Grey Wolf Sighting

This morning we let Dobby (our dog) out and like she often does, she took off toward the livestock pens in pursuit of something we couldn't see.  Within seconds, we saw what looked like a large, dark coyote run away from the pens with Dobby in hot pursuit.  Immediately following Dobby was a second large, dark creature.

We called Dobby back as quickly as we could.  I grabbed the pellet gun (which wouldn't have done anything, so I'm not sure why I grabbed it) and J took off in the car trying to head the animals off at the road.  Dobby came back a few minutes later, limping.

I tried to check her hind end and she promptly peed on the entryway floor.  Apparently, whatever had tried to bite her did not get a latch on her.  She was unhurt.  But she was definitely upset.  She hasn't peed on the floor since she was a puppy.

J and I talked about what we had seen.  We assumed that they were just very well fed coyotes...until a neighbor said that he had heard a rumor of a coyote/wolf hybrid in the area.  We checked with the ODFW website and found out that there are actually wolves that have been tracked near our area.  After staring at photo after photo of grey wolf, we decided that what we saw today must've been a pair of wolves.

A Grey Wolf

We've been considering buying a 22 for the house.  We're now thinking that a thirty-ott-six might be more appropriate.  Of course, we would never shoot a wolf as they are protected by the state and the feds.  But we might shoot toward them if they try to take down any of our livestock.

Building a Good Fence - Adding Hot Wire

For our fences, we have chosen to build so that we can house any of our livestock without changing the set up.  Therefore, we use 48" field fence (the more expensive roll is worth the money for the extra stoutness).  We always concrete our wooden corner posts.  And we always run to lines of hot wire - one about 12" off of the ground and one at the top of the fenceline.

The main reason for using hot wire is to keep animals from pushing on your fenceline.  Even the strongest fence will not hold up to a 600-pound pig rooting up from the bottom or a 1200-pound horse leaning over the top.  We find that running two lines with the field fence is enough to deter any of our livestock...goats, pigs, or horses.  And it doesn't really bother the chickens or ducks.  I've only seen one of them get zapped.  I think that their feathers keep them pretty well insulated.

Start by placing your insulators.  We use 6" standoffs as we don't want the animals on the fencing.  You can attach standoffs to either the front or the back of t-posts - something that is very helpful when you have a shared fenceline and must run hot wire on both sides.  Don't forget to get nail-on standoffs for the corner posts.  We also use the "donut" type insulators on the corners as the hot wire can be pulled tight without fear of the wire slipping off.

I have found that measuring off of my body works well for placing standoffs.  I place a foot next to the t-post and judge it against my leg, making note of where it hits.  I do the same for the top standoff.  I then can repeat this with every post, measuring against the spot on my body.

Once the insulators are in place, begin threading the hot wire, starting at a gate opening.  This is really a two person job.  If you are using tensioners or donut-style insulators, you need to have one person

Building a Good Fence - Stringing the Fence

Third Step - STRINGING THE FENCE

Once your posts are in the ground, you are ready to run the fencing. You will need to have some way to roll out the fencing. We have created a fence roller by welding a square post onto a metal plate and mounting it to a trailer hitch. We place the roll over the post and then pull fencing from there.

Starting at the corner furthest from the gate, wrap the fencing around the wooden post and twist the wires back onto itself, thus creating a loop.  We find this much more successful as an anchor point than attaching the end of the fencing with horseshoe nails.  It also avoids the "pokey" end of the fence hanging off the wooden post.

Unwind the fencing so that it wraps around the pen somewhat tight.  You will tighten it up later with a come-along or other fencing tool, but you don't want too much slack in it to start with.  Make sure that your fencing is on the correct side of the t-posts.  It should lie against the "button" side of the post.  If you chose to keep animals in versus out, you may have to weave your fencing to the inside for t-posts and then back around the outside of your wooden corner posts.  It won't bother your fenceline at all to have this weaving, but it is very important to have the fencing on the correct side of the post.  I suppose you could attach the fencing to the inside of your corner posts, but this is not nearly as strong as if you have the tension held on the fence around the outside of the wooden post.

When you reach the end of the first side, you will want to stretch the fencing and attach it before moving on.  It is possible to stretch around a corner, but as I mentioned in the first posting, J is very anal about his fences, and it just wouldn't be tight enough if we didn't stretch each side separately.

For stretching, you can use a variety of tools.  We have been known to slide a steel pipe through the fencing, attach the pipe to our ditch witch and then pull.  We have also used a traditional fence puller with hooks down a pipe attached to a come-along.  However you decide to stretch your fence, make sure that you stretch it as evenly as possible from top to bottom.  Also, note that if you are using "field fence" where the squares go from big to small - you want the small squares on the bottom and the big squares on the top.

Once your fence is as tight as you feel safe handling, you need to attach it to the gate post.  Since the gate post will be pulled on, it is important to have a triangular brace (t-post) or an H corner (wooden posts) to support the strain.  We find that sliding the up/down wire over as far as possible, and then cutting the cross wires one at a time works best.  We cut a wire and wrap it around the post, securing it to itself.  We then cut another wire, repeating the process until we only have the top and bottom wires left.  By this time, the tension in the fence-pulling device is usually relieved.

This shows the wire attaching the fence to the post.  It also shows
a second wire (wrapping the t-post) because this was a spot
where we built a perpendicular line as well.

After the fence is attached at both ends, you need to attach it to each t-post.  You can buy wire attachment pieces, but we have found a great way to make them using fencing wire.  Cut a length of wire about 8 inches long.  Using channel locks, bend a hook in one end of the wire.  Hook this end on a cross wire of the fence.  Wrapping the wire around the t-post and back to the fence, loop the wire around the cross wire of the fence several times.  You should be able to do this mostly by hand.  Once you have the wire hooked and looped, take your fencing pliers and crimp the hook so it won't fall off.  Then clamp onto the loops on the other side and begin twisting them to tighten the loops on the cross wire.  This will slowly tighten the attaching wire behind the t-post and will leave a beautiful line of tight loops around one side.  Cut off any excess tail of wire.  Do this at least three times on each t-post.

to be continued...

Building a Good Fence - Setting the Posts

Second Step - SETTING THE POSTS

The first post determines all other posts. Decide where you are going to start and dig a deep hole. You want to be between 2-3 feet down for your wood posts. These corner posts are going to take a lot of stress so it is important that they are very secure. They will determine the tightness of your fence and the overall durability through time.

Once you have the hole, set the post in the hole and mix at least two bags (80 pounds) of concrete. Fill the hole with concrete, rattling the post around to make sure that the concrete settles in. Using a short level, adjust the post until it is plumb. Don't forget to check it all the way around. Leave it to set overnight.

Once the first post is set, you can begin to measure for the other corner posts. Using a tape measure, measure from the center of the first post to where you want the second post. This will also determine the orientation of the pen so plan accordingly. Set the second post the same way you did the first.

The third corner post needs to be measured a little differently. You want to eventually have a square pen, so you need to make sure that the third post fits into the right orientation. Using the Pythagorean theorem, you can make sure to create a right triangle at the first post. It sounds fancy, but it's pretty simple. Pull a string line (a string that is tied from post to post) between the first two posts. Then measure out the length of string for the second side (third post) and tie it to the first post and to a t-post. Pull the string tight and estimate a square by looking at the first side of the pen. Stick the post in the ground (temporarily) and walk back to your first post. Now, here comes the math...measure out three feet on one side and make note. Measure out four feet on the other side and make note. Measure between the two points noted. This hypotenuse (the diagonal line) should be five feet. If it isn't, you need to adjust the second side in or out (in makes it shorter, out makes it longer) until it is. Once you have a triangle with a 3ft, 4ft, 5ft measurement, you know that your corner will be square. Replace the t-post with a wooden corner post. Set it the same way you did the other two.

The fourth post needs to be measured off of the second and third posts. Make sure that the sides are equal. If you want to double check the square of your pen, use the Pythagorean theorem again and measure the diagonal from the fourth post to the first. The hypotenuse (diagonal line) should be the sum squared of the two sides squared (a2 + b2=c2). Once you are sure of your measurement, set the fourth post the same way you did the last three.

Think about where you are going to want your gates. Whereever you decide to put them, you will want to have wooden posts on either side. We often use a corner so that we can maximize the uses for our wooden posts. Be aware that you want to decide on the size of the gate and create an opening exactly that size. Gates are labeled 4ft, 5ft, 6ft, but they measure about four inches shorter than their label to allow for hinges when installed. You do not need to add width to your opening (ask me how I know this?).

