Where does your food come from?
Jan. 30th, 2009 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancerjodiBrian and I belong to http://www.chestnutfarms.org/ , where we buy 10 lbs of meat from a local farm each month. We are supporting local farming, getting food of the highest quality available and knowing where our stuff is coming from. Nutritionally we benefit from the lack of chemicals, and the grass-fed or pastured meats. We can rest more easily knowing that our dinner was treated well and humanely as possible before it was our dinner (and also know in great detail the conditions in which the animals were slaughtered and prepared).
They send monthly an update right before pickup time of what's been going down at the farm. This one was very moving and illustrates the kind of work that our farmers do, particularly in a cold New England winter. Though we're spending more money to buy our food in this way I'm so glad that we have made this move. As folks worry about what kind of tainted peanut butter may be in their processed foods we are eating the bulk of our stuff (meat and milk) from a local farmer that's doing things for the most part as nature intended it to be. We're directly supporting (financially) the people that put stuff on our table. This makes me feel very good. Granted, we have the luxury of doing this kind of thing. Good, real food should not be a luxury (but I digress).
Winter continues unabated on the farm. We have gone from the rains of
November to the ice of December and now the snow of January and early
February. It has been a long string of cold, icy weather. Usually we have
a January thaw, but this year we had one day when the temperature was 40
degrees. We spent the day madly cleaning our cow area, chicken bus and pig
pens. It is really difficult to clean frozen poop, but it is a necessary
part of maintaining a good quality of animal health and life. We do use a
packed bedding system for our animals in the winter. We add mulch hay to
pens and stalls to provide a dry top bedding while the underneath builds and
composts. The composting action of the manure/bedding mixture provides heat
to the animals. However, we try to clean this every six weeks or so. This
means once at the end of Nov or early Dec, once in the Jan thaw and again at
the beginning of March. We scrambled during our one day of January thaw and
did a "good enough" job.
Most of farming is wonderful, but there are challenges. This month has been
really difficult on the animal front. Although we are carnivores and raise
meat to be eaten, we really, really do love our animals. Rich and I have no
problem trucking to slaughter if the animal has had a great life - it is
what we do. However, sometimes nature intervenes and we have animals that
die. This is really difficult and painful. I have thought about not
writing the sad tale of death, but you are part of our farm family and I
want to share the reality. I know that when I started farming I thought
with just a little bit more work I could have a farm that looked like
Drumlin Farms in Lincoln. I have since come to the realization that he 20
to 1 staff to animal ratio enjoyed there is one that we will never, ever be
able to approach. Like many other facets of life, I have had to readjust my
expectations and become satisfied with simply making forward progress.
In ten years, January was by far our worst month in terms of animal death.
We began the month with our pregnant ewe giving birth to twins. She seemed
fine and both twins looked great and were nursing. We had all three in the
barn in a pen by themselves, fed and watered mom and went to bed. The next
morning one of the twins was dead. We discovered that mom had mastitis on
one side, but this should not have caused the sudden death of the lamb. The
surviving lamb continues to grow and thrive. We still have no explanation
for the death of the twin.
In the middle of January we decided to branch into goats. We have a friend
who is a goat dairy farmer in a neighboring town. To milk his goats, they
must give birth. He has no need for the offspring and gives them away. We
decided to try and raise goat meat as a new product line. We thought it
might make an interesting new meat, the cost was reasonable (the babies were
free) and the main outlay was for heating pads, lamb-bars and milk replacer
and our time. We picked up the first batch of thirteen goats and kept them
in our kitchen for the first twenty-four hours to keep them warm and dry. We
bottle fed every three hours - I quickly realized why women of my age
generally are not giving birth! It is tough to get up every three hours in
the middle of the night - I had forgotten!!!
Within a week we had almost seventy babies on the farm. Several were still
in the kitchen, but most had been moved to the barn and were in pens of ten
to a pen and feeding on the lamb bar. The lamb bar is a bucket with ten
nipples on straws protruding from the outside for the kids to suck on. This
is an easier way of feeding large numbers of babies than bottle-feeding one
by one.
