The Three Little Piggies - Week 3

Our happy little hogs are growing!

Baykin, one of our two 9 week old gilts. Brother Porkchop is standing just behind her, and Miss Prosciutto is... somewhere else.

They still are a little people-shy, that is, unless you're Scarlet, the bringer of doughnuts.

Scarlet-girl loving on one of last Spring's chicks. She's a little mommy!

This week's diet has remained mostly the same - Pig porridge once daily (a 50% larger ration than last week), a dozen packages of bakery outlet yummies and a case box of random produce.

We have our awesome fellow farmer neighbors, D & R, to thank for the produce. They get a mighty haul of unsold and imperfect produce from the same source the we used to, and are kind enough to have shared several cases of it with us this week. We probably will check in with our/their source (a locally owned grocery store) to see if there is any more free produce to be had, since our piggies appetites seem to be growing daily.

Another big dietary change is just around the corner for our porky pals, just as soon as we finally start milking our goats. We have nine does who are in milk, eight of whom are milkable (When it comes to milking, Blue is civilly disobedient). We anticipate that we will get a good 2-3 gallons or so, milking just once a day. Last year, we had just two girls in milk, and got roughly 3 quarts per day, and were frequently overwhelmed by the bounty. The pigs are here to make sure that not a single drop goes to waste!

In the meantime, our chickens are helping us shoulder the burden of providing these growing pigs with adequate protein. In addition to the generous serving of porridge, produce and bread products, we have been giving the pigs some whole, hard boiled eggs each day. First it was the Easter eggs that the girls had to dye, but refused to eat. They were so well received that I started adding a few eggs to their porridge on days when there is no other protein to offer them. Everything counts at this stage in their development!

Critter Census - Spring 2013

For better or for worse, these numbers are likely to change due to either loss or gain - hopefully gain - within the next 12 weeks leading up to Summer.

Chickens - 14

Sir Rosco Peckins - Lavender Orpington roo
Leroy Brown - Splash Cochin roo
Leon - Black-laced Red Wyandotte roo
Lacy - Silver-laced Cochin hen
Coo-Coo - White/Wheaten Americauna hen
Amelia - Dark Americauna hen
Rose - Brown Americauna hen
Gracie - Golden-laced black Polish hen
Puffy - White Silkie hen (currently sitting on 9 eggs at last count)
Ewok - Brown Americauna hen
Miss Bitey Pants - Black "Policauna" hen
Jasmine - Black Policauna hen
Australorp hens who's names I don't remember (2 of them)

The coyote seems to have picked off a few look-alike hens without our notice, based upon our slowly but steadily shrinking flock. 

Guinea Fowl - 2

Spotty & Sylvia - Pearl Grey hens

Rabbits - 1

Prince Charming - Neutered mini-Rex male

Goats - 19 (Aye, chihuahua!)

Blue - 11 year old Agouti Grey, disbudded Nigerian Dwarf doe
Chardonnay - 5 year old Caramel brown, blue-eyed, gopher-eared, disbudded mini-Lamancha doe
  Chardy's twins - dark in color, doelings
Hop - 2 year old Fawn & White spotted, gopher-eared, mini-Lamancha doe
  Hop's male kid - White & Grey, ND "erect" eared, disbudded mini-Lamancha wether
Valentina - 2 year old Fawn colored, elf-eared, mini-Lamancha doe
  Valentina's twins - Fawn/buckskin colored, gopher-eared
Liberty - 1 year old Caramel brown, blue-eyed, gopher-eared, mini-Lamancha doe
  Liberty's kid - Black with white markings, disbudded
Hope - 1 year old Caramel brown, blue-eyed, gopher-eared, mini-Lamancha doe
  Hope's kid - Fawn colored, disbudded
Sidney - 4 year old, White with black markings, erect-eared, disbudded Alpine doe
  Sidney's kid - disbudded wether
Sophie - 3 year old, White with black markings, erect-eared, disbudded Alpine doe
  Sophie's kids - Black & White, gopher-eared, disbudded, mini-Lamancha/Alpine doeling
                         Black & White, erect-eared, disbudded, mini-Lamancha/Alpine wether
Buckley - 2 year old, Buckskin colored, gopher-eared, mini-Lamancha buck

I feel bad that I can't recall off the top of my head all of the pertinent details about all of the new babies, but between my memory issues and the landslide of babies born in the past two weeks, I'm just out of my depth at the moment. :\

Pigs - 3 (I'm not too committed to learning these guys' names, and so I venture a guess at who's who here.)

