Chicken Manure Free Pasture

Pasture Graced by Chickens

The above photos were taken on the same day – just in different parts of the my pasture.  Both are good representation of the normal in each the non-chicken and chicken pastures.

Many areas of my pasture are covered with tasty-looking dandelion plants, which the chickens, horses, and cows love.  Some areas actually have grass again too – no small feat considering it’s February and we have not planted any winter grass.  In many places the grass is still short but healthy and green.  There are some tall patches too and we’re hoping to graze those first by using electric fences to create daily grazing paddocks for the goats and cows.

Milo Mingus Shows How Tall the Grass Is

Cows take a certain number of bites per minute (JJ is such an insatiable eater that her bite/minute rate is probably two times that of a normal cow!) and, since cows only have one set of teeth, they have a special tongue wrapping and then chomping grazing technique.  Because of this the height of the forage determines how much food they’re getting per bite.  Ergo, the taller the forage, the more usable it is to a cow.  Goats, sheep, and horses all chomp without the tongue wrap, so they can get more out of shorter forage (preferably though a goat would only eat browse and not be on a typical grazing pasture).  This is why rumors of sheep and horses eating the roots abound – they can overgraze a pasture much more easily than their bovine friends. To prevent parasites it’s important not to graze grass shorter than about 2 inches – parasites are small and possibly lazy so they won’t climb any higher than that.

JJ Knows How to Graze, But Not to Chew with Her Mouth Closed

In a perfect world, and eventually in our pasture, forages that can be stored in the field will dominate.  By steering away from Bermuda based grasses, such as the Tifton-78 we paid good money to sprig several years ago, a farmer can potentially “store” enough grass for winter and summer months without having to bale hay – the cows graze the “dead” grass straight from the pasture.  Bermuda grasses have short nutritional life spans so they must be baled to preserve quality. That means diesel to run the tractor up and down the pasture, time spent baling, storage space, etc.

Hopefully Bales of Hay Will Soon Be a Thing of The Past

Rain, extreme cold, extreme heat and wind are all issues with pastured poultry, but, if we can go from dirt to lush green during the winter, running chickens will be worthwhile. I’ll still hold out hope for more cooperative weather but will continue on regardless. Weather aside it is truly amazing to use such wonderful inputs on the pasture and have such a tasty, high-quality product at the end. So next time you’re enjoying one of our chickens, you will now know how much that bird contributed before making it to your plate.

June Pasture

February Pasture - Thank You Chickens!

Remember that whole drought thing we had going on this summer? I was so elated to see rain during those arid months. No more. We are completely saturated. Our rainy season started months ago here when our temperatures dropped seemingly early in the fall and rain poured down simultaneously. We were not at all prepared and ended up losing 175 birds in one afternoon. That’s something I don’t aim to repeat so it means sleepless nights whenever rain is falling or even forecasted.

Drought Stricken Pasture

Pasture in FEBRUARY!

Our coops are equipped for cool weather and we run our birds on fairly level pastures not been prone to flooding; at least not in the past. Most of the rain we’ve gotten has lead to multiple coop checks around the clock and use of our portable propane heaters. Sure I’m tired the next day (the rain seems to come only at night), but that’s about it. Last week was different. All of the winter’s rain had left us pretty saturated and even a little shower results in quite a bit of run-off. About 10 days ago we got nearly 5 inches of rain in about an hour’s time. We were prepared with pallets and hay in the coops to enable the birds to get up off the ground. A little shifting around of birds, turning on of heaters and we were as set as possible. I felt triumphant and a little cocky about our ability to handle the inclement weather.

Young Chickens Basking in Front of Heater

And then my personal weatherman sent me an ominous prediction that this past weekend’s rain was going to be worse than the mainstream meteorologists were predicting. He was right – at least here. On Friday night we got another near 5 inches of rain, while friends of ours in Lexington (20 minutes away) only saw a ½ inch of rain result from the storm. We got a full-blown storm system complete with high winds, lightening and so much rain that our pastures flooded. There were even streams of rushing water across our fields. Fortunately though it was warmer than usual out, as this probably saved our ass.