Then the deaths started. We went down to the barn and found five babies
dead one morning. The next day, seven more were dead. This was unlike
anything we have ever encountered. We started wracking our brain. Scours
can happen in newborns - it is caused by a change in feed and location - we
addressed it with kaopectate and a electrolytes - just as you do with small
children. This didn't seem to stop the carnage. The next day still more
goats were dead. Our friend and fellow farmer had been to Cornell last year
with some adult goats that were having similar challenges. The vets could
not find a reason that some of his females would seem fine one hour and be
near death the next and dead by the third hour.
After five days, nearly half of the newborn goats had died. We tried it all
- we changed bedding, moved pens, made sure they were tarped at night to
keep heat in. Finally, as suddenly as they started, the deaths stopped. We
still don't have a good answer or understanding about what happened. None
of our farmer friends offered a reason either. However, it really took its
toll on our whole family. Caroline and Sam had spent a lot of time helping
and feeding the baby goats and we were all devastated when they began dying.
The numbers made it even more difficult. We really feel like bad farmers -
logically we know we tried everything and it may have been a virus that came
from their first farm, but realistically it was really painful.
So we still have goats, we will do a small test of goat meat this summer and
we are really ready for a break in winter weather. On a positive note we
had a beautiful Hereford Heifer born this month and both mom and baby are
doing great! Our cows are getting to enjoy the molasses on the hay and
having fun eating it. The pigs are doing well - both the sows and the
growers seem to be dealing with winter better than we are. Our chickens
have had enough winter and are literally playing in the snow!! During the
ice of December they were hesitant about coming out of their bus, but now it
is clear they are just happy to see the sun.
Perhaps we should take a page from the chickens playbook! Be happy to see
the sun and thankful for all that does go right on our farm. In eleven years
we have had a few babies die but by and large our herd health has been
extraordinary. We have healthy, happy, wonderful animals and lots to be
grateful for. We have wonderful CSA members and a great community to farm
in.
They send monthly an update right before pickup time of what's been going down at the farm. This one was very moving and illustrates the kind of work that our farmers do, particularly in a cold New England winter. Though we're spending more money to buy our food in this way I'm so glad that we have made this move. As folks worry about what kind of tainted peanut butter may be in their processed foods we are eating the bulk of our stuff (meat and milk) from a local farmer that's doing things for the most part as nature intended it to be. We're directly supporting (financially) the people that put stuff on our table. This makes me feel very good. Granted, we have the luxury of doing this kind of thing. Good, real food should not be a luxury (but I digress).
Winter continues unabated on the farm. We have gone from the rains of
November to the ice of December and now the snow of January and early
February. It has been a long string of cold, icy weather. Usually we have
a January thaw, but this year we had one day when the temperature was 40
degrees. We spent the day madly cleaning our cow area, chicken bus and pig
pens. It is really difficult to clean frozen poop, but it is a necessary
part of maintaining a good quality of animal health and life. We do use a
packed bedding system for our animals in the winter. We add mulch hay to
pens and stalls to provide a dry top bedding while the underneath builds and
composts. The composting action of the manure/bedding mixture provides heat
to the animals. However, we try to clean this every six weeks or so. This
means once at the end of Nov or early Dec, once in the Jan thaw and again at
the beginning of March. We scrambled during our one day of January thaw and
did a "good enough" job.
Most of farming is wonderful, but there are challenges. This month has been
really difficult on the animal front. Although we are carnivores and raise
meat to be eaten, we really, really do love our animals. Rich and I have no
problem trucking to slaughter if the animal has had a great life - it is
what we do. However, sometimes nature intervenes and we have animals that
die. This is really difficult and painful. I have thought about not
writing the sad tale of death, but you are part of our farm family and I
want to share the reality. I know that when I started farming I thought
with just a little bit more work I could have a farm that looked like
Drumlin Farms in Lincoln. I have since come to the realization that he 20
to 1 staff to animal ratio enjoyed there is one that we will never, ever be
able to approach. Like many other facets of life, I have had to readjust my
expectations and become satisfied with simply making forward progress.
In ten years, January was by far our worst month in terms of animal death.
We began the month with our pregnant ewe giving birth to twins. She seemed
fine and both twins looked great and were nursing. We had all three in the
barn in a pen by themselves, fed and watered mom and went to bed. The next
morning one of the twins was dead. We discovered that mom had mastitis on
one side, but this should not have caused the sudden death of the lamb. The
surviving lamb continues to grow and thrive. We still have no explanation
for the death of the twin.
