitting inside of the "kidding hut" (what will become the pigloo when the pigs arrive 3 weeks later). It is about 40 F, the wind is howling, and Carol is huddled up inside with Selene, a first-time mother-to-be. She has a flashlight, a blanket over her legs, a hat, and a heavy barn shirt on. And she is still cold. Carol has been singing to her. I have been inside grading finals - coming out every half an hour to check on her.
• Around 11pm I come out and sit down outside and hang out for a few minutes. Eventually... Carol started passing the time by doing shadow puppets with her hands :D They don't tell you about this in goat books, but it must happen.

Erica - the big baby on your lap. Emphasis on big.

• Erica is a big goat. A big dwarf goat. This is her third breeding season and she hadn't carried a kid to term yet, so this was our last best chance.
• We weren't sure about her being pregnant, because she is, ummm, "well-conditioned" as Molly at Fiasco Farm would say. But when her udder began filling in about a month ago, we had a good feeling. But how many were in there?
  
• So last week, on the day when Erica began to show signs, two other does popped before her. Moonlight (a first-timer) and Johnny (a second timer). Still nothing from Erica.
• About this time, Carol begins to formulate the thought that Erica is holding back on the labor. We keep Erica separated, she is "gooing" and upset and pacing.
• That night Carol stays out with her... singing and passing the time in the pigloo. Finally, Carol gives up on her around 11pm.
• Next morning, Erica is anxious and waiting. Waiting for Carol to come in. When she does, Erica starts labor contractions. She fights/clenches back the contractions. She gets really anxious. She lays down and places her neck and head on Carol's lap. "Pet me. Soothe me. This really hurts."
  

Mina - Her second set of kids would be different than the first, right?

• Last year, we knew something was up, but she didn't show any good signs, so we sat down to lunch. Three minutes later we hear her screams from the barn... come running down... and there is the first kid with her nose sticking out.
  
• This year would be different. We had separated her, but she didn't show any signs. Maria and her kids were visiting and we had just sat down to begin lunch when... Mina's screams came from the barn! We come running and there is the whole head of a kid poking out! Third time is a charm.

not Mina, but this is the idea.