We’d already made tentative arrangements with a farmer near Rocky Mount to come by and see his pigs. He had Tamworth and Duroc cross pigs, which is a cross of something I like. He also said he had plenty of pigs on the ground which was great because I needed someone who was serious about the business and didn’t have a few piglets here or there. This is mainly because I don’t want a repeat of the medical crisis we’ve just emerged from that was caused by our last pig purchase.
I talked to Frankie and his wife Tracy and as promised they were available to meet us on our way home from Little Washington. We drove to Bethel, which was almost exactly on our way home and thanks to the Waze app on my phone we found it quickly. Have I mentioned how much I love Waze? If you don’t have it yet, stop what you are doing and get it now. Free and awesome.
Anyway, we pulled into the farm and were met with dogs coming from every direction to say hello. However we didn’t see any two legged critters to meet us so Spork and I wandered over to a barn where I heard a bandsaw mill running. Well, I walked over. Spork was immediately enamored with all the dogs and was making friends quickly.
After getting the sawmill operators attention, I was fortunate to meet Frankie and then shortly his wife Tracy. They were absolutely lovely people and people after my own heart. They were homesteading about 250 acres and had:
Pigs
Draft horses
Jersey milk cows
Peacocks
All varieties of dogs
Turkeys
Donkeys
And I know at least 10 other things I’ve forgotten. Frankie was apologizing for the shape of his farm, complaining that the rain had made everything a mess. Heck, my place looked like Brunswick Stew, I certainly wasn’t going to say a word. After a tour and some conversation on pigs, we decided to take 8 gilts that had “gone to the prom” with a boar who got loose accidentally. Some are bred, some are not. We’ll figure it out shortly which is which.
Frankie said if I’d back up my trailer into this tight little space, he’d load the pigs. The space was tight because his backhoe had run out of fuel, then out of battery and couldn’t be started. We worked around some sweet potatoes and tried to maneuver the trailer into the right spot. Unfortunately the ground was soupy and I got stuck, a recurring theme.
After getting pulled out, we set up barriers and an awesome mechanical portable pig scale (I was most jealous). Frankie said the pigs would hop on the trailer, we’d weigh them on the trailer, then move them into the locked portion of the trailer. Having already dealt recently with Houdini, I thought, “Yeah right!” However to my amazement the first pig that Frankie let out of the pen hopped right into the trailer and right onto the scales. Folks, Frankie loaded 8 pigs onto my trailer, the smallest of which weighed 175 pounds and the largest was 305. Only one balked at hopping in with no ramp. The rest jumped in like we were going to go get ice cream. I see what pig wrangling is supposed to look like!
After more pleasantries, and a large check written off the farm account, Spork and I headed home. We arrived about 5:15 and went through the process of unloading the pigs. Miguel looked like he was ready for anything as I told him the story of how these pigs just hopped onto the trailer and how laid back they were. He looked on, thinking “Gringos don’t know pigs!” I could just tell. I opened the door and the first pig hopped down daintily, took one look around, and walked straight into the stall we had waiting for her. The rest shortly followed and we had all the pigs in the hospital barn for quarantine. We are going to give them a couple of days and then turn them into their own paddock. A couple are already showing signs of dropping a litter so we are hopeful for piglets shortly here at the farm. Of course we’ll have pics of the little cuties once they are born.
After unloading the pigs, Cotton came over to see me. It’s not unusual that Cotton comes to see me, however this time I was surprised to find she was practically wearing the same pants as me. I couldn’t get away from her. It was then that I remembered all the other dogs we’d seen. Cotton looked at me like I’d been cheating on her. I tried to explain that I’d barely petted those other dogs, and besides they weren’t nearly the dog that Cotton was. I received the cold shoulder from her the rest of the night. Women!
So at my customarily early time slot of around 4am, I awoke to start the day of cow delivery. I went over to the home office to get a little office/computer work done. I needed to pay my sales taxes, work on the books, go through some emails, and try out the wood stove which we’d just spent a bunch of time restoring. When I arrived at the office with Cotton in tow, I found that my computer had failed to update properly from an OS update and was stuck in neverland. I restarted it a couple of times. Nope. I booted into recovery mode. Nope. I reinstalled the OS. Nope. Sigh. I could do some work on the laptop so I did get a couple of things done, but my to do list pretty much didn’t move.
