I’ve posted here many times before about this topic, but it’s routine that I get questions from a new reader or customer.
“Do your cows eat GMO grains?”
“Do your cows eat corn feed?”
What you see in this picture is an example of what our cows eat every day, except for in the winter when they eat lots and lots of hay. Our cows eat produce coming from two different farmers markets every day, 365 days a year. Here you see them happily munching on a large pile of summer sweet corns husks. Each pallet (there are two full pallets in this picture) is full of watermelons and mixed in the whole shooting match is tomatoes, zucchini, squash, cantaloupe and anything else you can imagine growing in a garden in the heart of summer. This fall there will be winter squash, pumpkins, lettuce, collards, etc. The cows have about 1000-2000 pounds of this produce a day. This is a supplement, one that they LOVE by the way, to the intensive paddock shift grazing that we do on our farm assuring that our cows get the best of the grass we have each day. At no time do our cows get ANY commercial feed. In fact, at this point, nothing on our farm is getting commercial feed, including the new batch of meat chickens we just received.
Speaking of the new chickens. Here is a test run of the new setup for feeding them. We scavenged a sink and disposal from someone’s kitchen remodel. Luckily we were able to get a nice big 3/4 hp garbage disposal in excellent shape. A quick build by Miguel to get everything mounted and wired and we have a very functional food mill. It does a great job grinding produce into a mush and along with a little water it makes a wonderful chicken food mash. The baby chicks have been started on this mash since day one. At first I was worried they wouldn’t like it but after giving them a little time to figure out what it was, we found that not only did they eat the mash, they absolutely cleaned the bucket. By clean, I mean it looks brand new and polished when they are done. There is NO waste, NO cast-off like there is with chicken feed. For those of you with chickens, you know that they toss an unnerving amount of their feed when they eat. They aren’t messy, they just don’t care much for the commercial feed. Every single speck of mash is gone when they get done with this new setup. I’m already excited for October when this batch of chickens is ready, to see what a difference sunshine, exercise, and a pure vegetable/bug diet does for them.
The Princess, post cake creation and prior to gobbling it up
Having The Princess bake an independence day cake is becoming a tradition at our house. Fluffy cake, whipped cream, and fruit stars and stripes all put together by her Highness. This is a tradition I can get behind!
Spork taking a well deserved break while Miguel loads the last pallet of watermelons
Every day we go to two farmer’s markets to collect all the fresh produce that they cannot sell due to damage. We collect about 2500 pounds per day by my rough guess. That’s 365 days a year or over 900,000 pounds of produce a year to feed our animals which is pretty much their only feed besides what already grows on the farm. Here we are loading on the 4th. Yes that is three pallets of watermelons. This doesn’t show the heaping full truck bed already loaded with other produce. The next day we put FOUR pallets on the trailer and still had the truck full. That was a personal best for me for one day. Cows LOVE watermelons, as do pigs, and chickens, and kids for that matter. The cows are starting to figure out how to break open watermelons and it’s funny to watch them chase the round melons around the pasture. While all the rest of us (animals both in the house and out) still love watermelon, SWMBO is getting a bit tired of watermelon juice covering her counters. Looks like its time to switch to peaches.
Feeding the cows a pallet of food. This is one of three that day.
This pallet was full of sweet corn husks, watermelons, squash, zucchini, and I don’t know what else. By the time the cows were done with it, it was just a pallet and some cardboard. By the end of the weekend, I noted that the cows were looking mighty portly. A few are showing some signs that they may need to be culled but the rest are looking fat and happy with slick coats and not a lot of signs of parasites. Right now #23, #14, and #3 (all brood cows) all look like candidates for culling, along with #28 and #40 (steers) who both had bloat but are doing better now.
Spork shooting his sister’s 22. He went through about 30 rounds and never missed!
The beauty of a longer weekend is even on the farm it’s not all work and no play. I took a little while to take SWMBO, The Princess, and Spork down to the shooting range to get in some practice. Spork was phenomenal, knocking down every target with boring regularity. Since he did so well, we decided to put him to work on our squirrel menace. Every year we have squirrels strip our fruit trees of all of our fruit before it has a chance to be harvested. With Spork doing so well in his shooting, it was time to introduce him to hunting. Between Spork, myself, and Alice, we accounted for 4 of the little fluffy tailed rats this weekend, with more to come.
The Princess trying her hand at shooting.