Rain Gauge Next Afternoon

Two coops in the very back of the pasture experienced the worst flooding. There were over 6 inches of rushing water in each and the birds were all huddled on their pallets, standing on tippy toes. We had to evacuate over 100 birds via crates. As you may imagine it was a muddy mess out in the pasture but I ran (literally) up to the processing shed/brooder building to grab the four wheeler and crates. It was there that I discovered two other problems: 1) the four-wheeler was damn near out of gas and 2) the brooder was flooded.

A couple of the brooding bays were dry and, fortunately, we had a WWOOFer here so, I hollered at him to move the soon-to-be-swimming-chicks to higher ground. Luck was in our favor in the brooder too – we had just switched to rice hulls for bedding and they were so absorbent the top layer of bedding in the completely flooded brooder space was still dry.

Cute but Not Michael Phelps

I tossed every crate we owned onto the four-wheeler’s trailer, put it in “AWD” and headed out to the pasture. There were a couple of iffy spots where water was over half way up the four-wheeler’s tires and some really slick places too. I stayed on the gas, steered through the slides and managed to make it to the back coops without getting stuck or running out of gas. Harry then helped me shuck chickens into crates and load them onto the trailer.

A True Workhorse

Once those birds in the worst coops were situated on the trailer we tackled the two coops that had only four inches of water in them. To accommodate those birds we moved one coop to higher ground, made a big floor out of pallets, turned on the heater and then consolidated the two coops into one. The birds were crowded but warm and dry in about 30 minutes.

We hopped on the four-wheeler and, after a little mud running with chickens, managed to make it back to the processing shed. Well, almost back. The four-wheeler ran out of gas about 30 feet from the door but we were delirious enough to find this funny. All the crates were carried and stacked on the dry floor. Nearly all of the birds in the crates were at processing weight, so we made plans to process most the next day.

Evacuated Birds Taste Good AND Have a Story To Tell

After that the birds in the field, brooder, and shed only required checking on. Everyone feathered was fine. At the 2:00am-ish pasture check we discovered the little pigs required some attention though. They were wet, shivering and bunched up. We made plans to move them into the laundry room shed and devised a plan to get them out of the pasture. Since the four-wheeler was out of commission we had to call on the ol’ diesel, our trusty four-wheel drive pick-up, to do the mud running this time. The trip to the pasture was successful, however the first piglet squealed and carried on so much when we put her in the transportation cage in the truck bed, the others were having no part of being caught. We ended up opening up a round bale, pulling hay off of it and transporting hay to them in the back of the truck. Once adequately hayed in their area, they nested down with the two bigger pigs and were warm the rest of the night.

Hay Was Nearby & Handy

Our Work Truck

It Was A Slick Drive

Safe & Sound Piglets

Saturday found us making deliveries, doing routine farm chores, processing about 90 of the evacuated chickens, and preparing for Sunday’s farmer’s market. Needless to say we were exhausted by the end of the day, so we went to bed early.

Not exactly refreshed this morning (Sunday) but in better shape than yesterday. However, the temperature outside has dropped considerably and it is raining AGAIN. So I sit here at my kitchen table, with my jaw clenched, and shoulders tensed worried about the work ahead.

And so we decided to add in pigs about a year ago. Fortunately we were buying pork from Peach Creek Farm in Rosanky, and Rose Page, Peach Creek’s premier farmer, was very encouraging. So much so that she gave us our first two pigs. She even put the girls in with her Berkshire boar for a month. Keep in mind we were not at all set up for pigs and had no idea what their requirements were. There’s lots of garbage out there about animal husbandry that doesn’t apply in a pasture setting.

When I finally picked the girls we hoped they were bred but months later, when there were no piglets and Lullabelle was exhibiting some very unlady-like behaviors (I’ll spare you the details but there was a barrel involved), we determined they were not in fact bred. We’re smart like that.

Those first two sows, Lullabelle and Pigot, showed us the pig keeping ropes and demonstrated how easy pigs are to handle and deal with in a pasture environment. Harry has pig-keeping experience but it was always in a backyard pen setting; he’s still amazed pigs actually graze and love to eat hay.

Pigot Was Happiest When it Rained

Once we were comfortable keeping pigs, we added Maxwell and Wilbur to the drove. They’re both tasty looking Duroc/Hampshire crosses from Harry’s cousin Steven’s pigs. We sold half of Wilbur to Ward and Jill Taylor and plan to process him for personal consumption (not for resale) in another 6-8 weeks. Maxwell was going to be our breeding boar but somewhere in between getting these boys and now we discovered we’re way better equipped to raise pigs for pork only. Since we have an over abundance of food for the pigs and overfeeding a sow is terrible for her health, the eat-everything-in-sight feeder pigs work better with our farm.