If you are building a large pen (over forty feet on each side), you are best off creating what's called an "H" corner. To do this, you use seven wooden posts per corner. Measure out six to eight feet from the corner post and set another post. Do this on both sides of the pen, making sure that it is in line with the far corner post (this is where a string line is very helpful). Once the two posts are set in the ground, create a top rail and bottom rail between the corner and the new posts. This makes the "H." If you want to make it even stronger, loop some fencing wire around the top of the two posts, cross them in the middle, and loop them around the other post - creating an X on each H. Take a stake (or a strong stick) and twist both wires around the stake at their junction until the wire is as tight as you can make it. Tuck the end of the stake behind the wire so that is will stay. But this costs money, and if you are like us, you would like to stretch your fencing dollars as much as possible. So, here's what we often do...

T-Post used as a corner brace.

In line with your side, pound a t-post into the ground diagonally, creating a triangle between the t-post, the wooden post, and the ground. Pound the tip of the t-post into the side of the wooden post. This allows the t-post to take much of the strain as the fencing is stretched around the pen.

Next, you need to put your side posts into the ground. At our ranch, we are best off drilling post holes with an impact drill. Some places you can just use a post pounder. However you get your posts in the ground, you want to make sure of two things. First, you have the posts in line with the rest of the side of the fence (a string line helps to ensure this). Second, you want to decide how you are going to orient the post for the fencing. Are you more interested in keeping a strong animal in or keeping a strong predator out? If you think your fence will take more pressure from the inside, orient your t-posts so that the "buttons" are on the inside. If you think it will take more pressure from the outside, orient your t-posts so that the "buttons" are on the outside. Buttons on the inside, means that you will be running your fencing on the inside of the posts and vise versa.

Building a Good Fence - Planning

So, one of the benefits of moving from farm to farm is that J and I have just about perfected the art of building a good fence.  Granted, I often complain about how anal J is about his fencing, but I am always pleased with the results.

I thought it might be helpful to those people out there just starting to build fences, if we gave them some step-by-step instructions for fence-building.

First Step - PLANNING
I cannot express how important it is to plan out your fencing.  Fencing takes a lot of time and effort, so you want to make it exactly the way you want it to be FOREVER.  Think about where you will be going to get feed.  Think about access to each pen.  Think about how you might want to move animals from pen to pen.  Think about where you will be watering.  Think about where you will put shelters - specifically which direction the wind blows so that you can orient the door on the opposite side.  Think about how you will load and unload animals.

When we designed our pens at the new ranch, we had several things that we knew we wanted.  We wanted to build a corridor that could be used for loading and unloading animals.  We also wanted a corridor that could be used to move animals from pen to pen - for breeding, birthing, isolation, etc.  We wanted to have access to all pens from the same side of the fence.  We wanted to have easy access to feed OUTSIDE of the corridor/pen system (so that even if the animals got out, they couldn't get to the feed).

Our pen design ended up with two larger pens on the far side, and then a row of smaller pens paralleling the larger ones with a corridor running between the large and small pens.  In addition, there is a corridor that "Ts" into the main corridor, running between two of the smaller pens and creating a chute for loading and unloading animals.  We plan to use fence panels to cordon off sections of the corridor when moving animals around.  We also made sure that the chute lined up with the driveway in such a manner that we could back a trailer up easily to it.

Not So Lucky

It is not looking good for Lucky the cat.  We put him out on Friday night (as we have many nights), but we haven't seen him since.  There is still a chance that he will return, but I'm not going to hold my breath.  I have a feeling he ran into one of the many coyotes that we have in our area.  He is a pretty quick kitty and can climb trees very well, but if he got caught, he's gone.

RIP Geo Dog

Geo 1998 - December 16, 2011

Today was a very hard day.  It has been coming for awhile now, but the reality of the situation presented itself in full force last night.

Geo, our family dog, has been with us since our youngest son Z was born...eight years!  We got him when he was about five.  As best we could guess, Geo is a combination of Husky, Shepard, Great Pyrenees, and Bernese - or something like that.  He was a big dog with lots of fur.  He had been rescued from a horrible home where his owner had kept him on a two foot chain in the front yard.  His fur was so matted that we had to shave him down to his skin.  He had chain scars on his neck.  But he was the dog for us.  When we first met him, M (who was even afraid of squirrels at the time) ran over to him and hugged him.  I was flabbergasted and thrilled.  This was OUR dog.  We brought him home that day.

We guess his age at around thirteen this year.  For a big dog, this is quite old.  For months, we have seen his level of activity decline.  He has had trouble controlling his bladder.  He has lost a lot of weight.  He has generally looked tired.  And this is saying a lot because Geo has always been a VERY calm dog.  We always joked that he is more of a glorified rug than anything.  But the changes were noticable and we talked at length about how to know when the time was right to help him leave this world.

Last night when I got home, Geo was not on the porch in his usual spot.  I called to him and for the first time in his life, I heard him crying.  He was lying in the grass about a hundred feet from the house.  He couldn't get up.  I went over, picked him up, and carried him into the house.  His body was so bony and fragile under all the fur.  I set him down on his blanket and he flopped over onto his side, apparently not interested in getting up again in the near future.

In the morning, he was just where I left him.  Several times I saw him shuffle his feet under his body in an attempt to rise, but he gave up quickly.  I brought the water bowl to him and he drank several times, but would set his head down in the bowl if I didn't remove it when he was done.

I talked with the boys about the situation and explained that we needed to help Geo to die.  They said their goodbyes before leaving for school.  While I told them that I would call the vet, I knew that we couldn't afford the $200 to have him come out to euthanize.  J is out of town for the weekend so I called a friend.  She and her father came out mid-morning to help.

We carried Geo outside in the blanket and then lifted him off onto the dirt.  He didn't even attempt to get up.  I think he knew it was time to go too.  I tried to busy myself with the goats, but the ring of the shot pierced me and I broke down.  While I am used to the life and death lifestyle on a farm, the loss of such a dear friend is devastating.  Geo has been with me through some of the most challenging days of my life.  It sounds so cliche, but he was a loyal friend and without a doubt, one of the best dogs in the world.

I spent the rest of the morning using the ditch witch to dig a hole and bury him.  J will have to rebury him when he returns as I am not able to get the trenching arm onto the front and really get down deep.  But for now, we know that Geo's remains will be safe from predators.

The Goats, Chickens, and Jaws Are Here

We relocated all but about a dozen chickens and a half dozen ducks today.  It was quite a show but nothing that any family farmer wouldn't think of doing...just a little unusual.

J and I went over to the old house with the intentions of loading the goats in the trailer and the chickens in two dog crates that J would drive home in his van.  Well, when I got to the house with the trailer, it seemed like Jaws might be interested in trying the trailer again.  So I backed it up, set up the ramp and got out the grain.  He was certainly more receptive, but still shy of getting those back feet into the trailer.

The thing with moving a pig is that there really isn't any way to man-handle them into a trailer.  They have to cooperate or nothing is gonna happen.  Remember, Jaws is a full-grown boar pig.  He weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 pounds and is really all muscle.  He moves tires with his nose.  You're not gonna push him into a trailer.

So, we coaxed him into the trailer finally.  I jumped into the car and started to inch forward so that J could swing the door closed...but Jaws got cold feet and backed out before he could shut the door.  Not only that, but Jaws took the liberty of sauntering out around the trailer and into the open.  We tried to convince him back into his pen, but decided to give him a break and work on the chickens.

We managed to catch about a dozen chickens, dividing them between the two crates.  We also got both of the geese...I'm sure that they were less than thrilled to be stuck in a dog crate with a bunch of chickens, but that was the best we could do.

By the time we caught the chickens, Jaws had wandered into the chicken coop and we had shut the door.  J cut the fence between the coop and the pig pen so that we could try the trailer again without having to move Jaws through the open.  Again, we got him interested in the trailer, but not far enough to get up all the way.  He would reach his nose into the trailer and try to grab the bucket out of our hands, pulling it with his teeth.  This time, we set up the trailer so that the door could swing shut without having to move it.  We used some chain link panels on the opposite side of the door to create a chute for him to travel in.

Several times he got into the trailer, only to back out as I slowly swung the door shut.  We knew that there was no point in trying to shove him in with the door.  He would just push his way out.  We needed to have a clear shot to the latch on the door for the leverage it would take to keep him in.  Finally, he made his way into the trailer and I was able to swing the door shut.  J was yelling at me to pull down the latch before Jaws pushed back out...which he was trying to do.  We got it latched, and Jaws was ready to transport.

