Chickens on pasture and pigs escaping…ranch update time!
Ranch Update:
Things are going pretty good on the ranch this week, especially compared too last week. Though if I say that things might turn south, so someone knock on some wood for me would ya?
We had some tough luck last week and had a cow die from a snake bite, and a bull hit by lightning a couple days later. We needed the rain so badly though so trying not to complain. Luckily for the baby to the cow, my sister - in - law has a milk cow and needed a baby to share the milk with.
Other than that things are going good, especially with the rain. Cameron planted some oats, rye and triticale yesterday for some winter and spring forage. Making the plans ahead of time for planting cover crops for winter and spring forage is a hard thing to do. We have had so many fails with planting cover crops we are always wary of just throwing money at the seed. We have learned that there needs to be rain in the forecast, and there needs to be enough moisture in the ground to start, otherwise its useless. That is hard though because we get rain that isn’t in the forecast, then sometimes we don’t get rain that is. This is ranching though and all we can do is the best we can.
Chicken have been out on pasture 2 weeks now and they are growing good! Thriving with the bugs and daily moves to fresh patches of grass. I have to be completely honest with you, chickens are gross. They need fresh grass everyday, or they would literally be living in nothing but their own poop. Which while it is fantastic for the grass, I can’t imagine it is good for them to be living in 24/7. So, it is good thing we are able to give them fresh clean ground everyday and they get to thrive.
The pigs are growing great as well. They are a little more ornery, last week as we were trying to get left for a trip we found 5 of them a mile away from their pen, in our driveway. That was quite the experience herding them back in. Pigs don’t herd very well, thankfully I had some soft apples and we used those to get them back in, then we fixed the issues with the hotwire and so far this week they have stayed in.
The steers are close to home for the minute and that has been nice. They are growing slow and steady which is how we like it. The is only 1 left available for pre order for a January fulfillment, click here to place yours today. Once the deposits are full for January fulfillment it will be another 6-8mo before we have more. Beef just takes a very long time to do it right.
There is a reason the feedlots feed them high rations of feed and use hormones. Time is money and they want to grow and process as many beef as possible. This all sounds fine, but then it comes at a cost to you, the consumer. The high “hot” ratios are not growing all healthy animals, it can cause them to get infections in their livers and makes them sick, so then they get antibiotics to stay alive, but never really healing them. They stay alive and put on enough weight to make it to the grocery store. If the animal is not healthy to start then its not going to have the vital nutrients that you and I need to thrive.
It may take a lot more time the way we do it, and it might take some planning ahead for you and storage space, but the reward of naturally healthy, tasty, and tender beef is 100x better than the effort.
Hope you have a wonderful week and enjoyed this ranch update. Talk to you again soon.