Maxwell (red) and Wilbur at Work

Pork requests are rampant so we now have two other little pigs coming up right behind Maxwell. They are so, so cute. Hamboline and is my favorite of the group because she is the feistiest. We have a couple of pigs that belong to a friend in with our pair right now so there are lots of pig romping, playing and piglet games going on. They love to tear around their pen (we keep them in until they’re big and tame enough for pasture life – this group will probably go out next week) and do turns on the haunches that would put any cutting horse to shame.

Hamboline

Passel of Pigs

Are Cameras Edible?

Cutting Horse Moves

Well enough about the pigs – let’s talk about what the pig becomes: pork. About two weeks ago we sent one of the original sows to slaughter. And then we learned pigs can fly. Off of the freezer shelf that is. In just three days we sold completely out of pork from that first pig. Her sister is scheduled for processing on February 10th, Maxwell will be next, and then there are the two newest piggies coming up behind him.

We’re very happy to have pigs on our farm and it gives us great joy to add pork from truly happy, well loved pigs to our list of products.

While we did have chickens before and were testing the pastured poultry waters, we didn’t officially started raising chickens out in the pasture on a considerable scale until May so I’ve broken the 2011 stats into pre and post chicken farm.

No doubt we had a hell of a year and, assuming we find it impossible to block out the memories from 2011, it will always stand out as the year of the chicken.  And drought.  And heat.  Here is the full farm scoop broken down by animal:

Meat Chickens

2011 Recap:
At some point in 2010 we decided raising chickens out in the pasture in Central Texas would be a good idea.  In 2011 we started getting about 50 meat birds every three weeks until May.  Then we started getting in 200 meat birds per week until we increased to 250 per week at the end of September.

An amazing amount of infrastructure to support the pastured poultry operation was installed, including the brooder (which is being overhauled in 2012), processing shed, 12 portable coops.

Somewhere along the way we went from all-night processing to being able to knock out 100 birds in an evening.  We figured out how to keep birds alive in the heat and now we’re figuring out how to do it in the wet and cold.  Our personal chicken consumption has sky-rocketed and we’ve both been covered in more blood, poop, sweat and all kinds of other gross things than we ever thought imaginable.  Some tweaking was in order but it feels like 2011 was just one big, flawed crash-course in pastured poultry production.  Our learning curve will always be vertical but 2012 is promising to be a much better year in regard to the chicken.

2012 Plans:
We’re excited to have friends/farmers/co-conspirators Ward & Jill Taylor entering the meat bird world this year and we’re finding our groove in the market together.  This year we can be found at The Mercantile at Dyer Dairy, our first commercial customer and a loyal one to boot, who carries our chicken in Georgetown.  Bastrop Producers Market stocks it in Bastrop and now we have chickens available retail in Austin at Boggy Creek and Green Gate.  Anyone preferring to buy direct from the farmer can find Jill or myself manning our booth at the Bastrop Farmer’s Market on Saturdays from 10am to 2pm or at the Lakeway Common’s Market on Sundays from 9am to 1pm.  Of course we also have farm direct sales still.

Organic certification is on the horizon too for the early part of 2012 thanks to the help of a friend kind enough to tackle the stack of organic applications/paperwork. New for this year too we’ve switched to soy-free feed at the prompting of some of our favorite chicken consumers.  The birds we’re processing now are soy-free feed finished and in about six weeks any Slow Food Farm bird will be soy-free.

Laying Hens

2011 Recap:
Our poor ol’ layers have had a rough year.  All our younger birds were excessive free rangers and they insisted on trespassing onto the crazy neighbor’s property (these are the people who called the cops about the chickens in their pasture), so we placed almost all of them in homes.  The only ones left are still pissed about the lack of grass plus they’re menopausal anyway, so they’re not laying at the moment and all have a date with the stew pot.

2012 Plans:
When we started pastured poultry we were given bad advice that the egg market was saturated.  That has shown to be anything but true and we have plans to start adding in SMALL flocks of layers in the spring.  I know many of you doubt we can do things on a small scale but I’m determined to ignore the obnoxious part of my brain that usually talks me into jumping off of preverbal cliffs.

