Poultry Party

There are people how like chickens and there are some that don't.  There are people who like the city and some that don't.  It is all up to that person and how they view themselves and the things around them.  For instance.  Growing up we had cats, dogs, ducks, and chickens.  Oh yes, and ferrets, mice, rats, snakes, and I am sure there are more I just don't remember.  Well, once I moved up here to the farm I had this wild idea.  Lets get chickens.  Now, they would do meat birds every year.  That is buying day old chicks every spring and feeding them all year long and then sending them to the inspector and butcher in the fall.  Next year, rinse and repeat.  The meat birds they would buy might grow well and taste ok, but wow, are they the worst in a chicken I have ever seen.  On average, we would loose 30% of them every year.  You see, if you keep them even a day to long, they start to drop dead of heart disease.  They come having to have medications the first four weeks because they are sick and carrying all types of nasty stuff.  They eat each other.  I am sorry, but after I saw these things, I wouldn't eat chicken for a long while.  I totally lost my want of every having another chicken again.  However, I went to a poultry show and fell back in love with them again.  I like the heritage breeds.  Yes, they take longer to grow.  No, they don't have the double breast of the "meat birds".  No, they don't carry the diseases of the other birds if you pick your stock carefully from a breeder. 

So started my journey to try to get poultry on the farm.  After much arguing and fussing with the older two generations here on the farm, I got my way.  More because they want to prove a point then anything.  But I can be crafty.  I was told in the winter, no electricity other then a light for when I feed and check for eggs.  And no gas!  Now it gets -40C to -50C here.  So, they would freeze to death.  Or so they thought.  I wondered how I could keep them warm.  Well, heat lamps, no.  Put a gas heater in a building.  No, they said no money.  Hmm..  Oh, fire.  Oh, how do I put fire in there without burning down a building.  Well, in my roaming around the farm, it just so happened that there is an old wood stove heater that isn't being used.  YES!  Next problem.  Where to put that.  I don't have time or money to build a building.  Most the other buildings are made of wood.  Too risky for me.  Again, go searching for what isn't being used.  Hey, there is there metal trailers.  Solid metal.  They used to be used as kitchens on the oil fields.  They are no longer used here.  According to hubby, they haven't been used for many many years.  Two require alot of work to be used.  One though, that one is full of very old clover seed that they want thrown away.  So, why not let the chickens work on the seed, have a building, and stay warm all winter.  It is large enough to hold all the laying chickens.  It even has cabinets in one end that with the doors off are great doubles for laying boxes.  So, I grab the tractor, get the trailer hocked to it, moved it down here by the house so I can get to it in the winter.  I put a temporary fence around it.  I close up the windows as there is no glass left in them.  Plexiglas works well for this.  So, it is actually good enough right off to put them out there while I work on the inside when I have time.  Now, left on the list to do is to build a cage in the center that will house the heater so they don't try to perch on it and burn themselves.  To do that I have to dig out the old seed from that area.  Not too bad.  Within a matter of a few days, they chickens were already laying the in straw covered cabinets.  Tearing up the old seed so it can be taken out of there.  You see, seed is grain.  Grain is seed.  All seed/grain up here if it sits too long will get grain beetles.  So, the chickens scratch up the seed to get at the bugs.  It will take them all winter to get through all the seed out there.  But, that is just fine with me.  Extra protein for them.  It may not be pretty, but it works wonderful. 

So, we now have chickens that I raised all year long.  Half of which I hatched out too.  Every morning me and the kids go out for our daily poultry party.  Every morning we feed them and look for eggs.  I say party because they yell and call for us as soon as they see us, they hope around like they are dancing, and as soon as you go in the pen with them, they are jumping all over trying to say hi.  Oh, and the turkeys, they are a favorite, they sing every morning.  Here is to proving that with some hard work, using your brain, and wanting something, you can make it happen.  Even to prove a point!