Baykin(?) - 9 week old spotted gilt
Prosciutto(?) - 9 week old black gilt
Porkchop(?) - 9 week old black barrow

In addition to our livestock, we have the pets - dogs, Rex & Penny, curmudgeonly old box turtle, Bob, and our lone parakeet, Applesauce. That brings our grand total to 43 critters. HOLY CRAP.

The Three Little Piggies - Week 2

I spent an unreasonable amount of time this week reading some incredibly informative, yet utterly mind-numbing facts & stats on swine nutritional needs. Who's jealous? ;)

Trying to take everything that I'd read from various sources into account, I ended up deciding that the best diet for our pigs is one based on protein-rich organic grains and cereals, homegrown raw goat milk, beet pulp, molasses and some supplemental vitamins and minerals, and of course, the odd bit of produce or kitchen scraps. Tonight was our first time feeding the pigs their "porridge", and it seems to have been well received. Based upon whether this satisfies them, and whether or not they seem to be gaining well with this formulation, some tweeking and fine tuning the recipe may be in order. But here it is, as it stands now, my recipe for lip-smackin' swine delight. ;)

Chelle's Pig Porridge 

serves 3, 40-50 pound feeder/grower pigs

1 1/2 cups organic soybeans
1 1/2 cups sorghum grain
3 cups medium ground organic corn grits
3 cups organic cracked wheat
2 cups pelleted beet pulp
1 scoop (about a tablespoon) nutritional yeast
1/4 cup molasses
2 scoops (included in package) kid milk replacer powder - Eventually this will be replaced by fresh, raw goat milk, and the volume of water used to rehydrate/plump the cereal grains will be reduced accordingly.
1 scoop (included in package) loose minerals
14 cups +/- very hot water

Mix together in a large bucket, stir well and allow to sit and absorb the liquid and cool to room temperature over an hour or so. The dry grains themselves, before adding the water, weigh about 8 pounds. The water and other ingredients about double that, making for roughly 16 pounds of porridge, more or less. We also have a large stockpile of past-sell-by-date bread products and pastries that we feed at a rate of 3 packages (these could be doughnuts, hot dog buns or high-end whole grain breads, etc.) per meal. This seems to be an adequate meal for our three little piggies - for now. We'll make adjustments and additions as necessary.

As for the source of our grains, I had such a hard time tracking down certified organic products that I could buy in bulk quantities, that I ended up having to buy people-grade grains from a local (Oregon) mill, Bob's Red Mill. 

The single most expensive ingredient were the organic soybeans, at $46 for a 25-pound bag. The sorghum, corn and wheat were all less that a dollar per pound though, meaning that we got 150 pounds of grains for about $140, which sounds like a lot, until you consider that -

a) This should last us close to a month, being fed this porridge once per day (for now they have a lighter breakfast meal of pig chow, bread products and kitchen scraps)

b) Organic is always more expensive, and finding organic/non-GMO corn & soy is getting very hard.

c) This diet won't go on for more than a month or two. When the goat milk and garden food streams start flowing, we'll be able to reduce the amount of purchased feeds for our piggies.

d) If you believe the feed conversion rates that I've been reading about, ad nauseum, feeding three pounds of these high quality, high protein feeds equal one pound of pork. So, $140 worth of grain = 50 pounds of hormone-free, organic, happy pork. Keep in mind that that number is based upon the grains alone, and doesn't count the nutritional contribution of the goat milk, kitchen scraps, etc.

e) If all else fails, we can eat the grains that we bought for our piggies.