Friends Hoyt and Kim Todd started Big Huffy Eggs at the end of 2011 and we’re looking forward to working with them as they rev up production this year.  While Ward & Jill are a consistent wealth of information, we’ve already learned a lot about getting started in pastured egg production from Hoyt and Kim’s start-up adventures.

Rabbits

2011 Recap:
The rabbits have been pretty boring.  Heat was brutal this summer and we did lose a couple of bucks and some older kits but I gave the rabbits a misting system and was able to pull everyone else through although all breeding halted.

2012 Plans:
Hopefully the girls are all bred – the boys certainly have a good work ethic, so we’re hoping the does “took” and are “with kit.”  Keep your fingers crossed we figure out how to consistently produce these tasty little cuties.

Currently the girls live in large cages in their still not-quite-finished rabbitry but I’ve been really intrigued by the idea of running them in colonies.  Dorsey Barger a brand new friend, and owner of what might be the coolest urban farm ever, wants to raise rabbits and she got me rethinking cage-free rabbit living. Next week she’s going to start an experiment with two of our does to see if colony living and free-range rabbit is feasible or not.

Dominique is ready to leave her cage behind

Beef Cows

2011 Recap:
We sold most of our beef cows even before the drought hit.  Only JJ and her granddaughter Sha-nay-nay make up our beef herd pair right now.  JJ gave us a wonderful calf, Randy, this past Spring and he’s in the freezer now.  Between the beginning of December and now we’ve sold almost all of the beef from him and are looking forward to another Spring calf from JJ and maybe one from Sha-nay-nay too.

Our pastures were beyond devastated by the drought but we were fortunate enough to get some hay and the cows are munching away on a Certified Organic bale of timothy and alfalfa from some incredible farmers up in Iowa.  These farmers donated hay to TOFGA to help out the drought stricken farmers down here.

2012 Plans:
We have what may be the best ever pair of WWOOFers here this week. WWOOFers Kyle and Jason are diligently working on creating two pastures in our big 30 acre field.  Yesterday they tuned up the chainsaws and pasture weed eater for some serious fence clearing so they can continue running electric wire along the existing perimeter fence and then across the middle.  For now this will allow us to separate the horses and cows (necessary when feeding hay because of the way we feed) and will be the shell for future rotational pastures in that field.

The tractor is rearing to go too so, if time allows, we hope to resume fence construction while the ground may still be soft enough to dig post holes in.

Gulf Coast Sheep

2011 Recap:
These creatures are probably the ones I’m asked about most because everyone wants to know what happened to them.  My standard response is that the sheep hit the fan.  Unfortunately the mischievous and super cute little ewes we got from friends Garth & Kim Travis gained access to feed which caused them to bloat and die.  Rumor had it that Gulf Coast meat is tender even if they die under distress and we were able to put one of the girls in the freezer.  True to the claim she has been incredibly delicious and I appreciate she wasn’t completely wasted.

2012 Plans:
Even though we’re itching to add sheep to our program, we have no plans to obtain more Gulf Coasts in 2012.  If the weather is better AND we’re fenced properly we’ll get sheep in 2013.

Pigs

2011 Recap:
Pigot and Lullabelle, our original sows courtesy of Peach Creek Farm, didn’t farrow but we were happy to keep them on and have truly enjoyed having these incredible animals around.  However, part of farm life is eating such animals and we did take Pigot to the butcher at the end of December.  I had planned to take Lullabelle first but she wouldn’t load in the trailer and Pigot wouldn’t get out. I had no choice but to head to Westphalia (the slaughterhouse) with my favorite pig in tow.

We opted to use a State inspected processor so we’d be legal on the resale of the pork.  Our first batch of pork should be back in about a week.  Westphalia Slaughterhouse was kind enough to allow me to watch the whole process. Now I can sleep at night knowing Pigot passed into the pig afterlife as humanely as possible.  Still I’ll really miss having her around.

Also at the end of 2011 we added in two feeder pigs.  Both had to be kept in a reasonable size pen until they were a little bigger and tamer.  Recently they moved out to the pasture and are working to clear brush around a huge oak tree.  The tree is so covered in thorny vines it’s hard to even begin clearing around it mechanically but the pigs are already making paths throw the vines.