I did make a fire in the wood stove only to discover that I can control the amount of fire in it, but only barely. I have to work on closing off more air to the thing. I thought maybe I’d find another wood stove and just replace this one even though it is so cool. However a quick look online at antique wood stoves (what this one is) showed they were in the $3000-$5000 range restored. Yikes! I think I’ll work on this one instead, but not this morning.
As I realized that the wood stove was still over firing, I noted that it was past time to milk the cow. Our neighbors have been handling the milking but Dottie acted a fool herself (full moon as well?) the morning before so I wanted to go down and see what was going on. I baby sat the stove for a few minutes to make sure the barn didn’t burn down, then went down to check on milking. Turns out it was progressing nicely. As that finished, I checked on our new baby chicks which had just arrived and were snuggling under the heat lamp.
Baby chicks under a heat lamp.Baby chicks between the space heather and the heat lamp.
Turns out we’d lost a few on their first night on the farm but that’s not unusual for day old chicks. A bit of work with the chicks, and it was time to load the cows. I set up the gates and chutes so the cows would hopefully walk right onto the trailer. They were calmer this morning and weren’t too much trouble to get onto the trailer. Of course there isn’t much they can do once they are in the corral anyway. That’s the point of a corral.
I got two of the cows onboard but because I was single-handed I couldn’t close the door quick enough and #26 managed to get on the trailer and then get back off. I shut the other two in, closed the center partition to keep them in the front of the trailer, then went back to deal with #26 who was now facing backwards in the chute, staring at a gate I had closed to keep the cows from backing back out of the loading chute. After some brief consultation with her (yes I talk to my cows), I figured there was no way to get her to back onto the trailer so it was best to let her out into the open corral, turn her around, and try again. I opened the gate in front of her, which she took as a sign that the devil must be ahead and then she backed her way through the chute, around a tight 90 degree turn, and onto the trailer without pausing. I hopped up and closed the door and marveled at how jumpy these cows were. Normally a cow would have been happy to walk back the way it had come and the gate I had opened never bothers the other cows. Either way, she was on the trailer and that part was done.
#26 after backing onto the trailer.
Emily showed up and we covered what was going on that morning. I then headed to the house for a quick breakfast. Spork was already up, as usual, so I made him a quick breakfast as well and he asked if he could go with me to deliver the cows. Let me go ask mom. Turns out there is a stomach bug in our house and The Princess has it and was throwing up all night. Maybe the day won’t be a normal school day anyway. After some conversation, it was established that yes indeed Spork could go with me so the two amigos took off to go deliver cows.
Two hours and much awesome conversation later, we arrived at Acre Station and unloaded our three cows.
#26, #27, and #16 all offloaded and in the corral at Acre Station
Now that the cow delivery was done, it was time to go have some fun. Acre Station isn’t very far from Little Washington (Washington, NC) and in Little Washington is Bill’s Hotdogs.
Bill’s hotdogs in Little Washington, NC
Spork had never been to Bill’s before, and that was something we had to rectify. Normally he is a plain hotdog, or even worse, a hotdog with ketchup (his mother’s influence!) kind of kid. But I explained to him that Bill’s had a special chili that is at least worth trying. Up and coming man that he is, he said sure so we got him one plain and one with light chili.
Carter having his chili hotdog.
The verdict? The plain hotdog was good. The chili hot dog was better! Ahh, it’s good to see your genes passed on and not overridden by the wife’s.
After a walking tour of the waterfront, we called our next appointment and made arrangements to head to Bethel to look at some pigs. But that’s a story for tomorrow.
Yesterday was a day of driving and adventure, we’ll tell that part in the next post. The previous evening, just getting the cows loaded, is its own post.