The gun is still just a bit big for the Princess but she stepped up there and took some shots. She was nervous at first but very excited after shooting. I believe we’ll have her back again this fall when the weather is nice. By then the gun should just about fit her.
Dad and The Princess off to process chickens.
This weekend we processed our 25 freedom ranger chickens. We process on farm and despite being able to sell these chickens pretty much anywhere we want with such a high demand, in the end we are simply going to put them in the freezer and eat them ourselves which was the original plan. There is a difference between home raised chickens and store-bought chickens and we have another 50 on the way for another batch. The Princess was everywhere for processing and did every single job on the line.
The Princess did every job at least once, but this job she did all of the chickens, all by herself.
You never know when catching chickens will be a skill you need to list on your resume.
Miguel using our new killing cone. Miguel made the cones and they worked perfectly.
A quick bleed and the worst part of the job is over. Nobody likes killing animals but these chickens lived a good life on our farm and never had a bad day till this day. I believe you should know where you food comes from and all chicken ends up on the plate somehow. These chickens went from their home to the cone, with no scary truck ride or meat factory in between.
The chicken plucker in action. This is a home made version of the whiz bang chicken plucker.
Note the blood on the face of The Princess. For a minute that morning she said she didn’t want to be around chicken processing, but then she reverted back to her old blood loving self and was in the middle of the fray. Playing with all the blood is her favorite part, unless you count identifying all the organs, which she is quite good at.
Did I mention she’s quite ok with blood?
She’ll probably grow up to be a vegan, but she’ll know where food comes from and how it gets to the plate.
An overview of the process.
Concrete floors, bleach for cleaning, and plenty of water to work with. A pretty good setup. We need to switch to food grade water hoses and tweak a few other things but overall the processing setup is working nicely.
The Princess’s chicken puppet.
When we couldn’t keep enough work for her to do, she reverted to pulling a whole chicken from the ice bath and plopping it on her hand then proceeding to run around acting out scenes with her “chicken puppet.” It was very cute, and quite twisted which at least for me and Miguel was funny. I’m sure someone would say that she’ll have emotional scars from seeing chickens killed or any of the other things she chooses to do on the farm. Folks, playing with a recently deceased chicken couldn’t be more normal. Scarring comes from having the world hidden from children and then they learn reality when they are adults.
Chicken on the counter, ready to be cooked.
For those of you who were put off by the previous images, this probably looks more familiar. Our chicken, grocery store ready, cut into traditional cuts and ready for SWMBO’s magic act of turning this chicken golden brown and yummy.
Fried chicken, straight off the farm.
This chicken was walking and clucking this morning, now it’s our dinner. Thanks to SWMBO’s efforts in the kitchen we sat down to a healthy and hearty meal. Yes it was as good as it looks.
SWMBO vacuum sealing our chickens, getting them ready for the freezer.
And don’t think she’s a one trick pony, just working in the kitchen. Here is SWMBO, still in her workout clothes after having worked out for two hours, bailing us out on the processing line by taking the quality control and packaging station. She saved us because we were getting backed up with not enough hands to do the work. Thanks Honey!
This was just a small part of our weekend. Yesterday evening Spork was excited telling SWMBO about what he and dad were going to do tomorrow. She had to break the news to him that dad had to go to work tomorrow, that he would have to wait for the next weekend to spend the day with dad again. Broke my heart to hear that I was letting him down for today but I guess that means he had a good 4th of July weekend. I know that I did.
Sam, having some private grazing in very lush grass before being loaded onto the trailer
Today was graduation day for Samuel. He was loaded up and took the 1 hour ride to Chadhrey’s in Siler City, NC. Before getting on the trailer I gave Sam some time unmolested to enjoy grazing this small paddock. This is a paddock where we used to feed hay in the winter and now serves as a holding paddock for when cows are run through the corral. Effectively nobody is ever in here and the grass grows very tall and lush. Sam was pretty happy to enjoy grazing the sweet grass tips unmolested by me or other cows competing for the juiciest bits.
After a good breakfast, Sam hopped right onto the trailer and we had an uneventful ride to Siler City. Sam is the son of Spunky, our old milk cow. When we purchased Spunky, she was already bred to one of Dr. Sydnor’s Red Devon bulls so Sam has always been a little different being here with all the Ninjas. However he grew to be a very fine-looking steer and should make excellent meat. Now we begin the 2 week wait for aging and packaging. Hopefully July 17th I’ll be heading to Siler City to pick up all of our meat and we’ll switch over from the porkapalooza we had all winter to beefapalooza all summer.