Oak Tree?

Brush Hogs

2012 Plans:
More pigs.  I love the pigs – they’re funny, they talk, play, cuddle (I really wish I could get a picture of Wilbur and Maxwell spooning together), root, wallow, and eat lots of chicken guts.  Currently we plan to focus on feeder pigs because we have an abundance of cheap protein for them.  Overfeeding a breeding sow is bad for her health; therefore going with these little disposals makes more sense.  We give them hay, pasture, certified organic feed from Coyote Creek and guts from our organically managed chickens.  It may sound less than appealing to some but the end result is some seriously good, GMO free, scrumptious pork.  And pork is hard to argue with.

mmm...bacon

Goats

2011 Recap:
Sandy, our little red Spanish goat, died in a hay bale feeder accident so only Simone and Patches remain.  Both are fairly useless and they spent 2011 living in the same exploited 2 acre pen they’ve been in.  At the end of the year they journeyed out to the pasture with the pigs and are staying within the electric fence boundaries.

Goats Earning Their Keep

2012 Plans:
I haven’t finalized plans for the goats yet.  If they start earning their keep we may keep ‘em around.  If not…think goat sausage?  We still plan to try our hand at what we’ve coined “a year of sustainability” during which time we would try to produce at least 90% percent of consumables on farm.  That may mean the addition of a dairy goat, but nothing is set in stone.

I’m sure there are things I’m forgetting to tell you about but that is the recap of 2011 and what we’re looking forward to in 2012. As we go forth into 2012 I’ll do my best to keep you posted on the farm happenings and mishaps.

Well I’m back now, so, without further ado, let’s jump right in to something important everyone, regardless of occupation should memorize: three mantras to live by.  Okay, okay, two mantras apply to almost everyone; the last one is pretty much chicken-farmer specific but it could be easily adjusted to fit many occupations.

Mantra One: It is what it is

Farming is therapeutic (shock therapy is in fact therapy, right?) in that it teaches the farmer to let go and accept the things she cannot change. It is absolutely amazing the number of things in my world, which is small and confined mainly to my house and my own business, that I have no control over.  Zero. Zip. Nada.  NO control. What’s a girl to do when things go disastrously wrong, or even just slightly wrong?  She repeats, “it is what it is” over and over again as a way of accepting events beyond her control or irreversible outcomes.   Take a look at the following examples:

• Water hoses spontaneously blow holes and water spews everywhere on the one morning I have to be somewhere at a certain time.  It is what it is.
  

  My Nemesis All Summer Long

   

• Birds arrive dead in the mail from the hatchery. It is what it is.
• It’s over 100 degrees for the upteenth day in a row.  It is what it is (repeat this for every over 100 degree day!)

Multiply this forecast by 90 days!!!

• Power goes out after a very rough day in the field when we’re finally ready to START processing at 10pm. It is what it is.
• The misters fail and 94 birds die in one afternoon. It is what it is. Goddamnit.
• The misters fail a week later and 76 ready-to-process birds die in 30 minutes time. Alright I get it: It is what it is!
  

  This is Me At Summer's End

   

You get the idea.  Next time you stub your toe, slam your fingers in the door and spill coffee on yourself all while headed to some super important meeting or the like, just take a deep breath, cuss a little, beat on the steering wheel, rear-end that overpriced, gas-guzzling SUV slowing you down in traffic and repeat after me: IT is what it IS. Far from soothing, but oh-so-true.

Mantra Two: Perfect is good but done is better

Alright, all you half-assers out there, this one does not apply to you.  This mantra belongs only to those perfectionists who try to take imperfect things and situations and perfect them.  Examples of this used to abound, but I’m to a new point of desensitization that I just don’t care about perfection anymore, after all it is what it is.  Here are the examples I could remember:

• I will build the best hover (a hover is the temperature controlled “box” that houses our heat lamps so the chicks don’t get too cold) known to man.  Oh wait, my chicks are smothering each other and dying while I toil away trying to make this perfect. Perfect is good but done is better.
  

  This Is A Hover

   

• My processed chickens will be gorgeous.  Holy smokes this one patch of wispy feathers won’t come clean.  Chickens galore are piling up for me to process. Oh, and it’s still raw chicken – raw chicken just isn’t going to be considered pretty by many people. Perfect is good but done is better.
  