Only thing is, we were trying to bring over the goats.  And there was no way we were going to open that trailer until we had Jaws at the new house.  So, we looked at our options.  Instead of loading the crates of chickens into the van, we loaded them into the back of the Expedition.  That left the van empty.  So, we decided to load the goats into the van.

All of our goats have been in a car at one point or another, but not actually all at the same time.  One by one, I brought the goats to the side of the van and J would open the door.  We would push/lift each goat into the van (passed J who was acting as guard).  By the time I loaded the seventh goat, I wasn't sure we were going to be able to keep them all in.  But we did.

So, J took off with his load of goats (including two very stinky bucks) and I took off with my load of chickens, geese, and a large pig.  I had to stop at the bus to pick up the boys, but other than that (and the stink of chicken poop in the car), the ride home was uneventful.  We got all of the animals unloaded and they are now happily exploring their new digs.

The Piggies Have Landed

We finally finished the fencing for two larger pens and can bring the rest of the animals over to the new place.  This afternoon J and I took the trailer over and set it up for the pigs to get in.  Ruby and the babies jumped in the minute we brought the grain out.  They didn't even need a ramp.  Jaws, on the other hand, was pretty skeptical.  We worked on trying to get him in the trailer for at least a half an hour, but it was super cold, getting dark, and the other three pigs were starting to wonder if the trailer was the best place to be.  So, like the old saying "Three pigs in a trailer is worth four in a pen" we decided to leave Jaws and just relocate Ruby and the babies.

J removed the gate in between the two pig pens and brought it back with us so that we could install it in the new pen.  We've been really trying to reuse all that we can and buying gates is expensive, so moving them as we move the animals makes the most sense.  Well, you know how a 2x4 is called a 2x4 but is really a 1 3/4x3 3/4?  It's the same with gates.  I swore up and down that I bought four foot gates.  So when J concreted the wooden posts in the ground, he left four feet six inches of space to hang the gate (figuring that we would need the extra six inches for the hinges and the latch).  I guess the people who make the gates figure that you are going to buy a four foot gate for a four foot opening.  So they make their four foot gates three feet eight inches wide (figuring that you will need the extra four inches for the hinges and the latch).  Suffice it to say, that J swore up and down when he realized this fact.  His beautiful, clean fence posts were in the wrong place!

Now, we couldn't just pull the posts, because remember, we had finished the pens with the exception of the gates.  So the posts were anchoring the entire line of field fence that encircled the pen.  This field fence was attached with four separate tie wires to t-posts every eight feet making up about a 40x40 foot pen.  So, J created a series of blocks that would span the gap between the gate and the post.  In the end, it worked out fine, but it wasn't as beautiful as my hubby would've liked.

Still Dry

We called down to the water hauler this morning and the trucker slipped on the ice and broke his wrist so he wouldn't be able to deliver water.  We are going to have to wait until Monday!  That is just a little too long for us to "dry camp" so we hitched up our trailer with a 300 gallon tank and drove it to the community well ourselves.  $3.00 later, we had a little water back at the house to tide us over until Monday.  You can bet we will be watching our water reserves more closely this next go around.  It hasn't been that much fun to be without water for so many days.

Still Out of Water

We got a call from the water hauling company this morning.  The owner was trying to fill the tank down at the local community well and had spent over an hour trying to get the tap unfrozen.  He apologized, but said that he wouldn't be able to bring water today.  Maybe tomorrow.  Ok....

Out of Water

One of the things that most people take for granted is having water.  Even those of us with a limited on-site supply do this.  Only when we forget to watch what we use, we run out.

This morning, I made coffee and got the boys ready for school.  But when J went to brush his teeth, he turned on the tap and nothing happened.  We knew it wasn't frozen because it had worked earlier this morning...it was empty.  That means that our 3000 gallon cistern had no water in it and we were at least several hours away from any water in the house.

So, I called the water hauling company immediately to get them headed in our direction.  Well...the truck driver had been at the hospital all night with his wife and wasn't making deliveries today so we will have to wait until tomorrow.  No showers, no dishes, no toilets, no nothing.  Just like camping!

Realities of Living on a Dirt Road

We knew that we needed to replace the tires on our Expedition...but like everything, it was taking a back seat to our daily expenses.  Well, today the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" took on a whole new meaning.

I was driving into town to pick up the boys from school.  Rocks always hit the bottom of the car, but a particularly loud rock startled me for a moment.  It was no more bumpy on the dirt road than usual, but for some reason I was thinking to myself, "This road is so bumpy, you would never know if you had a flat tire or not."  A car passed me and I looked in the side mirror to make sure that I wasn't going to "dust her out."  That's when I noticed how many rocks my tire was flipping up.  Then I realized that the rocks weren't rocks at all...they were small black chunks of rubber.  Then it hit me...I had a flat tire.

I pulled over and got out.  What I saw wasn't just a flat...it was a shredded tire.  I must've been driving on this tire for at least 1/2 a mile before I realized what had happened.  Luckily, the wheel looked ok.

I called a friend to get the kids (first priority).  Then I called AAA to get someone out here to tow me.  They weren't sure that they could come up our dirt road, but when I told them what had happened and how close I was to the pavement (about a mile), they agreed to get me.  The driver towed me to Les Schwab where we were lucky enough to find a set of barely used tires that fit our wheels and our budget.

Next thing we're gonna have to do are the shocks.  I don't think I have any left on this car.

Hog Heaven

Well, Hammy Fae Bacon went to Hog Heaven this morning.  I was not present for her departure...she has been a bit too much of a pet for me and I didn't think that I could stomach the mobile slaughter truck.  I know that her death was swift and she is now wallowing in that great mud puddle in the sky.

We sold her "on the hoof" (which means alive) for $350 to a local gal.  It was a steal for the meat.  Her "hanging weight" (after they gut and cut off the unusable parts) was 322 pounds.  That's a little more than a buck a pound.  I usually sell my butcher hogs at $2.25 a pound on the hoof.  It just didn't make sense to try to sell her that way.  I don't know any family that can afford to spend 800+ dollars for a hog.  I try to balance our profit with keeping a reasonable price available to local families.

As much as I was sad to see Hammy go, it sure was a nice quiet feeding time tonight without her there.  That pig was the noisiest gal I've ever met...and pushy too!  From the minute you walked out to the shed, she would bark and squeal until you put the grain in her bucket.  RIP Hammy Fae...

Consider the Following

When you are drilling posts for a fence and you live on a solar system, you have to bring the generator out to the pasture to plug the drill into.  It won't run happily off of the house system (for long).

When you need to fill a trough, you have to connect a pump to the water tank in order to pump the water through the hose to the pasture where the trough is.

If you want to make grilled cheese sandwiches, you have to wait until the generator is on before you start the electric skillet or you will be in the dark pretty quickly.

The Horses Have Landed

We have finally managed to bring the first of the livestock out to the new house.  I cannot begin to explain how nice it is to look out the kitchen window and see our horses wandering around their pen.  It has been too long without them.

Over the weekend, J and I put up a "temporary" fence of t-posts and hot wire so that we could bring them out here.  We brought Tuscon and Honey.  Belle is still at the other house, as she has no inclination to ever load in a trailer, regardless of the bribe or the threat.  She will be going to a friend's house tomorrow, so we don't need to bring her out here anyway.

Butchering Turkeys

We planned to butcher our five Broad-Breasted Bronze turkeys just before Thanksgiving so that we would not have to put them in the freezer.  This meant giving the birds four or five days of rest between butcher and T-Day.  Today (four days before Thanksgiving) was the day.

It was not a small affair.  We had several people involved in the process.  I bartered with our friend for the use of her plucker and scalder.  She got a turkey out of the deal.  I also sold the remaining three turkeys...most of which we delivered the following day.  One family wanted to see the process, so they came out to our place for the event.

Because we are between farms (moving), we had to transport the birds out to the new house in two dog crates.  They weren't hard to catch at all...I opened the crates and threw feed in.  The turkeys ran into the crate without a second thought.  There were a couple of chickens who got caught in the mix, but they managed to get out.  We divided the birds up into the two crates and were on our way.  They weren't too happy about the transport, but they settled down quick enough.

When we got to the new house, we set up the scalder and plucker.  It was interesting to do this on the solar system...we used the generator to run the scalder as it takes 1500 watts.  The plucker wasn't bad so we just plugged it in to the regular system.  In addition to the plucker and scalder, we had a table with a butcher block, some knives and kitchen scissors.  We also had a small garbage can with a bag.  And off in the dirt, we had a chopping block.