Miguel and I, along with Spork had set up a temporary lane in the pasture from the cows back to the barnyard. The plan was to bring #26 and #27 into the barn yard and put them in the corral. Then that next morning I’d be able to load them through our loading chute onto the trailer and take them to the processor in Pinetown, NC. I mistakenly thought we’d separate #26 and #27 out in the paddock and walk just those two into the barn yard. However it was a full moon and the cows were jumpy. I know that sounds odd about it being a full moon, but I can’t attribute it to anything else at this point. The whole herd was flighty and acting stupid. After a quick attempt, we just turned the whole herd into the temporary lane and moved them to the barn. I should mention that #26 and #27 are both 1/2 Ninja Cow so their attitudes are questionable at best already. Add in a full moon and they were nigh uncontrollable.
10 seconds into the lane, #27 runs right into the hot wire and rips the whole side down. Here we go again. Of course all the other cows immediately see the opening and bail out of the lane and onto the open pasture. Fortunately that particular area was just a corner of woven wire fencing so we herded the cows into the barnyard, running, bucking, and acting like fools. All the cows, the entire herd, then went into the corral, except for one calf who just didn’t get in in time. After all the craziness they’d exhibited, I was shocked to see them all in the corral. It’s not that big so I wouldn’t have expected them to file in so orderly. I ran up to close off the access gate and at just that moment my brother calls me with an urgent issue. I’m trying to listen to him, while standing beside the mother of the calf who is outside. As you’d expect, she is calling him, loudly and repeatedly. I can’t hear my brother and I can’t leave the gate. 5 minutes of “What? What?” ensued before I finally got off the phone and we started sorting cows.
Everybody was happy to get back out of the corral and within a minute or two, we were down to #26, #27, and #16. I had Miguel and Spork helping and things were progressing smoothly. Now it was three on three and we can go man to man, uh cow. We got this. Except #16 wouldn’t leave the corral. No matter what I did, no matter how many attempts I made, #16 was determined that something bad would happen if he left the corral. It was then I noted that #16 was also 1/2 Ninja Cow. I gave it another couple of laps and then said forget it. If #16 wants to get on the trailer, then #16 can go.
By being afraid of what we were trying to get #16 to do, he ended up causing what he was afraid of. I think there is a lesson there. Sometimes you cause your own problems.
Treat your friends and your family to some beyond organic ninja cow beef this Sunday at your Super Bowl party. We still have plenty for your needs. We offer discounts for bulk purchases. Contact me today to make arrangements.
Today I picked up three hogs I had processed a week ago by Dean Street Processing. This trip, we expanded what we have by adding in some exciting new products.
Hot breakfast sausage, Eastern NC BBQ, and chorizo
When I got back home from picking up all the pork, I noted that it was lunch time. Perfect! In case you don’t know, the final quality control step in our product is a taste test. No matter what it is, before I sell it I always take it in the kitchen and try it. If it’s not up to my standard, it doesn’t get sold. I know this sounds obvious, but I’ve not met any people who do this before ANY product is sold.
Knowing I had some folks who were waiting on pork to get in today, I needed to get my testing done right away. I grabbed what you see above and texted Miguel to meet me in the kitchen. Miguel is a mighty fine cook and I always value his opinion on our product. Plus, I knew he’d be happy to know we had chorizo since he likes it so much.
The item I was most excited to try was the Eastern NC style BBQ. Our processor has the ability to BBQ an entire hog and then package it into 1 pound packages like you see below. You can then freeze this BBQ and when you come home cold, tired, and with a family screaming for dinner, simply plop the BBQ, bag and all in boiling water and in 15 minutes you have beyond organic, tasty, never any GMOs or grain BBQ ready to serve.
Instructions for BBQ bag
Miguel looked askew at the BBQ but he jumped right into cooking the chorizo. Chorizo was the food of his people, BBQ was the food of mine. We had a lot of verbal jabs and laughing at gringos and Mexicans and their food and habits.
Chrorizo and BBQ cooking in the Ninja kitchen
We also cooked up some of the hot breakfast sausage as I wanted to see just how hot it was.
A meat farmers lunch
And here is a lunch like you never see. Miguel complained mightily that there was no rice nor beans, and no tortillas. I think I had offended his culture. He also wasn’t too sure about this shredded pig stuff called BBQ. I told him he’d have to tighten up to hang around us white boys. In the end we both enjoyed lunch, especially after I found some tortillas SWMBO had hidden in the fridge. And the results of our testing, besides loosening the belts one notch?