  Pretty?

   

• I will move the coops daily and put them into a perfectly STRAIGHT line.  Oh wait, the coops are on pasture complete with holes, hills, and brush.  I can’t get them into a straight line without pulling out the weed-eater and chainsaw. Perfect is good but done is better.

Mantra Three: Chickens are not widgets

This originally started out as my friend Jane’s explanation of why we can’t always meet certain customer demands.  It quickly became a mantra for me and would serve other beginning chicken farmers well. Many instances need this mantra but here are the ones that come to mind:

• Oh my God, these birds should all weigh 4.2 – 4.7lbs at six and a half weeks old but not one of them is over 3.9lbs!!! Chickens are not widgets.
• I need 94 birds to dress out at 2.75 – 3.25lbs each, but only 92 are perfect – two others have bruises. Chickens are not widgets (that’s why I always pull extras).
• A customer wants to increase their order by 70% starting next week. Chickens are not widgets.
  

  Not A Chicken

   

This mantra as I use it certainly isn’t a one-size-fits-all type mantra.  But switch out “chicken” with some other animal or person and you’re good to go.

Now you have all of the tools necessary to deal with most of life’s speed bumps.  The trick is getting yourself to believe these mantras whenever you need to use them.

Now I realize I’m a little behind the ball since summer officially started well over a month ago and unofficially nearly three months ago.  Better late than never.  These posts may be a little dull for my audience (I’m imagining all six of my readers yawning) but they’re pretty therapeutic for me.  Even though Joel Salatin is on my sh*t list at the moment for certain omits from his book, he notes a very apt observation about working farms: they’re threadbare. Slow Food Farm is no exception.

Threadbare is hard when you’re used to things not being threadbare and I find it easy to get overwhelmed by the piles of crap everywhere (sometime literally, like in the case of spent chicken bedding), the half finished projects, a mile-long to do list and such.  Typing a post where I review what has been accomplished and what the goals are for the next season puts things in perspective.  I’m including pictures of my piles of stuff too as my way to lay it out there and get over them.  Plus tackling most of them is on the to-do list for fall and I want a good account of what was.  Hell, if I really wanted to post a tell-all I would photograph the piles of dog hair that have invaded my house.  Oddly, getting rid of those is not on the summer or fall to-do list (sorry Harry).

So here goes…

What we’ve accomplished so far:

• The brooder and processing shed have been built (lots of piles of stuff in front of the building)

Brooder & Processing Shed

Inside Part of The Processing Shed

• We have our Grant of Exemption from the State
• There are 12 portable coops in the pasture

10 of 12 Coops

• H-braces and corner posts are in for one of the most important portion of the new fence (thanks to help from our friends Ward and Jill Taylor)

Ward & Harry made a lot of progress

• We sold all but our favorite cow and her granddaughter
• We have tons of chickens
• Rabbits are successfully kindling
  

  Mmmm. She'll Be Tasty in ~12 weeks

• Rabbitry is 85% complete

What we plan to do by the end of summer:

• Install plumbing in the brooder
• Run waterline out in the pasture
• Install automatic waterers for the pasture coops and brooders
• Set-up grain silos so we can have bulk chicken feed delivered
• Complete the rabbitry
• Build a new chicken coop for the laying birds

Oh my goodness, did you just read that to-do list? I can not believe I am typing this blog post instead of working in 130 degree heat outside. . . better get to it!

But real quick, here’s a peek at what blog posts should be coming soon: Who’s Drought Tolerant Now?, Mantras to Live By, The Crazy Chicken Lady, Farm Life Survival Kit, and Help! I’m Grounded.

Checking on a coop of birds - notice I'm not eating the live rouge chicken

Jennifer drones on in her blog about all the hard work her and Harry do and all the perils and fun of farming.  Blah, blah, blah. Well what they’re not telling you about is who actually does most of the dirty work – me.  I sleep out in the pasture every night (Harry and Jennifer alternate nights) and I corral coop escapees that free range too far and I help move the birds during coop moving time so no one gets run over and I clean up spilt feed and eat any dead chickens to prevent predators. Whew.  It’s no wonder I have to try to grab a nap everyday.