We decided to use the 22 for the initial kill.  I was concerned that the neck of the bird would be too difficult to get through with an ax.  As much as I understand that I am killing an animal, I do not want the bird to suffer in its death.  So I picked a bird out of the crate, brought it over to the dirt, and prepared for the shot.

We knew from the chickens that we needed to make sure to pin the wings down tight so that the bird didn't flap too hard after death and bruise the meat.  One of the guys in the group offered to hold the bird.  When the shot went off, the bird went wild.  J and I were both yelling at the guy to hold onto the bird and he was standing there stunned.  The bird, having been shot in the head, was dead but was also acting as a morbid sprinkler, dousing everyone within ten feet of it in a splattering of blood. J eventually grabbed the bird, but it had flailed around for quite awhile...bruising the meat pretty good.  It was not a graceful event.

From there, we held the bird (still twitching) on the chopping block and with several not so graceful swings, the head was off.  At this point, most of the blood was out of the bird (and all over us), but we held it a bit longer to bleed out the last of it onto the dirt.

Once it had slowed to a drip, we took the carcass up to the deck where the scalder and plucker awaited.  We dipped it into the scalder, holding tight to the feet and swishing through the hot water to make sure it penetrated the feathers and loosened the pores holding the feathers.  Counting slowly to 30, we moved it to the plucker.

Now, with chickens, all you need to do with the plucker is drop the bird in and watch the feathers fly.  Not so with a turkey.  We had everything running just right in the plucker - the water spraying, the drum rotating - but the minute that huge bird was dropped in, it stopped.  Over and over again, the turkey would catch its feet in the space between the drum and the wall, stopping the drum from moving.  Over and over again, J would reach in and pull the turkey free, allowing it to tumble again for a few more rotations.  When the feet didn't get caught, the bird tended to stay in a single position, thus leaving large portions of the feathers intact.  After about five minutes in the plucker, we called it good and hand-plucked the remaining feathers.

From the plucker, we went to the butcher table.  This process was almost exactly like the chicken, only with larger tools.  The gutting was the same, although we found that turkeys have two intestinal tracts that dead end into what looks like a dual colon system (I still need to look this up on the internet for confirmation).  But when it came to cutting the legs and the neck, we needed something a bit larger than the kitchen scissors.  We opted for a pair of anvil loppers.  I did prefer doing the legs without the loppers, just to keep the bone from being cut into a sharp edge, but the neck would've been impossible without something pretty strong.

After cleaning the bird, we dropped the bird into a water bucket that had iced over that morning.  It was perfect for cooling the birds quickly.

Once we had been through the process the first time, the other four went more smoothly.  There were only a few variations on the theme.  At one point, J was holding the turkey while it was shot.  He lost his grip on the wings and I thought I'd just reach in and grab them for him.  Um, not a good idea in hindsight.  It was as if I had shoved my hands into a mixer and the attachment was beating my fingers to a pulp.  I gave up quickly and spent several days after that with bruised fingers. 

Another time, we had the eerie experience of the talking dead.  One of the beheaded turkeys began calling out through its severed windpipe from the plucker...it would spin around and wail in this hollow voice.  We had this happen with chickens a couple times, but the turkey was unearthly.

We also learned that giving the turkey about a minute and a half in the scalder and cutting off the feet ahead of time really helped with the success of the plucker.

We ended up with five cleaned, fresh, turkeys - one 17 pounder, one 19 pounder, one 20 pounder, and two 21 pounders.  I sold two for $3.00 a pound and one for $2.00 a pound (only because I was afraid we might not sell it).  In the end, we had more people interested in fresh, organic, free range turkeys than we had turkeys to sell.

My thoughts for next year...promote the turkeys before we purchase the poults.  Ask for people to put a $5 deposit down to reserve a turkey for Thanksgiving at the time of poult purchase.  This way, I have covered the cost of the poults and know approximately how many to buy.  If people back out over the summer, they lose their five bucks and I gain a free turkey.

I also think I'd like to try a heritage breed next year.  While the Broad-Breasted Bronze were easy-going brids and gave us a ton of meat, I think it's unreasonable to expect most families to want a 20 pound turkey for Thanksgiving.  Ours barely fit in the oven!  With the heritage breeds, we will get the same quality meat but at a smaller size - something closer to 15 pounds.  I can also promote the "natural" breed as opposed to the meat specific breed.  And they are prettier too.

The Last of the Piglets

Well, Mouse found her home today.  I was thrilled to find someone who felt like she would work for them.  The guy that bought her (for $50) had a sow that had only two babies in the litter.  One baby died and he was trying to find a buddy for the baby so he could wean it.  This baby is only four weeks old, but he says Mouse is actually a little bit smaller than he is (Mouse is almost 8 weeks old).

Ruby is now left with two - Frieghtliner and Oreo.  These two girls were definitely the pick of the litter.  They are the biggest, strongest, and most well-adjusted piglets of the bunch.  Ruby seems to be doing ok.  I'm watching her milk supply as I don't want her to be in pain with engorgement...but honestly, I'm not sure what I'd do if she were engorged.  There is no way she is going to let me milk her.

Of the two piglets, we are hoping to find a replacement for Hammy.  I will watch to see who has the best temperament, who fills out the fastest, and who has the nicest conformation.  You want a pig with a long back and an "open" belly (where it looks like she could house a lot of piglets).  The piglet that doesn't stay with us is earmarked for a friend who is buying her at butcher age.

Battery Bank

My dad and J have been working together to get the solar system and battery bank up and running.  It has meant a lot of long nights for J and a lot of phone conversations with Dad.  I would like to include more detailed information about what they have done, just for those people who might be using this blog to figure out some of their own solar systems, but for the moment I'm going to write it how I understand it.  Always feel free to contact me if you want all of the excel spreadsheets, scientific graphs, and research articles (thanks Dad!).

So, when we bought the house, the sellers added eight new deep cycle batteries to the battery bank.  That's almost $1000 in batteries.  We thought it was great that they were willing to do that.  The thing is, they chained them into the system without removing the old batteries.  Not so great.

The problem is that when you put old, tired batteries together with new batteries, the old batteries slowly kill the new ones.  I'm sure that it isn't premeditated, but the old batteries can't help themselves.  So when we would start up the generator (or when the solar panels were charging up the system), the old batteries would take all that they could handle and then they would say STOP.  Well, the new batteries weren't getting what they needed to keep a good charge and were slowly getting weaker and weaker.  Batteries don't like to sit without a charge...so the longer that the new batteries sat without a good charge, the worse they got.

The solution?  Remove all of the old batteries and try to revive the new ones.  It seems a little counterintuitive to remove half of your battery bank.  But under these circumstances, the old batteries were holding something like a 60% charge and the new ones were doing very little, if anything.  Now that we have removed the old batteries, the new ones can give us a lot more than 60%...thus, we are actually better off with half the number of batteries in the battery bank (under these circumstances).  We will find other uses for the old batteries.  They will work fine for the fence charger or other small projects around the property.

Five More Gone

We sold five more piglets today.  That leaves us with three - Frieghtliner, Oreo, and Mouse.  It's pretty funny to look at these two towering giants next to the scrawny little runt.  We expected to end up with Mouse.  Even though I priced her at $50 instead of $75, she just doesn't look that appealing.  Especially next to her siblings.

I went to the house to meet the buyer this morning.  I had a plan...and generally speaking, it worked the way I planned it.  I knew that I could catch one piglet in Ruby's pen, but after that it would be game on and I really didn't feel like playing a game of chase with a 500 pound angry mother.  So I poured a bunch of feed into the adjacent pen where Jaws and Hammy are.

The piglets run under the fence between the two pens all the time.  We joke about how Ruby uses Jaws and Hammy as babysitters, but it's actually quite miraculous.  Not all adult pigs will tolerate piglets that aren't theirs, especially when they are eating out of the adult pig's bowl.  But Jaws and Hammy couldn't care less.

Once the piglets were all in the second pen eating, I went in and grabbed each one by the hind leg (one piglet at a time) and handed them over the fence to the buyer.  He then put them into a large dog crate that we were letting him use to transport them home.  The first two went off without a hitch.  But when he opened the door to put the third piglet in, the other two bulldozed their way out.  These piglets may only be two months old, but they are seriously strong creatures.  It took all of my strength to hold the bigger ones by the hind legs and there is no way I could have held them around their middles.

