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It is an overcast dawn in the dead of winter. A severed bull testicle sits in a smear of crimson on the gleaming white snow bank. A little red hen fluffs her feathers and pecks at it tentatively. The gonad's former owner watches the chicken with a calm and stoic expression. I take a drag on my cigarette. Another day on the farm has begun. Oh, hello. Didn't see you there. Pour yourself a drink and sit down in front of my cozy hearth. Let me tell you some stories, answer some questions.  This thread is to answer your questions about livestock and animal husbandry, the doings and behavior of animals on my farm, both domestic and wild, and perhaps farming in general to a certain degree. This thread is not really about a single kind of occupation, because to me, farming is more a way of living than simply a means of employment. My office is literally the land I live on. My work environment is...my environment. My employment consists of raising animals with the purpose of selling them as food to people, I pocket a profit from that (most of the time). Pretty straightforward on the employment side. Supply and demand. In the process of doing that, I am responsible for the lives of hundreds of animals, almost always from birth to death. More significantly, I am responsible for a large amount of land that has been dedicated to this purpose for one-hundred and fifty years. An entire ecology, living systems within systems, and a hugely diverse array of organisms is entirely under my care. Ponds, rivers, streams, pastures, woods, thickets, rocky ravines, and of course everything that lives underground within my land. If I gently caress up this land and turn it into a horrible scar, it is on me, as long as I own it, and no one else. I do not get paid to take care of the land, really. I'm obligated to do it because that is literally how human civilization persists. Humans and the land have often struggled against one another and as far as I'm concerned I must personally do what I can to maintain some kind of balance in that regard, at least within my own small borders. I struggle to really see this as a "job" in other words. I understand this may sound weird, and I admit it's possible I'm more than a bit insane. But to me, this is more of a vocation, and any profit I get is like a stipend for what I do. As I was writing this OP I wondered how much the average person thinks about farming, especially in America (I am American). It may seem strange, given that farming is literally the bedrock of civilization. Anyone who enjoys city life should appreciate this. Anyone who enjoys the opera, iphones, computers, or any of our modern amenities, should appreciate this. It all started by learning about what seeds do when you stick 'em in the ground just right, and how to make those fat animals more friendly. And how to keep the land alive. And it still is pretty much all about that. Nevertheless, there really aren't that many farmers in America these days. Both the number of farms and the number of farmers has fallen substantially since the end of WWII.  This is mainly due to consolidation in agriculture, and growth of single farms, and the increased mechanization of farming. Now, I do not raise crops, so I cannot speak very much to the issue of what it is like to raise crops, in detail. Suffice it to say that, in order to turn a decent profit as a crop farmer, you must raise very large amounts (probably corn, soybean, or wheat), and this requires lots of expensive machinery, which for most farmers requires loans because farmers aren't capital-heavy, which in turn is an incentive to plant even more in order to turn a profit on that investment. By the EPA's standards, there are about 2.1 million farms in the US. Any establishment that produces or sells at least $1,000 in a year in agricultural products is a farm (note that it says produces or sells). EPA posted:It has been estimated that living expenses for the average farm family exceed $47,000 per year. Clearly, many farms that meet the U.S. Census' definition would not produce sufficient income to meet farm family living expenses. In fact, fewer than 1 in 4 of the farms in this country produce gross revenues in excess of $50,000. Less than 1% of Americans are farmers, and an even smaller number actually earn a living through farming. A large portion have off-the-farm jobs in the towns and cities, because it is drat difficult to make ends meet solely by farming. Why is that? Farming today requires a lot of start-up capital unless you inherit your farm, animals (if applicable) and equipment. Raising your crop, herd, or flock requires a lot of up-front money, to buy the seed / buy the fertilizer & amendments / buy animals and maintain them, possibly feed them as well. Many farmers are deeply in debt because, again, of capital requirements. And here's the kicker-- the goods they sell aren't really worth very much more than the cost of production. Margins are small. I can go into this in more detail later. Books have been written about it. In my experience, there are three kinds of farmers. 1) Your average conventional farmer who has a town job and lives fairly comfortably, 2) Your average conventional farmer who does not have a town job and is usually dirt poor, 3)Niche farmers who sell high-priced food to suburbanites and urbanites, and may still also be dirt-poor. It is unsettling to me that the bedrock of our civilization are often some of the poorest and least-considered within it. There is much that goes into the causes of this situation. Of course there have always been poor farmers. But the family farmer, and the independent, small-scale farmer have (had) a vital role in our society that is slowly being destroyed. Most farmers are older folks and will die off in a few decades. Many American farms are destined to be purchased either by other monolithic farms in a further move toward consolidation, or by suburban developers. Because the farming children are all leaving the farms, leaving thousands of farms to be watched over by broken old men and women with bow-legs and kidney failure in their waning years. Hundreds of years, generations of careful cultivation and effort for the good of society, destined to be paved over by clone-house subdivisions, their duties taken over by what amount to the Wal-Marts of agriculture. But enough about that gloom n' doom. Farmers are always cynical, bitter and angry. Let's talk about my farm. Feast your eyes upon my lovely farm.   