The chorizo was really good “for white people” per Miguel and regular good if it was “for a Mexican.” This means that it’s nicely spiced if you eat normal food. If you are used to a very spicy Mexican diet, it’s good with good flavor, just not as spicy as you’d like it. I thought it was really good myself but on the red-nexican scale, I lean quite a bit towards the red end.
The breakfast sausage was perfect. Not hot to me (I’m someone who eats very hot stuff routinely) and flavored well. It’s packaged in small packages perfect for getting out for breakfast.
The BBQ was spot on. Both Miguel and I thought it could use just a little more vinegar but in further conversation we observed that not everyone likes vinegar the way we do and people who do usually add a bit at the table when it’s served. That would make it perfect for the family as everybody gets what they want, some get less vinegar and some get all they want.
We also have linked, extra sage sausage plus all the normal cuts like pork chops, Boston Butts, etc. I’ll be updating pricing and availability on the website ASAP. I already have a large order for next week but I’m holding back a supply for people who want to come out and meet their farmer. If you would like to stop by and stock up on pork, just shoot me an email at dan@ninjacowfarm.com or give me a call at 919-810-2530.
Part of the beauty of blogging is that you end up getting hooked up with other bloggers. I’ve mentioned and posted about Walter at Sugar Mountain Farms before. His is a blog I follow and one that I model ours after. Simple, non-commercial, informative, and humorous. I do follow other blogs as well and today I read a great article on Ohio Farm Girl Adventures in the Good Lands blog. It is on processing your own pig, the how and the why. It mainly addresses the act of shooting the pig, which frankly is the hardest part. Nobody wants a bad kill, and as someone who not only had a bad kill, but had it in front of a whole class of people, I can attest to that fact. That bad kill still haunts me.
She also has really good links to what you’ll need, how to go about it, etc. If you have done as I’ve had some other folks do, read Joel Salatin’s book, buy a few pigs and stick them out back, and NOW you’re trying to figure out what to do with them, then this is a good article for you to read.
If after reading all about it, you just can’t go through with it, then look up your local custom processor to get your pig processed. It’s going to be the best pork you’ve ever had.
Yesterday I had a plan. You know that old saying, “No plan survives contact with the enemy” by Helmoth Von Moltke? Yeah, that’s how my day went.
Monday was the first week day that Emily would be working. We haven’t had someone working during the week besides Miguel. I know I’m supposed to be working now, but Miguel has been giving me a hard time because he says that I haven’t REALLY been farming. I’ve just been meeting customers, giving tours, talking on the phone, driving the truck, and giving animals injections. He says when all the real farming happens, I’m doing something else so effectively I have no street cred at this point. Since I had to talk on the phone, drive the truck, and talk to customers, and give tours, I felt like I’d been doing my part but street cred is earned on the street.
So Emily shows up and Miguel and Emily go out to feed the animals in the cold rain while I go make breakfast for the family in my snuggly warm house. Hmm, I see where this lack of street cred comes from. Before I leave for breakfast, Miguel informs me that he’s bought a pig.
“Bought a pig?!” Says I.
“Yes!” says Miguel
“What kind of pig?”
“I don’t know.”
“How big is it?”
“I don’t know.” With a big smile, says Miguel.
Miguel then informs me that he has found this pig, on a Mexican Facebook swap page (apparently there is such a thing) and that it’s just down the street. It’s also apparently 8 months old which should mean it’s about 175-200 pounds. That’s a pig that should cost about $200-300, and it’s 65 bucks. Ok, let’s go see the pig. We’ll run down there, grab the pig, and then come back to my list of stuff we are doing today.
I go make breakfast, they feed the animals, and we meet back at the barn. We bid Emily a warm goodbye and off we go. I ask Miguel if we should bring the hog panels with us since they are so handy and we don’t know where we are going or what it will be like.
“Nah, it’ll be easy.”
“What if this guy can’t load the pig.”
“He’s a Mexican, he can handle the pig.”