So, once again, I caught the piglets and handed them over the fence.  Ruby was upset, but it seemed to me that she was more upset about not having food than about what we were doing to the babies.  When we had three in the first crate, we locked it.  We put the other two in the second crate.  There were a couple of narrow misses, but we managed to keep everyone in the cages once they were in.

We carried the crates to the back of the truck, he strapped them down, and away they went.  Goodbye Angelina, Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dumb, Two, and 3-D.

Two Gone

Our friend picked up her two piglets today.  I was sad to see them go, but I am glad that they are going to a good home.  They will be well cared for and that makes for better meat in the end.  Chou Chou was one of the piglets to go.  She and Standard will be buddies from now on.

It's amazing...Chou Chou is almost as large as the average piglets now.  Of course, she hasn't caught up to the biggest girls in the bunch, but it has gotten harder to pick her out of the crowd.  I'm so glad that just a little extra was all she needed.  We stopped bottle feeding her about two weeks ago.  She's been doing very well, holding her own and eating lots of grain.

Now we just need to find homes for the other six.

Leaking Pipe

Last night I kept hearing this sound.  It was like the whirring sound you hear in the walls when the power is on.  Only in our house, there isn't much in the way of power running at night.  So this sound was out of place.

I mentioned it to J and he investigated.  We decided that it was localized to the area around our bathtub and toilet.  We suspected water so J turned off the water to the house.  The sound disappeared.  Hmmm...so J decided to look under the house.  When he did, he found that the bellypan under the bathroom had been cut and then duct-taped back in place.  He removed the tape and a rush of water came out.

Someone had tried to fix a leak in one of the pipes.  Only it didn't look like it was working.  They had obviously cut out the broken pipe, but instead of replacing it with a new length of pipe, they used several couplings in a row to span the gap.  This meant that there were at least six new joints where water could leak.  And that's just what it was doing.  When J turned the water on, the leak was spraying out under the house.  We guess that in the last three weeks we have probably lost 1500 gallons to the leak.

J fixed the leak properly and the problem was solved.  So glad to have a hubby that can fix things.  A plumber would charge a heck of a trip charge to come out here!

Packing Appliances

It's interesting how you begin to look at energy in a completely different light (no pun intended) when you have a finite supply for each day.  I mean, in all reality, we all should be looking at it that way, but when you know that you can always pay for a little bit more if you need it (and it will be there), you don't question whether or not using the microwave is essential to making a quesadilla.

As I look through the kitchen, I find myself asking questions.  Is this appliance essential to my daily happiness?  How much power does it actually take to use it?  Is there an alternative that doesn't use power?  How hard is the alternative? 

An example is the toaster.  We use our toaster every day.  My kids are toaster waffle fanatics.  The toaster uses 1500 watts which I explained before is a pretty fat hose.  But we only use the toaster for about two minutes a day, so it isn't really that much power.  I guess I could put the toaster waffles in the oven (which is propane), but it would take a lot longer to do and they probably wouldn't taste the same.  So the toaster stays.

Another example is the ten-cup coffee maker.  We make coffee every day.  The coffee maker takes about 1000 watts to use.  It is on for about 8 minutes a day.  But there is an easy alternative to the coffee maker that doesn't use power at all.  The French press.  So instead of using our coffee maker, I will put a pot of water on the propane stove to boil (it takes very little time to boil water with gas) and use the French press to make our coffee.  The only real drawback is that you must pour the coffee when it is ready or it cools off quickly and then you have to decide whether or not to use the microwave and well, then you may have been better off using the coffee maker in the first place.

I don't see these decisions as limiting.  Moreso, I see them as enlightening.  Like when you're on a diet and you are consciously deciding what you will put in your mouth and what you will not.  Instead of just flipping the switch, I am thinking about the ramifications of that decision.  It's actually quite satisfying.

Freezer Camp for Hammy

I was really hoping that Hammy would be pregnant by now.  We have had her in with Jaws for over a month now and I just don't think it's happening.

When we first put her back in with him, it took a few days, but she came into heat and he mounted her.  After about three days of pig lovin', Jaws seemed to relax and they went back to being platonic roommates.  But 21 days after their triste, Jaws was interested again and mounting her day and night.  I didn't see any obvious signs of heat in Hammy, but it seems too coincidental for Jaws to become interested in her right at the same time she should be due to come into heat.

But I REALLY want Hammy to get pregnant, so we waited another cycle.  Sure enough.  Jaws went from brother to boyfriend at the exact same time that Hammy was due for her heat cycle.  So, she must not be pregnant.

It has been over six months that we have been trying to get her pregnant.  We know that Jaws is capable of reproducing.  My only conclusion is that Hammy is not.  I haven't called the butcher yet, but I think she will be going to town.  I'm going to schedule her for after the 4th of November (when she should come back into heat) and hope that Jaws has no interest in her so we can plan for babies.  Otherwise, Hammy will have to go.

The kids seem to be ok with it.  Although they have told me that they would prefer I sell the pork rather than put it in our freezer (and thus on our table).  I understand.  Even though she is a farm animal and we are accustomed to the cycle of life, Hammy has quite a character and I think it might disturb the mourning process if we had Hammy bacon for Sunday breakfast.

My Take on Power

Before I start to talk about power, I want to explain the way our solar system works (in terms that I understand). I'm sure that someone will correct me if I make a mistake, but I also hope to include challenges and changes that J can write about.

Imagine a big bucket. This bucket is our battery bank. We have 16 deep cycle batteries in our bank. There is a hose pouring water into that bucket at varying rates...but it is continually trying to fill the bucket. The hose represents the solar power "pouring" energy into the battery bank. Now, on the other end, there are lots of hoses trying to empty the bucket. Some of them are very skinny. Some are very fat. These hoses represent everything that we have on the property that uses energy.  The size of the hose represents the power it takes to run each item. One of the skinny hoses might be the 1.5 watt led lightbulb we have in the living room. It drains some of the energy, but very slowly. One of the fatter hoses might be the 1500 watt toaster. It drains some of the energy, but much at a much faster rate than the lightbulb. Also, we don't have all of the hoses running all the time. Some of the hoses, like the toaster, are only on for a short time, but they drain the bucket fast. Other hoses, like the lightbulb, are on for longer periods of time, but they drain the bucket slowly.

So there are lots of hoses trying to drain the bucket. Depending on what hoses are running (the items that take energy to use), at what rate they drain (the power it takes to run each item), and how long we let each hose run, the bucket will stay full or may drain completely. If the bucket starts to get close to empty, you can stop the drain hoses for awhile (turn everything off) and let the refill hose catch up a bit. If you don't think that you can refill the bucket fast enough with the hose, you can refill it by hand (using a generator - but that costs you in gasoline). The goal is to have enough power running into the battery bank to allow for the power draining out without completely emptying the reserves. Hopefully, that makes a little more sense than it did while I was writing it.

Remember I mentioned in the last post that there were some livestock infrastructure items we were going to need to rethink.  Here are two of them.  A single heat lamp uses 150 watt hours per hour. It's a fat hose and when you are heating a chicken coop in the winter, you generally leave it on all the time. If we did that here, our bucket would be empty pretty quick and our power hose (the solar panels) wouldn't be able to refill fast enough to keep up. A single trough de-icer uses the same 150 watt hours per hour and is generally left on all the time. And we need a de-icer in every trough (about six of them). That's a LOT of fat hoses.

We are already looking into alternatives.  One idea is to use a propane water heater and pipe hot water through the chicken coop for thermal heating.  This is a cool idea because it uses the pressure from the heat in the pipes to push the water through.  It does burn propane, but it is a more efficient way of creating heat than solar.  We will also try to use passive solar with the coop.  Painting it black so that it can absorb heat would work, but we would need to be able to keep it cool in the summer, so painting may be too permanant of a solution for our needs.  Of course, with the coop we will want to make sure to insulate it well.

As for the troughs, we have found lots of cool ideas.  One idea is to use a small solar powered pond pump to aerate that water.  By moving the water, the hope is that it will not be able to form ice.  Another idea is to float a hard piece of insulation on the top of the water and leave only a small hole for drinking.  In this hole, you place a hard black ball.  The animals depress the ball to reach the water.  Good idea, but it may be too complicated.  The most direct (and least expensive) approach is to create a passive solar system for the troughs.  We paint the inside of the trough black, bury it part way in the ground and insulate all around it.  We could even paint the exterior black and use plexiglass on the south side to absorb even more heat.  We could also insulate the majority of the surface of the trough, leaving enough space for the animals to drink.