In the middle of January we decided to branch into goats. We have a friend
who is a goat dairy farmer in a neighboring town. To milk his goats, they
must give birth. He has no need for the offspring and gives them away. We
decided to try and raise goat meat as a new product line. We thought it
might make an interesting new meat, the cost was reasonable (the babies were
free) and the main outlay was for heating pads, lamb-bars and milk replacer
and our time. We picked up the first batch of thirteen goats and kept them
in our kitchen for the first twenty-four hours to keep them warm and dry. We
bottle fed every three hours - I quickly realized why women of my age
generally are not giving birth! It is tough to get up every three hours in
the middle of the night - I had forgotten!!!
Within a week we had almost seventy babies on the farm. Several were still
in the kitchen, but most had been moved to the barn and were in pens of ten
to a pen and feeding on the lamb bar. The lamb bar is a bucket with ten
nipples on straws protruding from the outside for the kids to suck on. This
is an easier way of feeding large numbers of babies than bottle-feeding one
by one.
Then the deaths started. We went down to the barn and found five babies
dead one morning. The next day, seven more were dead. This was unlike
anything we have ever encountered. We started wracking our brain. Scours
can happen in newborns - it is caused by a change in feed and location - we
addressed it with kaopectate and a electrolytes - just as you do with small
children. This didn't seem to stop the carnage. The next day still more
goats were dead. Our friend and fellow farmer had been to Cornell last year
with some adult goats that were having similar challenges. The vets could
not find a reason that some of his females would seem fine one hour and be
near death the next and dead by the third hour.
After five days, nearly half of the newborn goats had died. We tried it all
- we changed bedding, moved pens, made sure they were tarped at night to
keep heat in. Finally, as suddenly as they started, the deaths stopped. We
still don't have a good answer or understanding about what happened. None
of our farmer friends offered a reason either. However, it really took its
toll on our whole family. Caroline and Sam had spent a lot of time helping
and feeding the baby goats and we were all devastated when they began dying.
The numbers made it even more difficult. We really feel like bad farmers -
logically we know we tried everything and it may have been a virus that came
from their first farm, but realistically it was really painful.
So we still have goats, we will do a small test of goat meat this summer and
we are really ready for a break in winter weather. On a positive note we
had a beautiful Hereford Heifer born this month and both mom and baby are
doing great! Our cows are getting to enjoy the molasses on the hay and
having fun eating it. The pigs are doing well - both the sows and the
growers seem to be dealing with winter better than we are. Our chickens
have had enough winter and are literally playing in the snow!! During the
ice of December they were hesitant about coming out of their bus, but now it
is clear they are just happy to see the sun.
Perhaps we should take a page from the chickens playbook! Be happy to see
the sun and thankful for all that does go right on our farm. In eleven years
we have had a few babies die but by and large our herd health has been
extraordinary. We have healthy, happy, wonderful animals and lots to be
grateful for. We have wonderful CSA members and a great community to farm
in.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 05:29 pm (UTC)I love the fact that there is affordable local organics avalible at our regular grocery store too
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 05:36 pm (UTC)It's a great program, though, and I love the idea. I am all about supporting local farming--plus, it's fresher, and thus tastier!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 07:35 pm (UTC)There are a bunch in Cambridge. I know the Harvard one gets a little busy.
It's just so much fun to talk to the farmers and pick out your vegetables. I can't wait til its farmer's market time again!
Farmer's Markets
Date: 2009-01-30 07:39 pm (UTC)It took a while to get into the swing of going, but we're at a place now where its just what we do on Saturday mornings now (and I get really bummed if we miss one).
Re: Farmer's Markets
Date: 2009-01-30 07:44 pm (UTC)Re: Farmer's Markets
Date: 2009-01-30 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 06:59 pm (UTC)(canning, freezing, deyhdrating, etc)
CSAs
Date: 2009-01-30 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 05:36 pm (UTC)Thanks for the view into their winter. I'm thinking I might add a bonus to my monthly pay to them this coming week, to help make up for all their hard extra work and expense with dying goats.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 06:43 pm (UTC)(see "Catherine Tate show" on youtube)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 06:09 pm (UTC)But, like Roaming, I'm so glad we followed our friends' lead and joined this CSA.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 07:27 am (UTC)