New Kids for the New Year?

Nubian does catch some late-day sunshine by a chewable tree stump.

At one time I was sure that our three dairy goats were bred to kid in late January, but then I saw the Nubian does being bred again weeks after I had thought they had conceived. Our plans switched from having a barn full of kids in January to only looking for kids from Marcie in January and then from the Nubians in March. However, plans are only made to be changed it seems.

Two days ago, Miss Pamela Chrysanthemum, our tri-colored Nubian doe, suddenly appeared with a filled udder and a low-hanging pregnant belly. I've been watching her closely, and today I was sure she was ready to kid. Okay, so I saw little of the restless pawing behavior some of the Nigerian Dwarf goats used to display shortly prior to kidding, but she did paw a bit. Plus, while she's normally skittish around me, she now seems more tolerant--a behavior I attribute to her being close to delivery.

After spending the afternoon around the barnyard, frequently checking on Miss Pamela, I decided to head indoors when the sun set. As the night got colder, I limited my checks to hourly; however, she now has me convinced that I'll have to wait until the New Year for a chance to serve as her midwife. C'est la vie.

The people and animals here at P&CW Organic Farm wish y'all a Happy New Year and good health throughout 2012.

Our Dominickers' Tractor

The Dominickers are now grass; two hens and their roo.

Our Dominicker chickens have moved into the finally-completed chicken tractor. With only one cockerel and two hens, our little homemade enclosure is sufficient at about forty square feet. (Densely packed, I believe the current norm is to allot two square feet per bird; leaving hardly enough room to turn around comfortably without bumping into a wall or another chicken.)

The black-and-white Dominicker chicken is, as I understand it, considered the oldest American heritage breed, descended as they are from English stock transported to the English Colonies in America. Understandably, the breed is also known as the Pilgrim chicken. They lay brown eggs and appear to be husky enough to serve as a decent meat bird also.

These three birds are better off being out of the kennel. True, they have less space--both horizontally and vertically--but they can now scratch in the grass, leaves and earth for tasty tidbits. I slide the tractor to new ground daily, sometimes more often. Although at first I waited until they were roosting to move the structure, when the distance to be covered is simply the length of the tractor unit the chickens move along with their housing without appearing to be upset.

Currently they have a half dog crate to use for shelter from weather. The hens sometimes choose to lay their eggs under the shelter, but sometimes they lay their eggs just outside the door to the shelter. In the not-too-distant future, I plan to replace the plastic half-shell with some sort of nesting area that is raised up off of the ground.

For now, I am just glad to have them on natural ground while at once enclosed in a predator-proof corral. When they are scratching in the earth, they appear to be in their element--and for that I am happy.

Winter Greens

Young purple cabbage plant.

With a crock-pot of goat roast simmering on the counter, I wandered out to the bed of cool-season greens with Miss Annabelle this morning. No, the cat does not eat the greens, she just keeps tabs on her humans when we first appear. We had a hard frost last night, so several of the plants were dressed with icy shawls.

This bed of late-season greens only went in after area garden centers had divested themselves of their cool-season plant-starts. All of the collards and cabbage arrived the day Edwards Feeds disposed of the remainder of their display, and they were slowly planted over the ensuing weeks. We added a few broccoli plants, too, after Hale Moss of Moss Garden Center brought several flats of plants to a Wilson County Master Gardener meeting. 

One end of our winter greens bed.

Were it not for the free-ranging poultry and the occasional browsing goat, I might have spread the cabbages around as decoration. As it is, young plants cannot survive unprotected because one critter or another will feel moved to scratch at its roots or chomp on its leaves. Indeed, our new goat Starlight saw fit to reach over the short poultry netting "barrier" last week and start pulling up the broccoli plants with abandon.

Maybe by this time next year I will have conceived of a way to maintain the balance of free range birds and landscaping with edible plants. Maybe.

Starlight

Starlight traveling to P&CW Farm.

"Starlight, star bright, first goat I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight. Starlight, I wish to have another sweet Saanen/Alpine cross dairy doe on our farm. Will you come home with me?"

"You betcha, lady." Now, how's that for an agreeable goat?

Starlight moved to our farm from Bethpage, Tennessee a week or so ago. A Saanen/Alpine cross like our undisputed dairy queen, Marcie, Starlight has the sweet temperament associated with the breed. She is said to have consistently produced about three-quarters of a gallon daily on the kid-share plan (where she is milked for human consumption in the morning, then allowed to keep her kids at her side throughout the day before being separated from them again overnight) earlier this year.