We are Go for Launch

We met with the owners this last weekend and it looks like we will be able to purchase the home directly from them.  They will meet us out at the property next week and give us keys (although they already told us where all of the hidden keys are).

Some of the biggest challenges for us will not be moving boxes and furniture, but moving pigs and chickens.  Livestock takes a lot of infrastructure and this new property doesn't have any fencing worth keeping (at least as far as J is concerned).  And not only do we need to build fencing, we need to look at alternatives for several power-sapping livestock items.  The two most important items as we head into winter will be trough de-icers and heat lamps.  Unfortunately, both take a LOT of power. 

But for now, we will start moving our personal items out and continue to keep the animals at grandpas.  J has to drive into town daily for work and can feed on the way in and the way back.  In the end, we will be living between houses until we can create the necessary pens to happily house everyone at the new ranch.

Time for a Change

Well, it looks like we will be moving the farm to another location.  There have been lots of benefits to living on the ranch with Grandpa, but we are all ready for a little more personal space.  J and I have been looking for a place over the past few months and I think we have found it.

This home is unique for many reasons.  The biggest reason is that it is completely off-grid.  Let me say that again so that it sinks in.  It is completely off-grid.  The entire place is run on solar power.  There is no power company we could attach to, even if we wanted.  The water is brought in by truck and stored in a cistern. All garbage must be dealt with on-site or brought into town. There are five miles of dirt road between us and "the grid."  It's pretty cool.

For some, the idea of living in a house like this seems impossible.  For us, it is merely a tweak in our already homesteader lifestyle.  Yes, we would be further away from town.  Yes, we would need to change some of the ways that we do things.  But it wouldn't be hard for us to adapt.  In fact, it would be fun.

We are going to meet with the owners soon to discuss purchase options.  Hopefully we can come to an agreement and get this adventure started.

Castration

I had the vet come out this morning to teach me how to castrate our little piglets.  It was not something I was looking forward to doing, but a necessary evil.  In the US, most butchers will not process an intact boar for meat.  There is something called "boar taint" that permeates the meat and can contaminate other meats nearby, thus making them taste bad.  A lot of other countries still butcher intact boars, but they do so before 5 months of age, to avoid the testosterone.  Here, even if the boar is young, you'd be hard-pressed to find a butcher that would take the chance.  Therefore, we castrate.

Dr. Crawford is awesome.  He is a young vet with skill in so many areas.  We have had him here to burn horns, to cut tusks, to treat illnesses, and now, to castrate.  We were joking about how his job is NEVER boring.  And today was no exception.

We started with him in the pen.  He grabbed the first boy and handed him over the fence to me.  Ruby was not happy, but her focus was on me and the piglet instead of Dr. Crawford.  And I was, thankfully, out of reach on the other side of the fence.  We took the piglet around to the front of the house so that he wasn't right next to the pig pen where momma was upset.

We used a pool ladder to drape the baby over.  I held his hind legs open and the rest of his body hung down off the back of the step.  He was more upset when I was holding him upright than when I turned him upside down on the ladder.  The doc cleaned off his booty with alcohol and betadine.  He palpated the testes and with one thumb, he held one teste up where we could see the bulge.  Then with a very sharp knife (actually he used a disposable scalpel) he made a vertical incision over the top of the teste.  It almost immediately popped out.  He pinched the cord that attaches the teste to the body and pulled the teste out.  The cord snapped.  He repeated this on the other side.  This time, the cord did not snap.  He told me never to cut the cord straight, rather to slice downward like a razor until it broke.

There was very little blood and amazingly, the piglet didn't cry a single time.  It didn't even flinch when he cut.  I don't know if this supports the theory that piglets have a very limited nervous system when young, or if the blood had rushed to the piglets brain and he was in a semi-trance when we did the procedure.  Whatever it was, he seemed fine.

We coated the whole site with Blu-Kote (although the doc said that Vetricin would be better) and put him back in with momma.  She was upset.

But we had two more babies to do.  So, the courageous doctor went in with the pigs.  He scouted for the next boy, grabbed him and made a run for the gate.  I opened the gate, he slid through with Ruby on his heels.  His first comment, "She's fast!"  Yes, she is.  And that is why HE went in to get the piglet.

We castrated the second baby without trouble and returned him to the pen.  By this time, Ruby had circled the wagons and was protecting the babies in the shed.  We still had one baby to do.  So...the doc went back in the pen.  He scouted the last boy, grabbed him and ran.  I opened the gate, but he missed the hole and ended up trapped in the corner with Ruby on top of him.  I swung the gate the other direction and he slid out.  He checked his legs several times, but Ruby hadn't bitten him once.  It was at this moment that we talked about how NOT boring the job of a mobile vet could be...and of how many people could go home at night and talk about how they were chased by an angry sow.

We took care of piglet number three and returned him to momma.  I gave the doc a broiler chicken for his courage.  I'm not sure that I would try this on my own, but I certainly understand the process now.  And I think I would steal all of the babies at once, not one at a time.

And Then There Were Ten

We lost Spot today.  The only guess I have is that she was behind momma when she rolled over.  There were no apparent injuries to her.  I found her out in the dirt near where Ruby likes to lie down to nurse.

Ruby was in a horrible mood after I removed the dead baby.  She didn't want anyone in with the babies...not even me.  We were supposed to give Freightliner her meds, but decided to hold off when it became apparent that Ruby was not going to let me steal another baby and live.  I think we may go with the single dose of LA200 for Freightliner instead of the five days of Penecillin, just for ease.

Injury

Freightliner has gotten a small cut at the top of her right front leg.  I noticed it yesterday because there is an abcess about the size of a golf ball just below it.  I pulled her out of the pen and sprayed the cut itself with Blu-Kote (I now have a blue thumb and forefinger now).  It definitely penetrated into the cut as she started scratching it with her hooves the minute I put her back with mommy...but I think that we need to do a bit more intervention.

I called Dr. Crawford to see about dosage for LA200.  He suggested penecillin.  I prefer LA200 only because it is a single injection, whereas the penecillin needs to be done every day for five days.  But, I know that he will give me the best advice.  The dosage for a piglet around 4 pounds is .2ml for either drug.  So, we will be pulling her out for the next few days and giving Frieghtliner her meds.  I will probably bring her all the way into the house to do the injections, mostly so that Ruby doesn't hear the squealing and get upset.  My biggest challenge now is to find a small enough needle. All the needles we have are 1-1/2 inches long and I do NOT want to try to use a long needle for such a small injection.  I will head to the feed store today and try to find a 1/2 inch 22 guage needle.

I feel fortunate that it is Frieghtliner with the injury.  She is one of the strongest babies we have.  I think that of all the babies, she can handle it.  I don't want to take any chances though.  She is the one that I think we may use as a replacement breeding gilt if Hammy doesn't take.

Oh, I noticed a strange inflammation on Mouse's rump.  She has no injuries but it seems like there is a small soft sack of fluid on her butt cheek.  We'll keep an eye on it.

Also, Ruby has been coughing a lot since giving birth.  I don't think that lungworm is an issue.  I wormed everyone about two months ago.  I do want to keep watch on her though.  The last thing I need is to have a sick momma.

Exploring

The babies have quickly become comfortable with their surroundings and are exploring the pen with gusto.  They like to follow Ruby around, checking out the bucket when she is eating her grain, chewing on hay, and running around the shed.  The little ones have even made their way into the "big pig pen" where Hammy and Jaws are.  This worries me a bit, but so far the big pigs have ignored the babies.  And if I am outside, Chou Chou and Mouse (the two runts who have really accepted the whole bottle feeding thing) will run through the holes in the fence to find my voice. 



Such a contented pig.

Dobby, our dog, isn't quite sure what to make of it.  She watches the babies with interest, but keeps a safe distance from the fence.  I don't think that she would attack them, although they sure are fun to watch.

We managed to get Ruby's mud puddle dried up, thus keeping the babies from the mud, but Ruby found another way to cool down.  And in the process of cooling off in her bathtub, she floods the water into a new mud puddle, thus circumventing our attempts to remain mud-free in the pen.  I prefer Ruby bathing in the tub because it keeps the babies safe and her teats free of mud, but it still causes some trouble.  For one, I am refilling that tub on a daily basis, just to make sure she has water to drink.