My farm is located next to a small river in Indiana. It has many denizens. Some are generally good and nice, such as the cattle, sheep, laying hens, ducks, dog and cats. This is Isadore. She is a collie-something mix.  I bought her as a puppy to raise up as a fearsome warrior against the Fang Clan that continually menaces my farm and animals. However she is more of a lazy gently caress than a fearsome warrior and lays around in the sun most of the time. She is in no way intimidating to anything, living or dead. My sheep are gentle and amiable animals that love me and let me pet them. My sheep are all bred here on the farm, I have two rams.  I have six cats due to a little mistake earlier this year that has since been resolved. Josie is my main farm cat and I have no photos of her because she cannot be seen. She only comes to me at night to be petted. She destroys rodents including enormous rats, and kills rabbits and moles also. I know this because I find the evidence in her lairs. There are also animals that just don't give a gently caress. These include pigs, goats, turkeys, broiler chickens and some roosters. As for the pigs, I have one boar and one sow. The boar is a Gloucester Old Spots named Homer, because he has trouble seeing due to his ears drooping over his face.  The sow is a Tamworth called Rosie, and she is terrifying. I never bothered taking pictures of the goats because they are ugly as hell and look mentally boggled all the time. Pigs can go gently caress themselves, and everyone knows what turkeys and chickens look like. Finally, there are many animals who actively attempt to destroy my farm and the animals that live there. This includes coyotes, opossums, skunks, weasels, owls, hawks, foxes, feral dogs, drunk teen rednecks, various hideous parasites, and Legendary Big Cats. The pigs sometimes fall into this category as well. Collectively they are my antagonists. They continually strive to kill my animals, and I continually strive to kill them, in turn. My life is an ongoing cycle of blood, feces, dirt, birth, and death. There is never a dull day. Ask away. If anyone would like to chime in about the subjects I mentioned at the top of this post, please do so. Oh, I also keep a couple of bee-hives. Tales Clever Girl: The Coyote Incident Porcine Self-Dentistry Animal Farm Was Real Tom Bombadil is Immortal and Lives on Jackass Farm Night of the Lumbering Shadow Just for starters, if anyone cares to hear. Globo-Corp fucked around with this message at Nov 17, 2012 around 08:20 |
| # ? Nov 17, 2012 05:13 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 13:50 |
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I like hearing about this lifestyle, we came close to buying a large hobby farm last year, though we chickened out on the 2nd mortgage 1 vote for Animal Farm Was Real
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| # ? Nov 17, 2012 06:05 |
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Why isn't he a mod anymore?
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| # ? Nov 17, 2012 06:53 |
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How large is your spread? Any opinions on Fukuoka or minimal input farming?
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| # ? Nov 17, 2012 07:07 |
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idiotsavant posted:How large is your spread? Any opinions on Fukuoka or minimal input farming? My farm consists of 122 acres. It's a pretty small farm by most standards. I am a big fan of Fukuoka. I agree with most of his principles. I am not a crop farmer, so I can only talk about how his ideas interact with raising livestock. I raise livestock as organically as I can. I am not certified organic, because it would be too expensive for me to get certified, what with having to replace fences, pay the certification fee, etc. But I do the best I can; my cattle and sheep, at least, do not consume any non-organic food. My cattle and sheep are entirely grass-fed (or forage fed, if we get technical). My laying hens eat what they will in the woods. GMO-free corn and soybean are too expensive in my area to feed to my pigs and broiler chickens, so I unfortunately must compromise there and try to raise them otherwise as well as I can. I am a big proponent of minimal input farming. I try to implement this in the daily manner in which I farm. Any time I try something new, or indeed any time I interact with my animals at all, I first consider what impact it is going to have on the land, the animals, and me and my neighbors. Consideration for my local ecosystem is always close in my mind. For instance, I have never planted grass or any other forage. Some of my smaller fields used to be planted in corn and soybean, and unfortunately inundated with Roundup and whatnot, and I'm currently trying to convert them to pasture. I try to spread the seeds as naturally as possible, such as by having my cattle eat seeded grass in one area and have them crap in another. Sounds dumb perhaps, but that's an effective way to spread plant seeds. I don't weed my pastures or spray anything. Strikes me as interfering with a much more efficient natural process, over the long term. Why weed, when you can get a variety of animals to regulate the ecosystem for you? Goats will eat woody weeds, sheep will eat weeds and grass, and cattle prefer grass. And they each break up each other's parasite cycles. It is up to the farmer to move the animals about properly in a way that regulates and maintains the land in a healthy way. A way that is good for them, for us, and the land.