My Beef on Dairy

First thing I can say is : I never knew anything could smell so bad!  We have had beef cattle from the beginning.  They don't smell.  Our pastures are big.  It averages two acres per cow of pasture.  We supplement as needed with hay, but usually that is just the winter months.  Our beef animals are our highlands.  They will come right up to you to get what ever treat you bring to the pasture.  They do not stink.  When we decided to get a dairy cow, we did all the stuff you are told to do.  The dairy ration, the feeding schedule.  Clean shavings everyday, getting out the poop a few times a day.  WOW!  None of it made a difference.  Jillian stunk, the barn stunk, your clothes stunk if you went in there.  It wouldn't come of your hands, nothing.  For many months we thought it was something we would have to live with.  I had been to several dairy operations.  They all smelled the same.  The smell will eventually come out, but it lingers, for a long time.  In the beginning we didn't have a separate building for milking.  My hubby milked Jillian in the barn.  So, guess what.  The milk smelled like it.  I wouldn't drink it.  Everyone else got used to it.  I, being the city girl I was, couldn't.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get past any of it.  Hubby was great though, he would keep as much of his outer clothing outside as possible.  Cant tell you how many times he had rain in his muck boots just because I wouldn't let them in the house.  I have smelled some pretty bad things in the past.  But this "dairy barn" smell sure takes the cake.  We'd had so many different animals in the barn in the past and never anything like this.  I finally set out on a mission.  I was going to find out why it stunk.  Cause, my city thinking is things only smell bad like that when something is wrong.  Now I know it isn't anything wrong, but it can be changed.  Barley is used because of its nutrients.  It is seen as being better then many other grains.  I also couldn't understand why a cow (remember, city girl) had to be fed grain all the time when the beef cows get big and fat on grass.  Well, learned that over time and selective breeding dairy animals developed they way they are to take the nutrients from the grain and not the grass.  So, back to the point.  The smell.  All this learning was because I just couldn't take it anymore.  I had fed Jillian and I brushed her regularly.  Her feed was kept in a bin in the barn.  I was pregnant when she came here to be with us, so I never lifted her dairy ration from the truck into the barn.  Now, several months later, baby is here and I can do things again.  So, I am lifting the feed, I notice a smell.  It smells, sweet.  But under that, there is this awful medicine cleanser type smell.  Now, this was a very short time after the baby had gotten here, so I still had that pregnant woman, some smells stick out more them others thing going on.  Later that day, I ask hubby to tell me what exactly is in the dairy ration.  We get the label off and read it.  We go through each thing on there.  Very shortly, we discover that it is mostly barley.  Then hubby's mother comes out to the barn while we are talking about it all.  She makes a comment about barley always having a sick medicine type smell to it.  I could have been knocked over with a feather.  HELLO PEOPLE!!!  The smell is the barley!  Stop giving the cow barley!!!  I wanted to slap who ever started giving it to dairy cows and then putting them in a barn all day long.  After this experience, we decided to treat out dairy cows, like cows.  No barley is allowed to be fed to them.  EVER!!!  We also found that feeding them sprouted grains gave much better, richer, and higher volume of milk then the dairy ration ever did.  Guess what, there is no more smell.  It is very ironic.  The dairy cows actually don't smell.  Just like the highlands.  So, my first battle with the stench was won.  I also have a theory on their bodies.  I mean come on, I know they put most everything they eat into their milk, but does it have to look like it will die from being too thin?  For an example, look at Jillian's pictures in Jillian's big romp.  Jillian's body condition has improved drastically since taking her off barley and off the dairy ration.  Now, it is home grown grains, hay, and special treats. 

However, there is more to this story.  Recently, hubby got a part time job to help cover things in the winter.  You see, it is illegal for us to sell any milk, butter, cheese, or cream here.  So, when the winter rolls around, it is crunch time.  Well, his part time job is AT A DAIRY!!!  And so the smells start again and we are on for round two.  Now it is only a matter of time before I figure out how to get the smell out of his clothes and off of him.  Because of course, like every dairy out there that I have been to, they feed mostly barley.

Jillians big romps!

We decided with our growing family that we needed a dairy cow to take a large load of the grocery bill away a month.  We had our 3 yr old and I was pregnant again.  So, we got Jillian.  She is well enough behaved.  She was a 4-H animal.  And then milked in a commercial dairy barn.  Now, at some point I will get into what exactly that means, but for now, lets just say it makes the animal hand shy and cautious.  Even after being here more then a year, she will approach you for food, but touching her, she will still back away.  She is alot better now though.  When she first came home she wouldn't even allow you within 20 yards of her if she was in a pasture.  In a stall, well, it was a breeze, but not in a pasture.  We pasture our Jerseys when it isn't too cold.  So most of the year she is outside. 