So off we go to get the pig. We had some driving adventure finding the place even though it’s literally on the road I live on, just miles away. I had a bit of a screw up with my schedule that morning because I got confused on a customer I was meeting but after a while, we got everything settled and pulled up to where the pig was.
As I pulled up, Miguel asked if I was going to back in. You see, I’m in an extended cab, diesel pickup truck, pulling a goose neck stock trailer that’s about 20 feet long. I look into the “yard” of this place and it’s obvious we’ll never turn around. The only choice is to back in, off of Old Stage Road, in the middle of the day, and it’s been raining, and there are DEEP ditches on each side of the barely one car wide driveway.
My mind goes back to Sunday, when I had Emily back the produce trailer. She struggled a bit, which I let her do because that’s how you learn. I was careful not to make fun of her and only tried to give helpful advice and otherwise stay out of her way because the only thing worse than struggling is struggling while you new boss glares at you. Eventually I felt her frustration was making things worse so I backed the trailer for her, quickly and with one effort at it. She felt bad, and of course I felt smart. I tried to tell her it comes with experience and she’d be doing it in a week. I tried not to be an arrogant ass. Apparently I failed and karma was here to get me.
So I began backing the trailer into the driveway. At first, I was only blocking one car as I attempted and failed to get in the driveway. Then helpfully, another few cars came up, one of which was of course a deputy sheriff. Oh goodie. After about six more attempts, I finally got my rig backed into the driveway enough that the sheriff and everyone else could get by. With my head hanging low I peeled out of the truck. Miguel was jubilant though because:
He can now make fun of my backing ability. Something that will be entertaining the rest of the day
There stands a $65 pig. It’s alive and looks healthy with all four legs, two eyes, etc. There had been some discussion on what must be wrong with this pig to be so cheap.
So Miguel goes and knocks on the door. A lady answers and says “He’ll be right here.” Then another lady comes to the door and says the same thing. Finally our pig farmer comes to the door to talk to Miguel and to load this pig for us. He is wearing a shirt I don’t recall, a huge down jacket, and I kid you not, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes pajamas and flip-flops. Now I’m not master pig loader but one thing I know, if you’re going to mess with a pig, you’ll end up looking and smelling like the pig before it’s over. I’m wearing Duluth Firehose work pants, a Duluth hanger bender shirt over a Ninja Cow Farm t-shirt, my standard hat, and steel toed boots. I also have a knife and a gun should things go awry. Either I’m WAY over prepared or this guy has never loaded a pig before.
So Tony the Tiger tells us that the pig will walk right into the trailer. It’s a very nice pig and is like a dog. Uh huh. Miguel and I decide to watch the spectacle of entertainment unfold and simply get out of the way. After about 30 minutes of trying to convince this pig that walking into a trailer is a good idea, where it makes about 14 laps of the yard with various people trying to entice it, Miguel and I give up and tell them to get the pig into the dog kennel they have there and we’ll get it in. The kennel is small, and there is a hole in the gate but we should be ok if Tony the Tiger can block the hole. We get a rope and they get the pig in the kennel. When Miguel and I go in after it, the pig hits the hole that Tony is guarding. I’m not sure the pig noticed he was there but Tony certainly did. He limped away saying he was ok while Miguel and I laughed at each other and this whole situation. Once more the pig went back in the kennel and once more it ran right over Tony, again causing some limping and cursing in Spanish.
When I go to someone’s house, I prefer to let them do the loading since it’s their animal till it’s on the trailer. However I could see that this wasn’t going to ever get done. I found a piece of metal that we could cover the hole with and Miguel and I went in alone to get the pig. Miguel laid on the pig while I put ropes on it hind legs, a trick we’ve used before when handling a bigger pig. There was some confusion between us because when Miguel jumped on the pig and got it down, it screamed so loud that Miguel couldn’t hear anything I was yelling to him even though I was right beside him. We should have recorded that scream for a horror movie sound track.
Finally we got the pig up and wheelbarrowed him into the trailer. There was some laughing again and Miguel happily paid the man who was now limping and covered in mud. We pulled out and headed back to the farm but not before I pointed out to Miguel that I had been injured for his $65 pig.