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| # ? Nov 17, 2012 07:31 |
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How many workers do you have in your farm? Are they family friends or are there some sort of hiring process involved? What do you mean by Legendary Big Cats?
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| # ? Nov 17, 2012 12:23 |
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Tell me more about the bees, George.
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| # ? Nov 17, 2012 14:36 |
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What sort of makeup is the land? You mentioned that some of it was previously crop field that you're converting to pasture and that your hens are in the woods. Do you have lots of woodland?
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| # ? Nov 17, 2012 14:37 |
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goatface posted:What sort of makeup is the land? You mentioned that some of it was previously crop field that you're converting to pasture and that your hens are in the woods. Do you have lots of woodland? It is fairly diverse. I have about 80-or-so acres in pasture, some of it flat, some rolling, some on a hillside. The rest is woods, with a few acres occupied by my house, barn, and various sheds. Fifteen acres are in the process of conversion to pasture. Most of my hens are leghorns, and live in the woods because they are very skittish and hate people. I'm ok with this because they are also quite flighty and salty as chickens go, and are pretty good at evading predators. Fortunately they do me the favor of laying their eggs in the boxes I've provided for that purpose. moana posted:Tell me more about the bees, George. I only started keeping bees last year, they have not made any amount of surplus honey worth harvesting yet. All told, they are pretty low-maintenance. In winter I'll give them some sugar cakes to tie them over until spring if they are looking feeble, but other than that I don't do much to them. They do their thing, I check on them about once a month to see what's up. As long as you use plenty of smoke and don't gently caress around with them for too long, they're cool with you poking about. Anything you'd precisely like to know? toanoradian posted:How many workers do you have in your farm? Are they family friends or are there some sort of hiring process involved? I live on the farm, own it and am the manager. My brother and his wife live across the river and he works the farm with me. That's pretty much it right now. I'd be pretty happy if we ever got to the point of being able to hire labor, but I doubt that will happen any time soon. The Legendary Big Cats are exactly that. They may not exist, at least in my area, they live on rumors and hushed whispers spoken in secret.  I have been told for a while now that mountain lions and bobcats are causing trouble in my area, supposedly a mountain lion killed a full-grown bull not far from here. I am dubious, but several people told me this, and one guy claimed to have footage of them on a night-stand deer camera. Another guy said he hit one with his truck. Another guy who claimed this is a person I will refer to as Tom Bombadil because I'm leery of using his real name, which is equally strange and eccentric. He's a relatively well known character in my area, so I'm not sure if someone might recognize the name. He swore to me up and down that he'd seen...something he thought I should be afraid of, exactly what I can't say because he is almost impossible to understand.
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| # ? Nov 17, 2012 16:33 |
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Globo-Corp posted:I only started keeping bees last year, they have not made any amount of surplus honey worth harvesting yet. All told, they are pretty low-maintenance. In winter I'll give them some sugar cakes to tie them over until spring if they are looking feeble, but other than that I don't do much to them. They do their thing, I check on them about once a month to see what's up. As long as you use plenty of smoke and don't gently caress around with them for too long, they're cool with you poking about. Anything you'd precisely like to know?
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| # ? Nov 17, 2012 16:56 |
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moana posted:Do you have a favorite of all the bees? Can you tell the queen apart/is she marked? I was hoping for some crazy bee stories, but it seems like you have chill bees. My bees are ambivalent towards me. But I've certainly been stung before, because I was being stupid and hosed around with the hive too long like a clumsy dumbass. Bees will give you a sort of grace period before they start stinging the poo poo out of you. And the lovely thing is, when they sting you they excrete a pheromone that encourages other bees to come join the party. I learned this after I was stung the first time, unfortunately. I took one of my gloves off because I had to do some delicate work with the hive. Obviously I got stung. Then I got stung again. I retreat several yards to see if they would calm down. They didn't, they came after me hard core. I ended up running around my farm shouting swear words until I ran out of original ones and started making some up, I think "bee-gently caress-glomshit" was one. I was still wearing my astronaut bee suit of course so try and envision this scene. I had to run through my cattle herd which spooked all of them, so they started running around in circles as well. The hives are about half a mile from my house and they followed me all the way back to the house and then hung around outside my screen door for several minutes. As for a favorite bee, yeah I have one and her name is Golden Crisp. I marked the queen with a blue dot (you do this to keep track for breeding purposes) and I marked Crisp at the same time for shits and giggles. I've only seen her once since then. Globo-Corp fucked around with this message at Nov 17, 2012 around 17:54 |
| # ? Nov 17, 2012 17:49 |
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How do you feel about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)? My wife and I are starting to purchase products (meat, vegetables, cheeses) from a CSA and would like to hear more of the inner workings from someone on the supplier side. Do you deal with local/small butchers? We stopped buying our meat at Kroger when we found out how much better the meat from a butcher is. The increase in cost is marginal. Edit: Southern or northern Indiana?
