Well it has been a long hard cold snap here on the farm. We were hauling hot water and pig slop up the hill for the past several weeks. Today is the day that most of the heavy lifting comes to an end. The three little pigs that we got in may will be butchered today along with our calf Chester. They all had a good loving healthy life with us and we are sad to see them go in some ways, on the other hand it will be less work during the winter and help to feed our family for quit some time.
The pigs are partially shared with our neighbors and we will sell a few halves and keep some in our freezer. Nothing like a pork chop bar- b- que in the summer on the grill. These pigs will be tasty as they were fed excess milk and a wide variety of veggie leftovers from the garden in-addition to their rooting space in all theblackberries. and wild scrubs.
This year we had more animals then ever before. Some were experimental to see what it was like to raise and process others were the girls 4-H projects and others found us or decided to have babies. We had our first chicken and duck hatching in an incubator, a kitten litter, and Delilah our mama duck hatched 6 ducklings late in the year.
The girls kept track and at one point we had about 120 animals, not counting the worms We just took an inventory the other day and here is what we came up with.
- 1 cow
- 20 chickens in two different groups
- 5 goats soon to be 4
- 7 ducks
- 8 turkeys soon to be 3
- 3 rabbits
- 4 cats (2 barn & 2 house)
- 1 dog
- 1/2 horse, it’s a miniature
Thats about 50 or so….
wait stop the press! we have a new arrival of a little Buck to service our doe goats. This will mean that the numbers will start to go up again in the spring with lots of new critters.
Life on the farm is anything but boring!