And in case you are wondering, this cow is destined for our family. The way they eat, I have to be in the cattle business!
#40, in the head gate, being treated for bloat. He feels much better at this point.
About 10 minutes after posting yesterday’s adventure this morning, I received a call from Miguel that we ANOTHER bloated cow. This time #40, a year old steer. The steer wasn’t in nearly as bad of shape as the first two cows, a sure sign we are getting better at diagnosing the issue early. Fortunately and unfortunately we are getting better at this whole thing and we had the steer treated and in the barn in about 30 minutes.
Relieving the bloated gas. Yes that is a turkey injector. The old axiom is, “If it’s stupid but it works, it’s not stupid.”
A small incision and our turkey injector goes in. Again the pressure was relieved and the bull felt immediately better. We made up a bed at La Casa Convalescence and left our new patient to recover beside #9 who is fully recovered but still enjoying her spa treatment.
This afternoon our bull was showing some bloat again so we hauled him back out to the head gate to have the pressure bled off again and this time he received a treatment of DSS surfactant. He is back in the barn on a very limited diet of roughage and water. I will check him again tonight and again in the morning. If he settles down till in the morning he should be ok. If not, we might have to install a trocar to keep the vent open and give his stomach time to settle down.
I’m getting too comfortable doing this vet stuff. I think ignorance was bliss. I kind of miss it.
Our patient, cow #9. She has been pretty sweet through this whole ordeal, causing little trouble
Yesterday I received a call from Miguel that we had another cow with bloat. This time it was number 9. She wasn’t as bad as the previous 2 and Miguel was able to walk her to the barn with not much trouble. After two trips around the horn with the vet, I didn’t see the need for a third. If only I had a large diameter needle. I called a couple of quick sources and couldn’t come up with anything then our new neighbor recommended a turkey injector needle. Eureka! I called United Restaurant Equipment Company and asked them to hold the doors open for me (it was 4:58 and they close at 5). I hauled tail down there and picked up my stainless steel turkey injector. With that, along with scrub , alcohol, and topical lidocaine already on hand I was able to introduce the needle into #9s rumen and bleed off the offending gas in just a few minutes. The bloat quickly subsided and after some additional work we put her in the barn under a fan with plenty of water but no food. This morning she was bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready for breakfast. We are going to hold her until this afternoon to make sure she is ok but so far so good.
This was my first time doing my own surgery on a cow (if you don’t count butchering) so I was a but nervous. Fortunately I had started the day by castrating the piglets we bought Sunday so I was already in home surgery mode. I sure hope the kids don’t need anything. I may be inclined to do that appendectomy on the kitchen table. 🙂
We get a lot of questions on what we feed our animals.
GMO? No.
Corn? No, except sweet corn husks from the farmers market.
Grain? Eh, well, actually yes. But not what you think.
In the video above you can see our cows, having just been turned out onto a new paddock, eating the seed heads from fescue grass. They will eat about 80% of the seed heads, mixed in with the grass they normally eat. These grains are only available for a few weeks in the spring and the cows make full use of the opportunity scarfing all they can while they can. Does this mean our cows are grain fed? I can hear you saying now, “I thought cows weren’t supposed to eat grain. It’s bad for the stomachs or something.” Cows eat whatever they can get naturally. If there is grain available, they will get into it and it will put on fat, just like they do in the feed lots. The difference on our farm is that the cows only get grain when it’s in season (spring) and it’s only a small part of their diet, just like if they were roaming wild.
The plus side for us is we can finish grass-fed cows in June, process in July, and have some marbling in our meat and fat on the hide. Despite what the dietitians would have us believe, fat is what it’s all about. That’s how steaks are graded, based on the marbling of fat.
So don’t worry, our cows are still grass-fed and grass finished, and even the grain they get is grass.
Dottie and her new baby calf, Lightning. This picture is from today, when the calf was a day old.
Normally a birth on the farm is a blessing but not a big deal. However with Dottie we had a lot of concern as she carried her baby to term. A few weeks ago we had the vet out to check all of our cows. Dottie was pregnant we knew but why not check her anyway and make sure things are progressing well. The vet checks, and says that the baby is dead and Dottie has to have emergency surgery to remove the dead fetus or Dottie will die as well. Yikes!
