News of the Week

• Growing Your Own Chickens On the Rise - a small town works out how small a property can keep chickens. A sad thought is that we are forced to undo 50 yrs of zoning laws to return to the "old days" where chickens were kept cleanly and safely on rooftops and small backyards.
• Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe - Seems like even the Sun is thinking we aren't preparing very well.
  
• If Mother Nature had a Dow Jones Index - Natural Capital is a way of estimating the economic costs of environmental services. Like, how much is a tree worth? Thomas Friedman (him of the Flat Earth view of globalization) has lately come around on the issue of environmental collapse and renewal. (Personally, I think his mustache may have short-circuited his pro-free market beliefs)
• Shelf-life of Supermarket Foods - A database you can look up any food and storage type and you can see how long it well last. Look here for the canned food recommendations.
• DIY Soda Bottle Hydroponics - why not try something that is tropical or too long for your season? Here's soemthing that would fit on your deck easily.

All the Goat News Fit to Print: March Edition

Now that Spring has thought about springing here in upstate NY, time to start thinking about fun things - like Goats Goats Goats!

1. Life Too Quiet in Winter? Try Farming! - article from Martha's Vineyard Gazette about the farming community getting fired up for spring. And summer. And fall. Doesn't seem like we have any down time...
2. F.D.A. Approves Drug From Gene-Altered Goats - NYT article about genetically modified goats that express a human blood protein in their milk. Just milk 'em and then centrifuge the milk to remove the new pharmaceutical. Wow.
   
3. An Interview with the World's Best Weedwhacker - An older Mother Earth News article, up close and personal with a caprine challenger. C'mon, that's cute. You know you want to read that. And it's short.
4. Are You Ready to be a Livestock Addict? - HobbyFarms article that has some nice considertations for the beginner but also some great species-by-species breakdowns of pros and cons. And maybe even making money!
5. New Hope for Attracting Large Animal Vets - help save our animal food production!

An End to Winter, but the beginning of Spring?

After our "animals on roofs" excitement, we are slowly lurching towards spring. It isn't the end of winter - last March brought 2 18" snowfalls and then a hailstorm on May 20th that devastated the tomato and pepper transplants. Cautionary excitement is the key, as Alan Greenspan may someday say about gardening.

This week's highlights

1. Mud Season Begins - It rained last night - Carol woke up and asked, "What is that noise?" By my count, this is the first rain we have had since the November ice storm - 4 months ago. All snow since then. More rain tonight and so flood warnings are up all over NY. Not an issue for our roads or basement, but it sure does make the paths a slog.
2. Reclaiming the "Pig Paddock" - after the Great Pig Escape of 2008 (quite a rhymer there), they were sent to a comparative "Attica" and then spent 6 weeks obliterating the super-secure northern goat paddock. It is about 1/8 acre and they tilled the beejesus out of it - I believe they unearthed rocks not seen since the glaciers retreated from here. We spent Saturday flattening it out as best we could and then Carol re-seeded it with the pasture blend. Not totally flat, but the slope, muddiness, and narrowness of the gate eliminates any tractor or mechanical flattening.
3. First Kiddings on the Horizon - we are 8 weeks out from our first kiddings, so we are sharpening the hoof trimmers and stocking up the BoSe for the ladies. That will be in 2 weeks when we can both take a day to get it done in one fell swoop. Our kiddings spread over 7 weeks (13 does), but they will mostly cluster in the first two weeks of May. Gotta recharge the kidding supplies and check out Hoegger.
4. Whether Weather Will Cooperate - the recent warm weather has been enough to unfreeze the top layer of soil so that I can close the hoophouse door - it had frozen open when the icestorm came and we couldn't budge it without taking it off the hinges. Now we can plant out the spinach seedlings (all 200 of 'em) and stop buying store spinach. About 2 weeks behind last year, but it was so wickedly cold that even if the door were closed, we couldn't have grown anything. That'll be next weekend (seedlings will be 3 weeks old and have their second set of leaves) and then we'll start tomatoes and peppers in their place under the lights in the house.
5. Time to Move the Chickens - The higher number of chickens (last year's August chicks are just now starting to lay) and the 3 Muscovy ducks have shredded the chicken yard - the long fall didn't help - so we are going to get them off the yard by moving them out front to last year's new block garden (60 x 30). Fence them in with temp electric fencing and figure out a Egg-mobile from one of last year's chicken tractors. 8 weeks should give a re-seeding enough of a time to grow before they return. And in return for dry feet, those lovely chickens will till and fertilize the front garden for the squash, beans, popcorn, and sunflowers!

Looking back at 2008

It has been a while since I have found the time to write in the blog – I just don’t make it enough of a priority. As I finished up my bookkeeping from last year, finally updated the goat pages, and was trying to figure out changes for this year I figured I could use the blog to organize my thoughts.

1. Pigs are great tillers and delicious to eat; however, our clever pigs figured out how to escape from the temporary fencing. We think they found a way to dig under the black (uncharged) line of the fence and push the entire fence up. We always checked the charge; I just think one of our girls was extra smart. Anyway, the three pigs took a long walk (for a week) and we had to post signs all over the place. In the end, it was just knowing and calling the farmers in the area that allowed us to get our pigs back.

Moral of the story: pigs are easier to raise in permanently fenced areas that are divided by temp. fencing for rotational grazing.
Future projects: fence in all the pasture areas with permanent fencing.

Unfortunately, until we raise the capital for the fencing we are not going to be raising pigs. We are hoping the tilling and re-seeding that happened last year (see pics here) will be enough to get our pastures in better shape.

2. Turkeys are not the brightest animals. Unfortunately, we experienced heavy predation on our turkeys over the course of a week. We set out traps and the predators disappeared and haven’t come back. As it appeared the turkeys literally went up to the predators and allowed their heads to get pulled off. This is the only explanation, since there was a corner that was completely protected from predators where they could have hidden. All of the dead birds were not found anywhere near the corner.

Moral of the story: wild animals have as much right to eat our animals as us.
Future projects: keep our dogs outside a lot more!

3. Muscovy ducks are awesome! We plan on raising many more of these hardy guys this year. They fend for themselves, do a great job foraging, get along well with the chickens in the winter (since they are sharing the same area), and taste yummy.

4. A good dog is worth its weight in gold. We lost our wonderful Caille this summer right after a canoe camping trip. She had lots of fun while camping, but came home really sick. After three days we had to put her down. It was tough! I had been looking for a third dog for a while and with Caille gone Mira was getting very lonely. I found the dog I was looking for (Cassidy) and she is everything I want in a dog – very loving, smart, willing to work with the animals on the farm, great with the birds (doesn’t ever try to eat them), and willing to learn. This past week she even figured out how to climb onto the top of the barn (what a freak!).

Moral of the story: Caille will be missed!! Although the goats were really good about following us out to the pastures, they weren’t the best at going back home. The birds were very difficult to move without a dog to help.
Future projects: Train Cassidy to herd our animals to make rotational grazing much easier.

5. Rabbits may be our next project… We need to find a way to raise more money on the farm in order to make this a sustainable adventure. At this point we don’t feel like we have the space to expand our goat herd. Once we have a new barn and fence in the pastures this will be our highest priority. It is pretty difficult to make money with chicken, pigs are escape artists, and turkeys like to get their heads cut off. In the end, we think ducks and rabbits are places to expand. Only 2009 will tell us whether this is a good idea.

Moral of the story: it is tough to make money while farming
Future projects: rabbits???

-Carol