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| # ? Nov 17, 2012 18:33 |
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How do you handle those hideous parasites? In fact, what are the examples?
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| # ? Nov 17, 2012 23:31 |
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Kudaros posted:How do you feel about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)? My wife and I are starting to purchase products (meat, vegetables, cheeses) from a CSA and would like to hear more of the inner workings from someone on the supplier side. Southern Indiana. Most of my sales are by means of Community Supported Ag. I keep a list of reliable customers who I keep up-to-date with my sales information and schedule, which is seasonally-based (chicken in spring and summer, pork year-round, beef in fall and winter, etc.) Interested folks send me an order for whatever they want for the season, and mail me a deposit, which is 10% of their total payment. I use these deposits to buy what I need for the season. I interact very closely with my customers and know them by name, and they often come and visit the farm to inspect the livestock and my methods. I encourage this. I try very hard to keep my meat affordable for families, and I'll lower my prices or work something out with individuals if need be. My prices are pretty low compared to organic meat in general, because I don't like this common notion that organic food is only for rich "foodie" enthusiasts. It should be for everyone. I have a semi-cooperative relationship with a couple of organic farms in my area, but nothing formal. I encourage working through CSAs and buying from them, support your local economy. Most of my slaughtering and butchering is done by my local butcher and I really like them. They let me and my customers visit and actually go into the back where poo poo actually gets done, and just watch everything. That is a good sign. I've used other butchers who either refused to allow this or were really, really weird about it. Those butchers also mistreated the animals and just gave off an "I don't give a gently caress" vibe. For instance, checked out one butcher on a certain occasion and watched them unload some pigs for slaughter. The pigs' legs were broken for some reason, and they couldn't move. So the guys working there drug the pigs onto the floor by their ears, and the animals were obviously in pain. I bitched out the owner and have never done business with them. EDIT: I perhaps should clarify that these were NOT my pigs, I was there to scope out the abattoir as a possible place of business, as it were. And yes, meat from your local butcher will almost always be better than supermarket meat. Check out a chicken breast from Kroger or wherever, for instance. Look at the fat on it. It's probably white, or grey, right? Fat is not supposed to be that color. It's supposed to be bright yellow. Look at the pork chops. They aren't supposed to be this greyish slab, they're supposed to be light red. Conventional pork is shamefully bland compared to the real deal, it's basically meant to be a receptacle for sugary, fatty sauces that you buy to slather on the pork. Plus, local butcher will have all kinds of neat goodies you probably won't find in a supermarket, like blood-sausage (I never find this at Kroger.) toanoradian posted:How do you handle those hideous parasites? In fact, what are the examples? Worms of many kinds are the main parasites I combat continually. The primary worm is the roundworm.   These, in their larval stage, are attached to blades of grass that are then eaten by cattle and sheep. They grow inside the animals, and move to the intestines (most commonly). There they latch onto the intestinal lining to feed on the blood-rich tissue. Their eggs will later be shat out by the cow onto the pasture, where the eggs hatch, beginning the cycle again. Roundworms of this kind will cause scours (aka "the shits") and often lead to weight loss. Eventually the host can become anemic and weak from dehydration and poor nutritional retention, and die.  Picture of roundworms in intestinesThere are also lungworms, which burrow through the intestinal lining to enter the bloodstream, where they travel to the lungs to reside while they grow into adults; the eggs are coughed up, swallowed, shat onto the grass and so on. Lungworms, obviously, cause considerable inflammation in the respiratory tract and cause lasting damage. Liver flukes are a problem for sheep and kill many sheep worldwide every year. Fasciola hepatica is the main one, and can grow up to 30mm long. It lives in the bile ducts of the liver. However it is easily avoidable if you keep your sheep out of wet, soggy, marshy ground. I've never had a problem with flukes. I combat worms mainly through rotational grazing, to break the parasite's cycle, administering diatomaceous earth or surfectants to the animals periodically, and selectively culling for susceptibility to parasites. DE and surfectants help clean out the worms from the intestines like Drain-O but are safe to ingest and not low-grade poison like most conventional wormers. Globo-Corp fucked around with this message at Nov 19, 2012 around 06:25 |
| # ? Nov 18, 2012 00:58 |
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Yay, sheep! I have a teeny tiny 16 acre sheep farm where I raise a couple finewool breeds and Jacobs for their wool. What kind of sheep do you have? I'm guessing because they're spotty and you raise them for meat they're some sort of katahdin/dorper mix? Were you hit hard by the drought this year? This was the first year I had parasites bad because of the drought but luckily it only hit my old girls hard and they bounced back with some TLC. I also had enough pasture to keep them grazing all summer instead of having to start hay early. I'm paying an extra dollar a square bale this year so I was glad for that. Some other farmers I know are paying up to $10-15 dollars a square bale (we're in NE OH) and I'm not sure how I would keep everyone fed if I were paying those prices. Do you have enough pasture to hay out yourself or do you have to buy hay for the winter? You mentioned the big parasites, do you worry about meningeal worm? With all the deer around here it's kind of scary but I don't know anyone in my area who has seen a case. I'm always on the lookout for weak rears though. I'm glad there is someone else who realizes sheep are awesome! Too many people think it's all about goats, which are pretty great, but sheep are cool in their own way. Jazz thinks she's way better than any goat. 