We finish our other cows and rush Dottie to the vet hospital to have surgery. Dottie is our only milk cow, and is the replacement for Maggie who we had to put down due to a broken back. Loosing her baby is pretty much a death sentence for Dottie as well so this whole event wasn’t one of our better days. So I get Dottie to the vet and he checks her one more time to make sure everything is the same and low and behold, the baby is now fine. The vet says she’s due any day, take her home and keep an eye on her. Talk about mixed emotions.
Well some weeks go by and no baby. Dottie’s bag swells to humongous proportions and still no baby. I woke up Saturday thinking I may have to take her back to the vet to find out what is going on. What if the baby really is dead. What if she can’t have the baby. Her bag is huge, that has to be hurting her. I walk out to the paddock to move the cows and see Dottie off away from the other cows in the distance, with a little calf circling her. This is what I saw.
The baby was only hours old, maybe hour old, just getting her feet under her and still wet from birth. She was very friendly, wobbly, and hungry. I checked on her all I could without interfering, and make arrangements to come back and bottle feed the calf that afternoon if she wasn’t able to nurse because for the time I was there, she wasn’t able to latch on. Like I said, Dottie’s bag was huge and it was tough for the little calf to lean down so low to nurse. Thankfully when I got home that afternoon, the little calf was nursing just fine and was dry and healthy. She was cavorting around the pasture and having a large time.
The Princess and I talked about the new calf and worked out a name. You see, the night the calf was born, we had a major thunderstorm here on the farm. Lightning knocked out our internet (as in burnt to a crisp components) and blew up our fence charger. The Princess decided that this little girl calf was to be named Lightning in honor of the storm on her birthday.
We’ve had a bad run lately with the vet. I elected to have the vet out a few weeks ago and check over the cows and the pigs. Apparently having the vet out here caused the cows to decide they like having doctors around and now I seem to have the vet out once a week. First a little bull calf, #28 started having issues and eventually bloated with gas till he was dangerously sick. The name for this condition is simply enough, called bloat. If you are curious, here is more information on bloat than you ever wanted to know.
We took the calf, who was none to keen on getting to the barnyard or on the trailer, to the vet hospital where they tubed him and put medicine directly into his rumen to help with the bloat. Unfortunately the medicine wasn’t enough and later that night the vet had to introduce a trocar directly into his rumen to directly vent the gas through his side.
#28, in the head gate at the vet, waiting for the vet to begin working on him.
Despite the medicine from the tube, the trocar, and everything else that was done, #28 didn’t recover well and the next day the vet called and said he wasn’t going to recover and needed to be put down. So off I go to the vet with the trailer to get this cow, take him home, and put him down. He’s a young bull, about 1 year old and all we can do is bury him because we’ve given him medicine and now he cannot be used for beef. However when I pull up he’s standing there looking at me, ready to get in the trailer and go. The vet says that he suddenly started feeling better and to take him home and see if he lives although no promises.
So Miguel and I set up a convalescent stall in the barn complete with a fan for cooling and fresh food and water. #28 recovers well and as of Sunday is just about ready to go back to pasture.
Then Saturday, after more than a full day, I receive a call from a visitor who wants to take a tour. I’ve been going hard since about 5am. I’ve been covered in about every disgusting thing you can think of all day, I’ve just taken a shower and finally have on clean clothes for the first time since I got out of bed and frankly I’m beat. Not to mention I’m supposed to cook dinner that night for SWMBO and the kids. But they are here and want to see the cows. Ok, back to the barn for a quick tour. And thank God I did, because I find that #15, Love, has a huge case of bloat and won’t last long. I call the vet again, and have them start heading towards the farm. While they are coming I conduct an abbreviated tour for the family who was very nice. As soon as they leave, the vet shows and I wrangle Love to the barn and into the head gate where she gets her own trocar after a many failed attempts to get a tube down her throat.
Love getting more attention than she wanted in the head gate.
Love was so bloated she barely fit through the corral. The vet had to get the gas off of her quickly so he used three needles directly into her rumen and it sounded like he’d stuck a needle into a basketball. Many psi were bled off of Love, who was thankful for the relief from the pressure and pain. She wasn’t long for this world if we hadn’t found her and treated her immediately. Thankfully I got up and gave that tour rather than being lazy. It just goes to show that getting up and doing what needs doing, especially when you don’t want to, is what it takes to keep your animals healthy and alive.
The Hilton, where both of our cows are getting room service daily.