One memory stands out the most.  We had her in the pasture and it was time for her to come in to be milked.  My husband went out to get her.  Now, Jillian is the biggest Jersey I have ever seen!  I had was only days from my due date, so I didn't dare go out there.  I as standing there at the gate and here I see this man, who is not so little of a man, trying to act very small as to not scare Jillian.  He had a bucket of her favorite grains.  We figured that one out really fast.  He had the halter hidden behind his back with the lead rope attached to it.  So, eventually, Jillian starts to eat her grain.  Hubby walks up to her and she is fine.  He touches her and she bolts.  So, starting over.  She finally gets to the grain.  He decided this time to stand by the grain and she would have to come up to him and the grain.  Everything went well, it only took her bout 5 minutes.  Then he touches her.  She didn't back off as far, but was still very much out of his reach.  So, start over again.  It was getting close to an hour of them playing this game.  I was laughing so hard at his very rapidly shortening temper.  Finally, she allowed him to touch her.  By this time, her grain was almost gone.  He knew unless he went and got more, this was his last chance.  He is there, petting her face and neck.  He brings the halter out and she tries to bolt.  Well, he'd had enough by this time.  He jumps on her neck, feet off the ground and all.  He hangs on for dear life.  His feet come back to the ground, dragging, as Jillian is running across the field.  Dust is flying every which way.  Then everything stops.  They were half way out in the field so I couldn't make everything out.  But moments later, here he comes walking back with the the biggest crappiest grin I had seen in a while.  He had somehow managed to halter Jillian in all the dust flying that was going on.  Once haltered Jillian is a very well behaved girl.  So, he gets the milk, knowing what just happened out in the field, he takes it over to the chickens and dumps it in a bucket for them.  Then walked past me and said, she wont be back at pasture again.  Well, he was right for a few months.  He kept her in a stall for the next 10 months.  Only giving her a few hours a day in a 50 ft by 50 ft pen outside. 

This is Jillian when she first came to us. 

This is Jillian now.  She is still impatient when it comes to getting her grain from the bucket to the feeder!

Jillian is currently in calf for a Jerseyland calf in March.  She will follow to a holding pen with her grain bucket where she can be milked.  We have also added two other Jerseys to our small place.  Annie who is the biggest doll I have ever seen.  She will let you do anything to her and you can walk right up to her out in the pasture and milk her without a halter and be done with it.  Then there is Whipcream.  Named by our then 3 yr old.  This heifer thinks she is a dog.  She will try to follow you everywhere and always rubbing on you.  She is due for her first calf in July.  She even lets the kids ride on her back while we walk her around the field.  She is hard to halter only because she is too busy rubbing against you to be petted, that she doesn't always hold her head still. 

Pending no more cow wrangling, we should have three milking cows this next year.

A piece of history!

Well, it doesn't seem like it could have been five years ago that I met my husband.  Like a lot of people in the new age, we met online.  We dated for a few years.  He would fly back and forth from his home in Canada to my home in Utah.  He would come out several times a year, but never for long.  You see, he is a farmer.  In all aspects of the word.  I THOUGHT I knew what I was getting into, but truth be told, it would be many years before I really understood, and even now, I am learning more every day.  I had lived or spent a lot of time in many different states in the U.S. and had been in many different types of places.  From apartments to 20 acres.  Backwoods FL, to civilized CA, hickville AR, to culture shock UT.  I say that lovingly, as I took different things from all those places.  I had graduated high school to the shock of my mother as I never did like school.  I was working my first job in 11th grade.  My husband mostly grew up here on the farm.  At first it was just summers spent here.  His great grandparents homesteaded the place.  By the time he was 14 they moved here and he has worked it full time ever since.  But, don't get me wrong, he is a very educated man too.  Finishing college for accounting and business finance.  He plays the roles of husband, father, farm manager, small business owner, vet, and product handler. 

Our journey to Jerseyland is a long and hard one.  I will not go into it all now, but periodically through out the "blogging". 

For a short piece of history:  It took three years for us to finally marry after we were dating.  It took him months to even convince me to date him.  There were a few reasons.  One he is younger then I am, and two he lived in a different country.  I never wanted to move again much less to a different country!  Sorry Canadians, but I am still a good ol' USA kinda girl. 

The farm here consists of Highland Cattle, Jersey Cattle, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and horses and of course 480 acres of grain fields.  When I first moved here, it was just the Highlands, the fields, and the horses.  I am only responsible for the chickens.  The farm has grown a lot since I have been here. 

Oh yes, and of course, our Jerseyland's.  We are expecting our first crop of those in March.  You see, up here it gets to -40 and -50 in the temperatures.  Jersey cattle need heated barns, or their udders freeze.  The highlands are so hairy, they are good with a few bales outside all winter.  The highlands don't produce the amount of milk needed, but it is high in cream.  The Jerseys produce the amount and the cream, but cant stay outside.  So, we are crossing them.  We will be milking Jerseys, Highlands, and our Jerseyland's over the next two years.  For now, it is just our Jerseys.  We are hoping that we will get at least one if not two heifers out of our three Jerseys this year. 

Now that there is a tiny bit of the history and the introduction, I will leave you now for that place we call Sleep!  You take it when you can and get as much as you can here.  Until our next adventure!