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| # ? Nov 18, 2012 02:09 |
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Oo, Animal Farm Is Real takes my vote. I'm currently in northern KY, if I were able and you were willing I'd love to visit your farm! Anyway, is there a minimum order amount you require for people to purchase meats and such from you? And what are some of the biggest natural obstacles your farm has faced in recent years [predators, drought, parasites...]?
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| # ? Nov 18, 2012 02:33 |
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Instant Jellyfish posted:Yay, sheep! I have a teeny tiny 16 acre sheep farm where I raise a couple finewool breeds and Jacobs for their wool. What kind of sheep do you have? I'm guessing because they're spotty and you raise them for meat they're some sort of katahdin/dorper mix? A farmer I know down near the Ohio River told me he had some trouble with meningeal worms, that is the only case I personally have heard. It helps to not let your sheep / goats eat the pasture down to the ground so they will have less opportunity to gobble up the host snails and slugs on accident. And of course I never run them on very wet ground. I have Jacob sheep, Barbados/Katahdin crosses, and Suffolks. The lamb in the picture is straight Jacob, my Jacob lambs are always black and white when born, and turn brown and white later. Your ewe looks almost exactly like mine! I'm a big fan of the quad-horn look, it's kind of badass. My main ram is a Jacob, his horns look like some kind of futuristic helmet. I'll have to post some pictures. I have a Barbados/Katahdin as a clean-up ram. The drought was very bad. I did not cut any hay at all from my pasture. I started buying some for reserve early in the summer and I started doling it out a few weeks ago. We managed to finagle our grazing schedule to make sure the cattle and sheep didn't go hungry, but we have no winter reserve pasture like we normally would now and had to drop more money on hay that normal. I'm mainly concerned that the grasses in my primary pastures got hit a little too hard, I need them to bounce back, I was hoping for a better Fall regrowth. EDIT: ^^^ I'd say drought first with predators a very close second, then parasites. I've only lost a few sheep to parasites and it hasn't happened for a few years now. Globo-Corp fucked around with this message at Nov 18, 2012 around 03:09 |
| # ? Nov 18, 2012 02:51 |
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Globo-Corp posted:I have Jacob sheep, Barbados/Katahdin crosses, and Suffolks. The lamb in the picture is straight Jacob, my Jacob lambs are always black and white when born, and turn brown and white later. Your ewe looks almost exactly like mine! I'm a big fan of the quad-horn look, it's kind of badass. My main ram is a Jacob, his horns look like some kind of futuristic helmet. I'll have to post some pictures. I have a Barbados/Katahdin as a clean-up ram. Jacobs!  I thought your spotty lamb looked Jacob-y but I tend to think anything spotty must be a Jacob and not many people use wool sheep for meat anymore. Are you a JSBA member? Maybe your ewe is related to mine. She's Hickory Hill Jazz from lines around PA.My main ram has crazy helmet horns too which look awesome but grow too close to his neck so I needed to get a ram with better horn spacing for his daughters to fix that. The new boy has better fleece too so I'm looking forward to lambing this year. This is Summerhill Dennis with his crazy horns. He broke the end off of the top one a while back so it looks even more helmet-y now.  Forgive the neckbeard, this was my first year shearing for myself.  Hope you don't mind me posting a few pictures!
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| # ? Nov 18, 2012 03:28 |
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I live on a small family farm in Southwest Louisiana. We have chickens, goats, cows, rabbits, guineas, and a donkey. It's twelve acres so it's a fairly small operation. What type of cattle do you have? We have White Galloways.  We have one dairy cow, though she's still a heifer. She's as tame as can be, and was trying to eat the camera.  Also here's some of our goats. The white one's Sassy, our pet wether and the other is hugely pregnant though you can't tell. Sheep die way too easily, at least in Louisiana. 