A few more of the babies have been given names.  The one with the half pink face is named "Oreo."  She is growing so well.  She's still pretty shy of my attention, but we're working on it.  The second runt that is all black is now "Mouse."  I mentioned her in the last post, but thought I'd introduce her.  She is doing ok but I sure would like to see more growth.  I did see her and Chou Chou nursing this morning and that is a plus.  I was hoping that they would be able to adjust to a bottle and mommy at the same time.  The little boy with a perfect band is "Mr. Perfect."  He would be a nice boar, if we needed one.  While I didn't want to name her "Spot," I seem to continue to call her that, so I guess it's her name.  She has a beautiful black spot in the middle of her white band.  The rest are still waiting for names.

Needle Teeth

A friend came over this afternoon to help me with the piglets and their needle teeth.  Needle teeth grow in pairs on both sides and on the top and the bottom...eight in all.  And they are sharp.  The reason for removing them is to avoid nursing issues with momma.  Obviously, the babies can bite pretty hard with these teeth and if they bug her enough, she'll push them off of her.  In addition, we've already seem a few minor injuries on snouts from brothers and sisters biting each other while scrapping for a teat or playing with each other.

The needle teeth are small enough that we actually used a pair of toenail clippers to remove them.  Just slide the tooth into the clippers and snap, off it comes.  The baby squeals, but not from any true pain inflicted by cutting the teeth...moreso because she doesn't want to be held still with her mouth open (just like any other baby).  While Ruby is a very tolerant momma, she does not like it when her babies are upset.  And since we had to do this, we decided the safest plan was to remove the babies one or two at a time, take them outside of the pen, clip their teeth, and then return them to momma.

This worked for most of the babies.  I think by the time we were reaching for number eight, Ruby had decided that we were unwelcome and had pushed her babies into the back corner of the shelter and was guarding them quite effectively.  We decided that I could finish the last few over the next couple of days.  This decision was reaffirmed when my friend told me of her experience being attacked by a sow.  The sow grabbed her calf, pulled her over onto her back, and clamped immediately onto her neck, preparing to kill her.  My friend was saved by her two brothers who beat the pig until she let go.  With that very visual story in mind, I will be particularly cautious around my momma.

Chou Chou

Freightliner, on her first day.

Some of the babies have started to become individuals to me.  I am out with them at least three times a day...sometimes to feed, sometimes to water, but also sometimes just to sit.  Where once I saw a mass of balck and white, I am now seeing eleven very different little piglets.  They do not all have names yet, although some have obvious markings that lend themselves to a name - "Spot" comes to mind.
There are two very good sized girls who are constantly arguing with each other.  One has almost the identical markings of her father, Jaws.  I believe her name will be "3-D" as in the movie sequel.  The other is all black and built like a tank.  Her name is "Freightliner."  These two girls will most likely be our best candidates for breeding gilts if we need to replace Hammy.

Chou Chou looking for milk.

The three runts are not all named.  But one is.  Her name is "Chou Chou" (think "shoe shoe").  It means "little cabbage" and is a term of endearment in French.  Chou Chou is tiny.  Her front legs seems to curl back a little more than usual, making her walk on her tiptoes.  She doesn't seem to have trouble walking and I think this will probably correct itself over time.  Chou Chou has figured out how to bottle feed perfectly.  Each time I come out to the pen and talk to Ruby and the babies, Chou Chou comes running over to my feet, squealing and snorting around.  If I pick her up, she immediately starts nudging my hands and my chest, looking for her bottle.  If she finds a finger, she will clamp down on it.  I have learned to always come with a bottle.  Chou Chou is the only runt that has really figured out how to latch and suckle on a bottle.  She is going to be hard to give up.

Another one of the runts has started to figure out the bottle.  She is all black.  I haven't found a name for her yet.  We will have to just wait and see.  I will try to post pictures of everyone tonight.  If you have any suggestions for names, let me know in the comments.

We actually have three of the eleven already spoken for.  I think we will be raising two for ourselves plus a third as a replacement gilt (just in case).  That means, we only have another five left for sale.  I cannot believe it.  And they're only a couple of days old.

Eleven

Well, our little injured piglet didn't make it.  We did our best to help her recover from a laceration on her leg, but she was so young and had to be such a fighter to begin with just to get her fair share, that with the injury she was unable to keep up.

Last night, we wrapped her leg but when I came out this morning, I couldn't find her.  I knelt in the straw to count again, and heard a squeal.  I quickly dug through the straw and found the little girl, buried six inches down.  She was still alive, but not doing well.  M decided that she should be named Charlotte because in Charlotte's Web, she dies and he knew that this piglet might die.  I brough her into the house and wrapped her in a heating pad.  This seemed to help a bit.  She had been very cold.  Piglets are unable to regulated their body temperatures when they are little and she was nowhere close to the 85-90 degrees that she should have been.

Once warm, I tried to give her a little milk with a bottle, but she didn't take it.  She began to gasp and twitch.  We could see that she was passing.  Rather than allow her to suffer, we dispatched her tiny body with a single gunshot.  We are now holding steady at eleven piglets...and all are doing well.

I have begun to bottle feed the three runts.  I go out every few hours and give each of them as much milk as I can get into them...usually only a couple of teaspoons.  They aren't as interested in being bottle fed as the baby goats were.  You have to almost pry their mouths open and they never really latch and start suckling on their own.  But I'm getting a little something in them and I hope it gives them the boost they need.

We set up two heat lamps in the shelter last night.  They are both fairly low to the ground and I am finding that it works best to turn the heat lamps off in the daytime so that Ruby will go in the shelter and lie down.  Otherwise, I think it must be too hot for her, as she tends to lie outside in the dirt.

One mistake (of many, I'm sure) is allowing Ruby to still have a mud puddle in the pen.  She has wallowed her way into the muddy water and then settles down to let the babies feed.  But the babies aren't much taller than the mud.  And her teats are covered in a thick brown laquer that doesn't seem to be too appealing to the kids.  We will be letting her mud puddle dry up for the time being.  At least until the babies are big enough to wade into it safely.

The Babies Have Landed

I had pretty much given up checking on Ruby every hour this week as she just didn't seem to be getting any closer to delivering and I knew that I wasn't going to make it happen any faster by staying up every night.  So last night, I succumbed to a cold, took some Nyquil and went to sleep.  I didn't even check on her before I crawled into bed.

This morning, I looked out the bedroom window and could see our dog sniffing the air next to the pig pen.  I immediately threw on my clothes, slipped into my shoes and ran out to the shelter.  Sure enough, I didn't even have to enter the pen to see a mass of squirming black and white bodies next to one tired momma.  I turned around, ran back to the house and yelled for the boys to come out with the camera.  I then went in to see how everyone was doing.

I braced myself in case I found any dead babies - something you never want to find, but always must expect.  Happily, the babies were all up and doing fine.  There were twelve in all, three boys and nine girls!  As I checked them each over, Ruby gave a few final pushes and delivered the last of the placenta.  I had missed all of the births, but only by minutes.  Oh well, my animals seem to like their privacy when giving birth (I don't blame them) and as a farmer friend of mine once noted, I'm luckier to have animals that can give birth without aid or intervention than to have ones that end up in complications.  It's some consolation, but I REALLY wanted to see the birth.

The babies ranged in size from under a pound to about two pounds.  They looked like little chihuahua puppies.  Some of the smaller ones fit almost entirely in my hand.  Imagine, in just six months these babies will weigh close to three hundred pounds.  Guess I'd better get my snuggling in while I can.

After I got the kids off to school, I went out to do some basic clean up.  I used a pitchfork to remove the placentas out of the pen.  As horrible as it sounds, the chickens thought that I had sent them mana from heaven when I shovelled it out of the fence and they were able to access it.  Gross chickens.  I then took a pair of scissors and clipped any of the umbilical cords that were longer than about two inches.  A couple of the babies had cords over ten inches long still attached and were catching their tethers under other babies and getting very upset.  Momma was tolerant of my presence, although she didn't like it much if I held a baby long enough to make it squeal.  She would bark and growl at me, letting me know that she was the one in charge, not me.  I respected that and it was all good.

Later in the day, I checked on the babies again.  One of the girls must've been stepped on as she had about a two inch laceration on her hind leg.  It was on the inside of the knee and was pretty deep.  I sprayed it with Blu-Kote but figured we'd need to do more later.  All the other babies were doing fine.  There were three babies that were obviously smaller than the rest.  These three runts looked like they might need a little extra, so I plan to try to supplement their meals with a bottle of rice cereal and milk.  I did help them all to latch when momma rolled over, but it's pretty hard to manage twelve hungry snouts all searching for food at the same time.  And BOY do they have sharp teeth.  We will be clipping their needle teeth soon so avoid problems with nursing.  If we don't, they babies may bite momma so much that she gives up feeding them altogether.  I don't blame her.