So we’ll keep an eye on both of these cows for the next few days and hopefully reintroduce them to the pasture with no problems. And while we’re hoping, let’s hope no more vet for a very long time.
Folks, we’ve hit the bottom of the barrel. With the help of Kayla at The Butcher and the Baker in Fayetteville we are officially out of EVERYTHING porcine except for fatback, pigs feet, and smocked ham hocks. Everybody knows that fatback and smoked hocks are great for collard greens and we won’t have any good collards till this coming winter however there are other things you can do with those cuts. Before I talk about that though, let me tell you about feet.
I made pork stock (foot soup as SWMBO called it) and used two pigs feet in the stock rather than pork bones. I simmered the stock for about 24 hours, drained all the chunky bits, and froze the stock in vacuumed bags. Easy! Darling Wifey decided to use some later for a recipe and folks, let me tell you, that stock was jello! I don’t mean it was thicker than the watery stuff you get at the store, I mean you could stick a spoon in it and it would hold it upright. It brought a richness to her cooking you just can’t get any other way. If you’ve never tried homemade stock before, get a couple of feet from us, they are on sale, and find out what real stock is all about. Pork stock isn’t something you can buy in the store like chicken or beef stock. If you aren’t sure what to do with it, there are some good ideas here and a recipe here. You can substitute pork stock for pretty much any stock you would use. It’s a neutral taste and not “porky” but it’s oh so rich.
Now onto fatback. Here is a quick blurb on fatback from Fine Cooking. Have something a bit too lean, add some fatback to make it awesome. Think fat is bad for you? Then read this, or this to learn the truth. Your brain is 60% fat. Give it what it needs. We have a ton of fatback left, it’s time to give fat a try. If you are cooking for your family this weekend, sneak some fatback into the recipe and watch them react to the flavor when it hits the table. Fat makes everything better.
Lastly we have smoked ham hocks. The best breakfast I ever ate was red beans and rice, sitting in a little hut in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. I can’t promise you the view I had, but with some of our smoked hocks, you can have the red beans and rice, plus a whole lot more. Check out these recipes for some ideas.
I can hear you saying now, “But I want PORK CHOPS, wrapped in bacon! When are you going to have that?”
The next pig we have processed will be used at our event on June 28th. If you want some porcine goodness that you don’t even have to cook, then get your tickets now. After that, we have some more pigs that are a few months from being done. We are currently looking to buy some more feeder pigs and should be back in stock going forward.
We also have the first of our cows ready to process. He’s going into the family freezer, but we may sneak a few cuts out for you to sample so good news, meat is on the way.
Yesterday’s paddock on the left, today’s on the right
Grazing update from 6-8-2014. The paddocks are about 35 yards wide, and half the length of the main pasture. They are split in length on the bottom of the field where all the repair work was done last year for erosion. While the cows eat a lot of the seed heads, they leave quite a bit standing as you can see in the picture. The dog fennel is rearing its head, and the thistle is coming up thick but only in areas where there is an issue. I hate thistle, but it’s a pioneering plant that is good for recovery of soil. Having it be so selective where it comes up is satisfying because it was starting to pop up everywhere. As we’ve recovered soil health, it’s starting to choke out in the good stands of grass and only appear where things need more help. I love it when what we are doing works.
One thing both Spork and I noted was that the cows are leaving quite a bit of grass behind. They aren’t reaching under the hot wire at all, nor are they eating down the grass past a first bite or two. The clover is being decimated as usual but the grass is only getting decent pressure. As we head into summer, that’s where I want the grass to be. Tall and not under pressure, even though the fescue will go dormant and our warm season grasses will take over, the fescue will help shield the ground from the heat of summer. We will clip this pasture as we’ve done the others, leaving about 8″ of height and plenty of litter on the ground to help rebuild the soil. One big reason the grass is not getting so much pressure is that huge amount of veggies and fruits we are bringing onto the farm each day. We literally bring thousands of pounds of produce on the farm, most of which goes to the cows. The cows are getting a lot of what they want from these loads of produce, and are filling in the corners with a days grazing. The end result if happy, fat cows with no grain (except seed heads).
One issue I’m noting is that the flies are especially bad this year. There is a swarm around the cows and I don’t want to use chemicals to ward them off. We ordered another batch of meat chickens last week. I’m hoping to get the chicken tractors back in production behind the cows so they can start eating the fly larvae. That is supposed to put a dent in the fly population. It’s about time these chickens started earning their keep around here.