It's possible that I've grossly miscalculated everything, and these will be the most expensive, spoiled pigs on earth. It is also possible that I will have tried something non-conventional and slightly risky, and end up rewarded with ribs and chops that are to die for.

The proof will be in the puerco. ;)

The Three Little Piggies - Week 1

Basically, so far, so good. Everybody seems to be in good health and good spirits, and no one has tried to make a break for it yet, which is maybe the best news of all. The hotwire that Bill ran around the pen - maybe 6 inches off of the ground - seems to be more than enough to stem their curiosity of what lies beyond. The piglets aren't the only ones figuring out what hotwire is about, our puppy Penny seems to have learned the hard way that the pig pen is no place for a 7-pound morsel such as she. She's fine, but let out quite a yip upon encountering the wire.

As for feeding the pigs - that has been going well so far too. We went spelunking in the depths of our chest freezer for the freezer burned, forgotten and out-of-date items that have a way of accumulating in there. In just 7 days, the little porkers have cleaned us out of old bread, last years frozen goat milk, 3 1/2 year-old fruit (apparently `09 was a bumper year for blueberries) and some incredibly freezer burned fish. All mixed with a generous scoop or two of the leftover kid milk replacer powder that was leftover from this rocky kidding season that we've just come through. The pigs relish this mish-mash of half-frozen leftovers, and clean their trough of every last speck, every single time.

     

We do have a bag of Pig Chow that we've been mixing in with their slops now and then. At $13.99 per 50 pound bag though, we probably won't be feeding much if any more of it once that first bag is gone. Our goat milk and bakery outlet haul will make up the larger part of the piggies' diet, which will also be supplemented with garden gleanings and rejects, kitchen scraps, odd or elderly hard-boiled chicken eggs, and, if we get lucky, more imperfect produce generously given by our local grocery store.

We're really trying to keep the costs of our grass-to-bacon experiment as low as possible, so far, we've fed the pigs - our freezer gleanings (free), half a bag of kid milk replacer, which would have been wasted after having been opened to feed a baby buckling who didn't make it (about $8.00 worth), kitchen scraps (free), and about 1/2 of a 50-lb bag of pig chow ($7.00 worth), which brings our total feed cost so far, to $15.00, or roughly seventy-five cents per day, per pig.

Billy is picking up a new load of critter bread from the bakery outlet as we speak ($25.00), and we're presently trying to make a plan for starting to wean the goat kids, freeing the mamas' milk supply for our use in the kitchen and in soapmaking, and for sharing generously with our porcine pals. I'll be keeping a close watch on every penny spent on this piggy project, in order to determine just how much a pound of non-antibiotic saturated, happily wallowing, well-fed pork really costs.

We anticipate that our portly Three will be ready for harvest around late August/early September, but their size and weight will be the final deciding factor on just when Bacon Makin' happens, exactly. I look forward to the final crunching of numbers and cost/value analysis almost as much as I look forward to that first rack of ribs hitting the barbecue. This is food nerd nirvana. :)

Setting Goals for Farm Income - Phase 1

In the past few years I've read dozens of books about how to sustainably, efficiently and effectively make money from your backyard garden/small urban farm. I always walk away from those books all charged up about how we're going to run our farmstand, and what all we can offer up for sale there. Then crazy things like last May's car accident happen, and we suffer a big ol' setback. Not this year - I'm determined.

Someday, it'd be lovely if this farm alone provided us with enough income so that Bill could retire from his real job and work here at home instead, side by side with the new and improved me, milking goats, weeding the garden and picking apples. I'm not really sure exactly what it would take to make that happen though.

If you're a fan of the show The Fabulous Beekman Boys, then you'll know that they have been working toward a similar goal as us. Somehow or other, they arrived at the conclusion that they'd have to sell a million dollars worth of food/soaps/farm tchotchkes in order to offset Josh's nine-to-five income and allow him to work on the farm full time. I'd love to know how they came up with that number, and I'd like to figure out exactly what our magic number is, but I don't have the faintest idea how to work that out.

Instead, because I really need to set an attainable goal for myself after this past year of missed opportunities and failure, I'm starting low - $5 per day.

