Another Tractor
It’s been a productive week despite ending on cold weather. Mind you, it’s about time and I cannot believe that we have gotten away with warm weather for as long as this.
I have gotten the frame made for the additional chicken tractor but the snow stopped play on the wiring and roofing. We use a low, light tractor because we move it by hand every single day to ensure fresh grass and bugs for the guys to eat. did you catch that? Yes, I said guys! All of the birds we grow here on the pasture are roosters, cocks, cockerels, or males. This is because they are a lot more active and in my opinion that translates to better flavor! They much prefer to chase down grasshoppers and such and I found that the hens (females) tend to camp out at the feeder.
All of the other animals are doing well. The sheep are swelling nicely, especially the two year old’s and older, as they will be having twins. The yearlings only have one lamb, I like to think that it’s a practice run! The sows seem to have taken the AI process and they certainly look happy and fat. During the winter we stop the hand feeding for two reasons, firstly it’s hard on Sally. The colder weather means that the demands on food and water are far higher and because of the short daylight it falls to her to take care of things a lot of the time. Most animals eat three times more food just to keep warm. Secondly, I like the girls to get a good layer of fat on them so I use a hopper and allow them full time access to the good stuff. We use a locally milled, non GMO and no corn feed. I like it even though its very expensive. That fat layer will keep them nice and warm especially bedded down on lots of straw and good hay.
Don’t forget our motto here “We are what THEY eat”
Talking of hay. We use it three different ways here on the farm. We feed it to the sheep and cows, and also bed the pigs down on it. I’m sure everyone knows that because they are both the usual things to do with hay. What might surprise you is that we also spread it over the ground. Waste? Not so. We do it for a few different reasons, the winters here in Kansas are very dry and as a result we sometimes get bare ground. Nature abhors bare ground as it gets even more dry through evaporation. Natures way to combat this is to grow broad leaved plants as quickly as it can to cover the ground again, the problem is that weed species are the fastest growing. We use the hay to cover the ground before weeds grow, and with the added benefits of it being a low grade fertilizer, it adds grass seeds to our soil, and brings the worms and fungi back to us to feed! Who wouldn’t want worms to party in their back yard?!