Bleeding for a $65 dollar pig.
On the ride home, I learned the rest of the story I hadn’t been able to glean from the exchange in Spanish. Turns out the pig was so cheap because a deputy sheriff had already been to this guys house twice because the pig was “walking in the road.” He said he didn’t believe the pig went in the road but what could he do. You see this guy didn’t keep the pig anywhere. He just walked around in the yard and did what he pleased. He said that if the sheriff had to come back one more time, he was taking the pig and fining the man so the pig had to go.
So I took this picture after getting as much sympathy as I could from Miguel on the ride back. We had stopped at our entry gate and I pulled out my phone and snapped this pic. While I was doing that some crazy lady came flying up, blowing her horn and running up to our window. Good God, what now? I rolled down the window and she said, “Your pig got out!!”
Being the thoughtful and intelligent person I am, I answered, “Ugh, what?”
“Your pig is walking down the road, RIGHT NOW!”
Miguel and I jumped out of the truck and ran to the back of the trailer. The door I had personally checked before we left was wide open. The rope that we had tied to both legs was untied and laying in the trailer, and the pig was calmly walking down Old Stage Road. The lady had her iPhone out filming the whole thing, cars were stopped on the road, and I’m befuddled. /Sigh.
The lady said thanks for the entertainment and drove off while Miguel and I went out in the street to deal with this pig. Remember this is the pig that “didn’t go out in the street.” We walked it back and forth a few times, all the while dealing with the various drivers of questionable intelligence on the road. Of course they were smart enough to be driving somewhere while we smelled like a pig so there is that.
After a couple of laps of the road, Miguel said maybe this pig needs to be made into carnitas today, something we had discussed already on the ride back anyway. “Just shoot it and we’ll take it to the barn and dress it out.” I agreed but said not yet.
“Why not?
I pointed to the forty cars stopped on the road waiting for us to clear the pig from the road.
“Isn’t it legal to shoot a pig?”
“Yes, but I’d rather not have 40 witnesses with iPhones out when I do it.”
“Oh”
About that time the pig decided to climb the bank of the road and get up on a steep hill that is part of our farm. That was a welcome change because it got the pig off the road and onto our farm. I followed the pig up the hill while Miguel went and got the truck and swapped it for a Gator.
I followed the pig through the woods, whom I now dubbed Houdini due to its escape from ropes and steel cages, walking along one of our pasture fences. The pig was actually very calm through all this and after about 100 yards actually stopped and starting rooting around and snacking, a very good sign.
Houdini, making her way through the woods
We walked Houdini all the way through our woods, into the yard of the house, along the fence, and into the barn yard. Thankfully Carter came out and helped us because about this time Cotton noticed us and was very happy to get involved. Tony the Tiger said this was a tame pig and at this point I believe it. I’m walking this pig the way I do a cow and she’s behaving very similarly which I’ve never seen a pig do.
Luckily for me, one of my former employees is in the barn yard witnessing the whole thing. He’d already seen me on Old Stage and now was able to see the end result of what I was doing. The only thing than having a SNAFU is having a public SNAFU.
So we grab some different types of produce and start tossing it to the pig to see if we can get her to eat and therefore go where we want her. Turns out she really like bananas (who doesn’t) and luckily we have about 140 boxes of bananas on hand. We spend about 45 minutes trying to get the pig to walk into the barn where the formerly sick pigs are but we just can’t get her in there.
Trying to convince Houdini to go into the barn. The peanut gallery looks on.
At this point she’s noticed the other pigs and decides she’d like to be with them instead. We turn off the hot wire and walk her away from the woven wire fence and to the poly wire fence. She immediately goes into the paddock to be greeted by the other pigs. Phew! We turn the hot wire back on and head to the barn to put the pieces of this day back together.
About five minutes later Miguel pokes his head back out of the barn, takes one quick look and says, “The cows don’t like the new pig either.”