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| # ? Nov 18, 2012 05:12 |
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^^^Not at all, post away. ^^^^^ Mostly Shorthorn and Hereford straights and crosses. Nice pics. Animal Farm was Real  In many ways the farm operates in a kind of "upstairs, downstairs" fashion, like an English manor. When I'm around, the animals usually behave themselves and do what I want, eventually. When ol' farmer Globo-Corp goes inside or leaves for whatever reason, though, the plotting begins. Now, there is a dynamic between all of the species of livestock on my farm. The sheep hang out with the cows, the hens follow the roosters around, the ducks share nests with the hens.  Oh, the pigs? No, I didn't mention them. The pigs are the odd-animal-out on the farm, no other animal likes them or hangs around with them. The pigs hate everything, and everyone, including each other. They especially hate cows, and me. They hate newborn lambs and will eat them. Oh, that's why the pigs are penned in now. "Penned", indicating some sort of restraint. Ha ha.  This signifies nothing for the pigs, however, because they are the cleverest of livestock and they know it. Let me indulge in a brief digression about pigs. Pigs are basically a massive neck muscle with a face. They are the blasphemous spawn of the velociraptors from Jurassic Park and a bulldozer. You know Juggernaut from X-Men? There you go. Their jaws are immensely powerful and they will gladly eat you if you give them the chance. The pigs hope and pray to their demon god every night that I will get knocked unconscious while in their pen. Now, pigs realize that they themselves taste absolutely delicious and that that is why we put up with them. They know they are destined to die, and that they lack opposable thumbs, which is why they haven't conquered Earth yet. This knowledge infuriates them, and they try to get even with humans as revenge. My pigs do this by actively seeking to thwart me, take over the farm, and ultimately eat my intestines while I'm still alive and screaming. Pigs recruit other animals into their schemes because the other animals are dumber. They will attempt to murder any animal that seems friendly towards me. . . Peggy, Golden-Boy, and Broken-Toe I used to have two roosters. Golden-Boy was a Golden Comet breed, and a very handsome bird. He wasn't much for messing with hens, and seemed content to strut around looking pleased with life. Normally I don't care too much about what the roosters do, but one day Golden Boy earned my affection. He was standing in the pig pen next to the feeder where Homer (my boar) was eating. Golden Boy wanted the corn, and Homer kept grunt-growling and shoving him away. Golden Boy attacked Homer's face in response. Roosters attack by jumping up and kicking, Crane-style, and hurling themselves at your body. This terrified Homer, who had never experienced anything like this. This 600+ lb boar dashed over behind a hay bale, making those little whiny, whimpering sounds pigs make when they feel like being subliminally irritating. I was watching and started laughing at him and pointing. Homer poked his head out from behind the bale and stared at me with his beady little eyes. Broken-Toe was another rooster, a strange hybrid but very salty and clever as chickens go. He was standing on another bale nearby and watched the whole affair. I remember walking away, looking over my shoulder to see Broken-Toe and Homer watching the gold rooster eat the pig's food. I didn't think anything of it. The next morning I saw one of my favorite white hens hopping around pathetically on one foot, trying to forage in the barnyard. She was a young pullet at the time and I knew she still foolishly hung out in the pig pen. I picked her up to inspect her and discovered that one of her toes had been bitten clean off, and the foot was badly mangled. I figured the pigs had done it because they'd eaten wayward chickens before, but there wasn't much I could do about it. As I was holding her and petting her neck, I chanced to glance over toward the tree line and saw Broken Toe standing there in the weeds, staring at us. Our eyes met for a moment, then he vanished into the woods. I thought nothing of it and went down into the bottom of the barn to check on the new calf that was down there. My barn is a bank-barn, with a kind of half-basement that opens onto a concrete slab. It was pretty dark except for a beam of dusty sunlight that shined down through the half-window near the ceiling into a water barrel I kept there for the calf and its mother. I went over to check the water level. A shimmering, golden mass was suspended in the water, which was full to the top. I knew it was Golden Boy and I was a bit pissed at first because I figured he'd been dumb and fallen in. But given that the barrel was full, there was no reason he could not have flopped his way out, I've seen clumsy chickens do this. I couldn't prove it, but I had my suspicions. Homer seemed strangely calm and relaxed that morning and I didn't see Broken Toe for several days after that. The weeks passed uneventfully and I forgot the incident. Then one sunny day I came home from the farm supply store. As I was driving by one of my fields, I noticed that some of my broiler chickens were out of their movable pens and roaming around. Hmm, I thought, stupid neighbor's dogs must be messing with the pens again. This happens sometimes, I figured it was a minor inconvenience, and that I'd have to catch a few birds and fix some wire. I pulled into the driveway and stopped short. In the distance I could see brown shapes moving in the trees on the outside of my perimeter fence. Cows. They were in the river, splashing and having a grand time. This is A Bad Thing because the river is shallow and nothing can stop them from just wandering down main street of the small village nearby. I was very pissed now and it began to look like rain in the west. Resigned to