Rest is important

Even still I hear Harry and Jennifer talk about getting a “livestock dog.”  A what? I did some research on-line and visited some other farms and found out there are specific breeds of what is called a Livestock Guardian Dog (LGD).  Mainly there are Anatolian Sheppard and Great Pyrenees around these parts.  My friends Ward and Jill Taylor of Taylor’s Farm have a Great Pyrenees, Frank, that they’re training to watch the chickens.  Please.  Who do you think a predator would fear being on the teeth-end of more?  Me, a beagle (hello, hunting dog)/dachshund (hunting dog, again) mixed for hybrid vigor, or Frank, a pure bred over grown cotton ball?

Steroids

+

Cotton Ball

=

Frank

OR

Who would you fear? . . . That’s what I thought.

I’ve never spoken to any predators that have crossed Frank’s path but I know the chicken eating armadillo that came up in my pasture two nights ago didn’t want any part of this chicken dog right here.  That’s right; armadillos, skunks, raccoons, cats, squirrels, rabbits, moose, bear (grizzly and black), coyote, grey wolves, red wolves, and fox of all colors fear me.  A lot of predators have crossed my path in my tenure as a farm dog and all have known to tuck tail and run.

Sure, I try to eat live chickens on occasion if the coop runs one over part way and a leg or something is sticking out.  And, sometimes, when trailing a chicken I’ll get bored and start picking its feathers.  Hey, it’s going to die sooner or later – I might as well start the plucking now. On the rare occasion that I am too full to eat an entire chicken that has passed from natural causes, I’ll eat what I can, piece out the rest and then carry it off and bury it in a variety of hiding places.  This way I can finish it later but the cat, that darn wiener dog Milo Mingus, and other predators can’t find the remains and, therefore, are not drawn to the live chickens.  Also, I roll on any smelly dead chickens to cover my scent thus allowing me to sneak up on predators.

Must hide or eat dead chickens

Covering scent

So, next time you hear Jennifer or Harry going on about how hard they’re working, you remember who is behind the scenes.  I’ll be out in the pasture while they’re in the AC and I never get a portion of the chicken sales, instead I do all this out of loyalty.  Well, speaking of work, it’s time for me to do the afternoon feed, water, and predator check.  Man, I hope there’s a bear out there this time – I’ve always wanted a bed made from bearskin.

Most comfortable bed ever?

Finally, we got a good rain shower last week starting around 1:30am.  I know what time the rain started because it was my night to sleep in the pasture – I felt the first fat rain drops personally.  Sleeping with the chickens should demonstrate at least some of how much we care, but one could argue we only do that to protect our profit.  So, I offer proof instead in the form of what we do when something bad happens to one of our birds:

As a result of the much needed rain, three of the three-week old chicks got too wet and hypothermia set in.  Harry had checked on everyone around 4:30am and they were fine, but by the time I got out there at 6am-ish, these three birds were in critical condition.  I scooped them up and rushed them to the house.  Now sometimes my shower serves as the chicken ER, but these guys fit just fine in my kitchen sink. First I blow dried them (notice the volume their feathers have in the picture!).

I also offered them some honey water; usually sugar water is best but I don’t regularly have sugar on hand. Then I set up a heat lamp and let them relax in the sink until they started peeping and carrying on. After they were 95% recovered, I took them back to the coop and checked on them throughout the day. All three survived and are hanging out with their pals in the pasture.

Now, if you’re wondering about the wood counter top, the toothbrushes and toothpaste on the window seal and the stacked dishes, this is the real proof of how much we care. We opted for raising chickens so we could have humanely raised and processed poultry in lieu of finishing our house. Eventually I’ll have a counter top, cabinet faces, AND a bathroom sink, but not until the chickens have everything they need.

Oh, and that rain – it is already bringing up shoots of green grass!

The day the shelter behind the rabbitry was complete became doomsday for the tarp. I didn’t get to witness the tarp’s demise but the horror and destruction left behind was hard to take. Shredded pieces of the tarp lay strewn about the pasture.

Remorseless in their feat, Pigot and Lullabelle even wove sections of their prey into their nesting hay and slept on top of it, while a destroyed portion of the tarp flapped in the breeze, weeping sadly for it’s other half.

I tried to clean up all of the remains, but Harry spotted Pigot later in the day wearing part of her prey on her back (like a cape) while grazing. Merciless sows.