Even before we get our farmstand up and running, I figure that I can produce at least $5 worth of salable product each day with my knitting. A single dishcloth goes for $4, and I can easily turn one out per day. A pair of bike helmet earmuffs can also be done in about a day, and sells for $15, covering me for three days if I should somehow fall behind. It is an extremely small goal, but, when regarded in the context of a full calender year, gives me over $1800 worth of knitted inventory to offer at my bazaars and online. Assuming that 50% of that is profit, I can make us $900 doing something that I thoroughly enjoy and that relaxes me. Pretty cool!

And so, that is what I've committed myself to so far. When I have a clearer idea of how much honey and wax that our beehives will give us, how much produce we can grow and sell, and how much soap we can produce with our goats milk and homegrown botanicals, I will set production and income goals for those areas as well. But for now - small, teensy, microscopic potatoes are all that I can honestly commit to. Every successful business has to start somewhere, right?

Turning Grass into Bacon - A Work in Progress

Step one - Find a little piece of land that is very green, to call your own.

Step two - Procure Goats that will happily eat your grass

'Sup?

Step three - Milk Goats 

Step four - Share your goat milk (upcycled grass) and bakery outlet bounty (wheat = grass) with your three little piggies.

What $20 will get you at the bakery outlet.

Three little pigs, Baykin, Porkchop (Choppy) and Prosciutto (Shootie)

With a lot of nutritious slops, some hiney scratchin' and a few months time, these little 30 pound "weaners" will end up as 250 pound "finishers". At which point I'll be switching their diet from primarily protein-intensive goat milk, bread and kitchen scraps to a diet that is comprised mainly of windfall and foraged apples and pears. At least, that's the game plan as it stands now.

By the time the girls head back to school in the Fall, the verdict should be in on whether or not all of this pig wranglin' and raisin' was worth the trouble. Stay tuned... 

Early Spring Farm Checklist - Western Washington Edition

Technically, it's still winter for another eight days, but I've always thought of mid-March as Spring. Maybe it's because I've been seeing Easter stuff for sale in the stores since February 15th, or maybe it's just my boundless optimism? Either way, bring it on!

This list applies to my particular area (Zone 7B per the USDA's Hardiness Zone index), in this particular  year. The duration and severity of seasons never seem to be the same any two years in a row anymore. Luckily, this year seems to be bringing an early (or at least not late!) Spring. Temperatures have been fairly mild, and we haven't had hard frosts or monsoon-type rains for the past month, give or take, which makes this rain belt farm chick pretty optimistic that Spring will arrive on time this year.

And so, the Spring to-do list must be made, then tackled, one item at a time. We're trying our hands at a LOT of new and exciting projects this Spring, including honeybees, pigs and a brand new kitchen garden, so our list is rather mighty. Between the fair weather and my new knee, I have high hopes that we'll be able to pull this ambitious list off and have a super productive year. This will be our first year in which our little farm will be more than a hobby, but an honest to goodness, money-making business. I'm a big bundle of jangled, eager, excited nerves. It's a good kind of crazy. ;)

March To Do's

*Forage - Stinging nettles & dandelions
*Plant - Start lettuces, cruciferous veggies and hardy herbs indoors. Plant peas out as soon as a raised bed is available.
*Buy - Lumber and other building materials for building two Kenyan Top Bar beehives, a shelter for the pig pen, and at least half a dozen raised beds. Buy 3 weaner pigs.
*Sell - List our buck and 2-3 does with kids for sale, eggs
*Fix - Replace hoses that Rex destroyed, touch up paint job on the big coop, paint east-facing side of the coop with chalkboard paint so that eggs and other farmstand offerings can be advertised for sale.
*Clean- Pick up storm-downed tree limbs that have accumulated over the Winter (feed to goats), tidy up yard and porch. Pull weeds if time permits. Muck out goat houses and chicken coops.
*Build - Finish pig pen and shelter.  At least start beehives. Work on getting a few raised beds in for early veggies.


I know that I must be forgetting some stuff here, because this list looks way too manageable. Uhg. I need to be back up to speed, like, yesterday. Oy...