This evening, J and I went out to give the babies their booster of iron supplement.  Pigs are born with an iron deficiency and while pig milk is supposed to be almost the perfect food, it is low in iron.  I wanted to find the injectable kind, but settled for the oral iron.  2 ml per baby and nobody liked it.  By the end, all the babies had rust-colored slobber and J and I were covered in the stuff.  It suggests repeating this at 7 days, but I think we'll skip it on most of the babies.  Maybe just the tiny ones.

Waiting for Piglets

Ruby is due to farrow (have piglets) any day now.  We actually thought that she would have them this past weekend, but she did not.  She has a huge round belly and is obviously uncomfortable, but no other signs of impending birth.

I have spent the past two nights (and days) checking on her about every hour.  I don't think that she will need my help, especially since she is more experienced in birthing piglets than I, but I want to be there for moral support.  Watching her move around her pen brings back memories of those last few hours before giving birth and I can't help but feel for her.

She spends her days lounging in her mud pool, drinking copious amounts of water, and sleeping in her now completed shelter.  I am hoping that as the weather cools this week, she will be more comfortable.  But at the same time, I am hoping that she delivers before too long.  This waiting is killing me.

We anticipate a fairly large litter.  The last litter Ruby had included fifteen piglets, twelve of which survived.  There were some problems with her not producing enough milk - only four of her teats "worked."  I think that this may have been due to malnutrition.  She was bought from someone who fed her only bread and citrus...not a diet that will keep a pig healthy.  We have had her on good grain feed for the duration of this pregnacy and it already looks like she has milk swelling in most, if not all, of her teats.

I went to the feed store yesterday and bought a bottle of oral iron solution.  Piglets tend to be anemic when born and while I wanted to use an injectable (the feed store didn't have any), the oral equivalent will work just fine.  We have also been keeping Ruby on a free choice grain diet for the past few days.  We want to make sure that she has all of the energy she needs to bring these babies into the world.

Pig Shelter

The pig shelter is most of the way completed.  It is such a work of art.  J did a wonderful job designing it (in his head, no less) and bringing it to fruition.  And all for a pretty reasonable price (about $200).

The shelter is built on six 4x4 posts that are concreted into the ground.  It peaks in the center so that you can stand comfortably inside.  The trusses are all custom cut and are braced all the way across.  The sides are framed with 2x4s on the inside to withstand the pressure of an itchy pig.  The outside and roof is done with corrugated sheet metal (something we already had here on the ranch).

There are two doors on the entry side.  One door is meant to access the piglet side, the other door is meant to access the momma side.  Inside, we will have a grill that allows the piglets to run from side to side, but not the momma.  This is mainly so that the piglets can scurry out of the way when Ruby decides to lie down.  One of the most common ways to lose a piglet is due to a mother crushing one when lying down.  We haven't put this in yet, but will eventually add it.  We stopped working on it when the outer shell was complete because Ruby seemed insistent that we stop.  Her barking and growling was not conducive to finish work.

Ruby seems to have adopted the "piglet" side of the shelter at the moment, but she has free reign of the whole thing.  And she looks like she's content to wander in and out of it.  Now I just need J to build another one for the goats, and a modified version for Jaws.

Oh, and we need another chicken coop and a horse shelter...

Party Crashers

I'm not sure what to make of this.  The deer have found my garden, but don't seem to be eating it as much as they are trampling it.  It looks as if they are practicing the two-step throughout the tomatoes.  Yes, they are munching on the tops of the plants, but if that were all they did, we could live happily together.  But when I come out in the morning to find the limbs on my plants broken and the green fruit snapped off its vine, I am not a happy co-habiter.

I have resigned myself to the fact that there isn't much to be done.  We are so close to the end of the growing season here that building a deer fence would be silly.  And while they seem to snack on the carrot and beet tops, they aren't touching any other plants.  I'm kindof surprised that they haven't been eating the corn as I know my goats would be happy to lay waste to the corn rows if given half a chance.

In addition to deer issues, the moles have been systematically attacking my potato plants.  Again, if I could modify their behavior, we might be able to live together.  But rather than eat all of the potatoes off of a single plant and then moving to the next, I find that the moles like to taste each and every potato on several plants.  While I might be willing to simply cut the gnawed sections off and still eat the potatoes, I certainly cannot sell partially eaten potatoes to my customers.  Thus, I am left with dozens of wasted potatoes scattered throughout the rows.  My only consolation is that they will likely grown new potatoes for me next year (after we till them under).  Of course, I hadn't planned to keep the potatoes in the same spot so this might not be a benefit.

The corn is doing wonderfully.  We have enjoyed many dinners with corn on the cob.  The cobs are only about 8 inches long and not nearly as wide as the store bought varieties, but they are so sweet you easily forgive their size.  We have lots and lots of ears growing.  I hope to let them all grow until the first hard frost, then pick them all and process them for the freezer.  Until then, we pick them as we eat them.  Yum.

The squash is doing pretty well.  We have had a fair amount of zucchini and crookneck.  There are two acorn squash that I have seen on one plant, and a single delicata plant is doing its darnedest to give a bushel of its winter sweetness.  There are probably a half dozen squash on this one plant.

The cucumbers didn't ever do well.  They died in the first frost of the season - one that didn't hurt the tomatoes, but killed some of the smaller squash.  So no more cucumbers.  I think we got a total of four from the whole lot.

The beets are still small.  I think they just don't grow as well in the heat.  The first batch (early in May and June) were great.  These last ones still have a wonderful flavor, but they are smaller than a golf ball and hardly anything is left after you peel them.

The carrots are doing well...those that aren't "topped" by our resident vegetarians (rabbits and deer).  Some of them are actually 8-10 inches long.  And they have a very nice flavor.  I think I will plant this same variety again next year.

The onions are struggling against what I can only guess to be "neck rot."  Several of the onions are rotting right at the neckline.  When I pull the onion, sometimes the rot has travelled down the layers through the entire bulb.  If I remove the rotted layer, the rest of the onion is wonderful.  But it isn't the easiest thing to do, and often it leaves a smaller onion than I would like to sell.  It seems random as to which onions have this rot and which don't.  I have many that are growing just fine.  And while they are yellow onions, they are so sweet...almost as sweet as a Walla Walla.

The beans are climbing the trellis.  I think we may end up with a few beans.  I planted them so late, I am surprised to see anything from them.  Next year I will be better about getting them in the ground early.  I also think I will plant both pole and bush beans.  I have been told that the bush varieties tend to have a shorter time to harvest...that is a good thing where we live.

Hammy is NOT Pregnant

Well, Hammy's due date has come and gone.  We were really hoping that she was just not showing because she is a first time mommy and had a small litter brewing.  No luck.  Even with J's words of encouragement, "Babies or Bacon, Hammy.  You're choice," she has not produced.

Her due date was on Saturday.  I wanted to give her a few extra days just in case I miscalculated.  But with absolutely no signs of impending labor, we have to assume that she is without child.  A big faker, as J says.

One of the challenges about living on a working farm is that we really have to look at our animals as livestock, not pets.  As much as we love Hammy - her personality, her body conformation, her belly rubs - she is a pig and she eats like a pig.  Maintaining Hammy at her current weight means six pounds of feed a day plus at least one flake of hay.  In monetary terms, Hammy costs us about $1.50 a day or $45 a month to keep.  She needs to earn her living.  Literally.

Now I see the hypocracy in letting the horses live.  They easily eat as much as Hammy and have yet to produce anything that we can sell or eat.  But I guess until horse meat is accepted again in the US, the horses are safe.

So this week, we will be putting Hammy back in with her love, Jaws.  Jaws will surely be thrilled to have some female contact as he has been snorting away at the girls through the fence for the past two months.  I think we will actually leave the two lovebirds together for the next two months, just to make sure that the job gets done.  And if we're lucky, we might even end up with Fair pigs - pigs that are born in December or January and can be sold to 4-H kids for Fair.

It will actually work well.  Ruby is due somewhere around the 10th of September, so having Hammy out of the pen that Ruby is in will give her some alone time to prepare for birth.  Of course, Zeus (our stinky Boer buck) is sharing the pen with Ruby, but that is different than another pig.  And by the time we're ready to give Hammy her own space, we should have a shelter built and a fence divider in.

And if Hammy doesn't "take" this next time, we will be taking her to town.  It will be hard if it comes to that, but we're not a petting zoo and unless we can find a way to keep her for free, she'll end up in the freezer.  Maybe we should start a website "Save Hammy Fae" just in case.