Sure enough Houdini has gotten through three strands of electrified poly wire and is now in the pasture with the cows who are quite excited to see a short, hairless cow running around in the pasture. I’m already in the barn so I grab a rifle in case this pig decides to go off the farm. It’s not leaving the farm and we’ll spend the rest of the day making carnitas if that’s how it goes. However again the pig is perfectly nice and we walk it back to the barn where we spend another 45 minutes trying to convince it that the barn is a really nice place. Finally Miguel smartly opens the far door so the pig can see light through the barn and with 20 more bunches of bananas tossed the pig walks into the barn. We close it up and herd the pig into a stall. Double phew!
It’s now 1pm. We started this whole thing at 9am. Four hours for a $65 pig, and we’ve done exactly nothing on the list. It’s now time to go to the market so there is no time to do anything except knock out the daily chores and get back and deworm and ear tag Houdini.
We finish the day about 5:30 so technically on time. Miguel tells me, “If anyone says you aren’t farming, you send them to me. You’re a farmer now!” At least I got some street cred out of this whole fiasco.
Houdini with new friends, now tagged #47
Houdini spent the night with the pigs who have been convalescing. She received a new ear tag, #47, and was given 1.5cc of Norometin sub-Q. Assuming she hasn’t performed some sort of magic trick during the night, she’ll spend a few days in there and then make her way outside into a normal paddock with other pigs her size.
Yesterday while I was giving a tour I noted that #43 looked like he had bloat. I got him up and found that he looked ok and showed no signs of distress. I continued with the tour but made sure to come back before dark to check on #43 again. Again he looked fine with no signs of distress so I left him alone to enjoy some peace and quiet.
On the way back to the barn, I looked for #32, Boyd. I couldn’t find him anywhere until I reached the edge of the paddock where I found him happily munching on hay. Even better, mom was right beside him so I was able to get a picture of them both. Boyd is the product of our former bull Benjamin and #11, Curious. Boyd will be our new bull in less than a year and I just wanted to document how he looks at this stage so we can keep an eye on him as he grows.
Right now he is growing nicely and he is developing a very nice disposition. The last thing we need is a jumpy or twitchy bull. Boyd seems pretty laid back, like his dad.
Whenever I sit down at the computer I generally check WordPress, Quickbooks online, Square, Outlook 365, and Mint. That let’s me see marketing and animal records, financials and billing, credit card processing, communications and reminders, and budgeting all in one place. These all stay up on my computer most of the time. Also all these programs are running remotely from the web which is nice because all this information is available whichever computer or device I am using. Since I have a laptop at home, and an office computer, it’s really handy to be able to manage seamlessly between devices.
Today I was surprised to see that we have surpassed 500 posts on Ninja Cow Farm’s website. Previously we celebrated 400 posts which I thought was a lot. That was only in September of last year or less than 5 months ago. That’s a lot of posts considering I was in the middle of selling my company at that time and wasn’t farming full time then. I guess that means we’ll be at 750 this coming year then which sounds crazy considering it seemed we were at zero just a blink of an eye ago.
The number doesn’t really matter, the content and the connection with each of you does. However big round numbers are too hard to resist making special. If anything, I should shorten my posts and post more frequently but lately I haven’t had time to do the extra work and break posts into shorter snippets. Maybe things will free up as I settle in farming full time. Although I looked at my schedule this week and right now I only have one day free to do anything not already scheduled. Where do my weeks go?!
#44, the dark brown pig, hadn’t responded to Enroflox and Liquimyacin. We gave the pig 3/4cc of penicillin on 1/24/15. On 1/25/15 he looked much better with no breathing issues noted and plenty of pep in his step.
#27 was apparently not castrated when we got him. Miguel and I both noted that he was still fully equipped for his wedding night so on Saturday the 24th of January we set up to castrate him. Unfortunately we couldn’t find anything to take out. We both were so sure he was still equipped that we didn’t give him a final inspection before we started. We have him in observation for the cuts and to see if his wedding tackle reappears. Because of the procedure he received 1cc of Lidocain and 1/2cc of penicillin.
On 1/20/2015 we shot #39, Spider Pig, with 1.5cc of enroflox and 2.5cc of Liquimyacin. Also #44 and #45 received at the same time 1.5cc of Enroflox and 2.0cc of Luquimyacin.