chasing cows in knee deep water for the rest of the day, I drove up into the barnyard and parked. I didn't notice the sheep in the yard until they spooked at my sudden appearance and ran out of the garden where they had been gleefully chowing down on my roses. They broke some poo poo in their escape and ran to hide under the workshop. At this point I began to wonder if I was floating through some dream and questioned whether or not my senses were accurately informing me of reality. The sun moved behind the clouds. I walked up to the stoop and went to open the screen door and was confused for a moment because the door was, in fact, not there. It wasn't open, it was simply not present. It didn't exist anymore. Maybe it never did. I'm not saying there was wreckage of a door there, there wasn't. Just a vacant rectangular space. I ceased to feel emotions from this point onward and went into robot mode. Perhaps some hooligans had been loving around on my farm? I went back out to my jeep and got my dinky .22 rifle from the back and went back inside. I expected to see TP strewn everywhere or something, broken furniture, missing appliances. I didn't. Everything was orderly and tidy, as I had left it. There were rustling noises coming from the living room, though, and I cautiously peeked around to look in there. Homer, Rosie, and eight other pigs were sleeping in there. They had pulled the cushions off the couches and made a sort of nest and were buried in it like hot dogs, quite content. There was an empty trash can lying on the floor, missing the bag. I saw a single scrap of an old bacon wrapper stuck on the carpet. They had drug the garbage out of the kitchen and eaten it, bag and all. In the hours that followed I discerned what had happened. The pigs have a watering tank in their pen and can drink out of it by biting down on a metal nipple, kind of like a rodent waterer. The tank sits outside the fence and the nipple sticks through it. The pigs had figured out that they could simply hold the nipple open with their mouths, letting the water flow out and onto the ground. They must have done this for an hour at least, because the water had allowed them to root into the newly soft ground and get their noses under the fence. It was all over after that. Their immense retard strength neck muscles went into beast mode and simply ripped the stock panels off the posts. I envision the u-nails popping off the posts like buttons popping off Hulk's shirt when he transforms. After that, they had apparently thrown the gate to the sheep's field off its hinges, letting them out. Then they went over to the chicken field and wrecked half the pens, eating a few of the broilers in the process. Then they went down to the river and rooted up the woven fence and stomped it down. I found evidence of pig wallows having been built in the shallows near the smashed fence. Then I guess they went up and, for some reason, pulled my screen door off its hinges and went inside to poke about. They may have smelled the roast I was slow cooking, I'm not sure. I found the screen door in the bathroom later on. Globo-Corp fucked around with this message at Nov 18, 2012 around 05:41 |
| # ? Nov 18, 2012 05:33 |
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Hahah Jesus Christ Some questions: How did you get into this way of life? How long have you been doing this? How did you learn to take care of animals? Do you think it's something anyone could/should learn to do? Did you inherit, buy or found the farm or what?
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| # ? Nov 18, 2012 20:46 |
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Globo-Corp posted:^^^Not at all, post away. This was a great little story. I didn't think I was interested in farms until now! We've got a few chickens and they're great little birds, especially when you come out in a morning and they all rush to you and let you stroke them!
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| # ? Nov 18, 2012 20:51 |
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What's the smartest or most ingenious behaviour you've seen your livestock display? I'd like to hear more stories like the one about the pigs, animals doing things that blow your mind a little bit.
wutheringbites fucked around with this message at Nov 18, 2012 around 21:13 |
| # ? Nov 18, 2012 21:11 |
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If it's alright with Globo-Corp I'd be happy to answer any crop farming questions anyone has. I grew up on and am still fairly involved with my dad's ~2000 acre farm. We're pretty much the modern, large scale, non-organic style farm that's most common among crop growers nowadays. We grow corn, soybeans, wheat, and to a lesser extent sunflowers and milo(sorghum). We also have ~100 acres of pasture and a small cattle herd that numbers in the low 30s but that's almost a hobby type thing. You're certainly correct when you say that it'd be near impossible to start farming crops profitably without inheriting the land and equipment. Anyone with the money to start from scratch would have to be a multimillionaire already and they'd end up working a job much harder than just about anything else they could choose. I'd have to disagree with you about full time conventional farmers being dirt poor though, most of the ones in my area live pretty comfortably and there's a decent amount (including us) that would probably be considered relatively wealthy compared to most Americans. I'm sure that varies from area to area though and we're certainly blessed with some pretty good land around here.
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| # ? Nov 19, 2012 00:02 |
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How much time does it take to care for properly farmed crops? Do you need to be paying attention to every acre every day or do you only need to look in every week or so? Do you think small scale niche crop farming is even viable at the minute?