Although considerably smaller than our Marciegoat, who is known for throwing her weight around to get what she wants, Starlight is just as personable. She knows and responds to her name and enjoys the company of people. (While our Nubian does will gravitate toward any human bearing food, they prefer to stay just out of reach--not seeking the hands-on attention our other goats seem to like.) At first, when I was outside I served as her herd, and she orbited around my movements with care. Now, I am glad to report, she gravitates toward other goats while still keeping loose tabs on me.

On arrival, Starlight was considerably underweight. (On a body-score scale of five, with 3 being ideal, I'd say she was a 2. Not emaciated, but pretty bony. By contrast, Marcie manages to maintain a 4 as her norm.) We've kept this new goat kenneled with the guardian Biscuit for company at night, and allowed her to roam and browse--still separated from the other goats by fencing--during some daytime hours.

At first the stress of moving caused her some upset. After about two days, though, her digestive tract stabilized and she returned to trailing little goat pellets behind her. Thereafter, I began trimming her feet, nipping off the longest parts while she grazes; I'll finish the job once she's up top with the other goats and we can put her on the milking stand. Tonight, I'll give her some pelleted goat wormer to assist her with weight gain. And soon I'll turn her out up top where she can browse with the other does and with those rapidly-growing Savannah-cross doelings, Taylor and Shea.

Building a Chicken Tractor

The tractor-in-progress, as we left it today.

Today we began building our first chicken tractor. That would be Me and my right-hand helpers, Myself and I. Since we've been thinking on the topic frequently of late, we stopped at Home Depot yesterday to scout out materials. We had not planned to buy because we had left the little farm truck at home; however, the opportunity presented itself.

Our way of joining pieces was crude, but effective.

When we wandered into the chain-link fence section of the store, we stopped to consider the already-fashioned gates. Lo and behold, there we encountered two small gates on clearance, marked down from around $54.00 to $13.50 each. Thus, we determined that these would supply the run's end sides. Even though we thought the rest of the materials would not actually fit in the car, we went ahead and purchased four of the 10'6" connecting poles for chain-link fencing hoping that we could manage it with the long ends hanging out a window. (That worked.) After finding an assortment of hardware we checked out and headed home.

Poultry netting wired onto the frame provides stability.

Today we worked at connecting the pieces. Making the frame was no easy task. Even though we had our work-crew of three, with only one physical body we found balancing the pieces difficult. Once the frame had been fashioned, I found some chicken wire, pardon me, some poultry netting with which to wrap the outside. Although we did not finish the tractor today, we were able to install two courses of netting--enough to stabilize the structure, and a couple of roosting poles for the birds. Hopefully we will finish the project tomorrow. If not, then sometime in the near future. I would really like to get those chickens out of the kennel and onto fresh ground soon.

One conclusion we reached through this exercise was that perhaps the prices of ready-made chicken tractors are more reasonable than we had at first thought. I'll be surfing the web later on to see if our second tractor will be purchased as a complete unit at the outset.

Fresh Eggs are Scrumptious

Hens chatting on a fence rail beside the barn.

Yesterday I had occasion to speak with my friend Josh. Familiar with Publix supermarkets as he is, Josh informed me that his household has switched to buying their eggs from Publix because Publix eggs taste better than any other store-bought eggs they have tried. He went on to explain that Publix is careful to only purchase their eggs from farms where the hens may range freely about the place. How cool is that?

Our hens range freely (except for the few temporarily caught up in the kennel). The eggs they provide for us are delicious: the color is always rich, the yolks are firm, and the flavor is nothing short of scrumptious. Luckily for me, I no longer recall how store-bought eggs taste.

I'm interested that the Publix eggs are advertised as being from hens fed an "all-natural, organic diet" consisting of "four different types of grain." Left alone, most farm animals are not naturally consumers of grain, or at least not in the quantities fed by farmers. Our goal is to raise our chickens on greens (and grubs, bugs, and anything else that catches their fancy). Indeed, those few caged birds--when given both grain and greens simultaneously--seem to prefer the green plants over the grain seeds.

Kenneled poultry awaiting delivery of new greens.

Soon I hope to have a chicken tractor built, a type of mobile chicken shelter, that will allow our hens to roam and feed on pasture while at once being protected from predators--and keeping our multiple roosters separated. Just over a week ago I had occasion to visit Meadow Mist Farm in eastern Massachusetts, where I saw their large mobile chicken cage. Designed of metal hoops, chicken wire, shade cloth, and bent runners for ease of transport, their structure caught my fancy. Although theirs is large enough to possibly require a tractor to move it, I hope to design ours such that one person (or horse or goat) can shuttle it from place to place, while still allowing the hens plenty of room to roam inside.

Living outside of city limits as we do, we are blessed with the riches Nature provides. Thank you, Lord, for all of these gifts--and most certainly for the eggs!