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| # ? Nov 19, 2012 00:11 |
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Nitevision posted:How did you get into this way of life? How long have you been doing this? The farm was founded by my family in 1858. There is no way I would have been able to afford to buy it, so I'm grateful. My extended family worked it for a long time. I've been here for ten years, took ownership four years ago. It takes some learning to get a feel for how to handle animals, definitely. But I felt pretty confident about my abilities after two years of managing the farm. Prior to that I was never really rooted anywhere since my immediate family was a military one. So I would certainly say it is something any reasonably intelligent person can do. As for "should", it can't hurt to learn at least something about working with animals and plants, never know when those skills might come in handy. These were skills that were much more widespread prior to the modern era. Doesn't matter if you live in the city or country, one can learn to do what is feasible for them. I'm keenly interested in urban gardening, for example, as a method for urban folks to get in on this. wutheringbites posted:What's the smartest or most ingenious behaviour you've seen your livestock display? I'd like to hear more stories like the one about the pigs, animals doing things that blow your mind a little bit. I have plenty of stories like that (it's usually either that or the animals being really dumb), I'll try to write one up soon. ghetto wormhole posted:If it's alright with Globo-Corp Yes, please. I was hoping someone knowledgeable about crop farming would post. drat that is a lot of land, I'm envious. I could raise nearly 2000 cow calf pairs. . .  I'm really interested to hear about finances and such from a successful crop farmer. I'm your classic gloomy grump farmer, I never think anything's going right in ag. It definitely is different in my area I must say. Nearly every conventional farmer I know, even loosely, is really poor. In what region is your farm located? Most successful farmers I know (or indeed have ever met) had an off-farm job, or family members with off-farm jobs that pooled their money with the farm's. I'm intersted in reading a different perspective. Globo-Corp fucked around with this message at Nov 19, 2012 around 00:38 |
| # ? Nov 19, 2012 00:34 |
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goatface posted:How much time does it take to care for properly farmed crops? Do you need to be paying attention to every acre every day or do you only need to look in every week or so? It depends. If the land is irrigated then you have to run your irrigation system as needed, which, depending on the weather, might be once every week or two or every day or two if there's a drought like this past year. This requires you to at the very least go to each field twice to start and stop the system and you'll usually have to go check them more than that to make sure it didn't get stuck or malfunction somehow. Each irrigated field is usually only 160 acres, 640 acres max, so some people have a lot of systems to run. Land with no irrigation(most of ours) obviously doesn't require this but your yields(how much you harvest) will probably be 60% of what an irrigated plot would produce, and that's on a good year. On a conventional farm such as ours you'll have to spray each field as necessary with herbicide to kill weeds and pesticide to kill insects. How much you have to spray depends on how badly that particular field is being plagued and what it's being plagued with but generally you'll have to do it at least a couple times per growing season and also before you plant. But basically to answer your question during normal conditions you'd probably check each field a couple times a week and address problems as needed. You can't really get to the interior of a field without walking so you more or less have to monitor things from the edges most of the time. Plants are pretty self sustaining so you can't do a whole lot to help them grow besides giving them optimal amounts of water if possible and killing off any pests and competing plants if they become enough of an issue to hurt the crop. goatface posted:Do you think small scale niche crop farming is even viable at the minute? It depends entirely on if you can get people to pay what you need them to for what you produce. There are plenty of full time organic/niche farmers in areas that grow non-grain produce so it must be viable somehow although it's certainly not something I'm familiar with. I don't think it would be possible to make a living growing grain of any sort on a small scale though. Globo-Corp posted:Yes, please. I was hoping someone knowledgeable about crop farming would post. drat that is a lot of land, I'm envious. I could raise nearly 2000 cow calf pairs. . . We have the advantage of living within a couple miles of both my uncle and grandfather so they all help each other out and share equipment which REALLY helps. My uncle farms a similar amount of land and grandpa has slowly been transitioning most of his land to his kids, I think he only has one large ~300 acre field left in his name. He's actually had a rapid mental deterioration in the past couple months so this was definitely his last year farming  . We're located in southeast Nebraska right on the edge of the Ogallala aquifer. We're >90% dry land but if we were a county north then we'd probably be >90% irrigated.My dad and uncle actually have degrees in engineering and accounting respectively so that helps. My uncle does have an accounting business during tax season but that's just extra income because he can as opposed to something to keep the farm afloat. When I was a kid my dad used to work at as an engineer at a local manufacturer during the winter off time but he hasn't for years and they've since closed down. As far as finances go I'm honestly not too familiar with that aspect and dad probably wouldn't appreciate me discussing it in depth on the internet but to my knowledge his gross income is easily in the mid six figures. ghetto wormhole fucked around with this message at Nov 19, 2012 around 05:40 |
| # ? Nov 19, 2012 00:56 |
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goatface posted:Do you think small scale niche crop farming is even viable at the minute? I will suggest one scenario in terms of what I've personally seen. There are farmers around here who mainly grow organic grains on a comparatively small scale, and from what they've told me pretty much their near-exclusive consumers are farmers who sell organic meat (they buy it for pig and poultry feed, mainly). It costs much more to raise organic grain and soybean of course, one reason why organic meat is pricier. So, depending on one's local market, it might be viable. EDIT: I suppose the key is, how small is small, in terms of scale. I am not knowledgeable about things like minimum bushels p/acre and things of that nature.
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| # ? Nov 19, 2012 01:08 |
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I wouldn't be surprised if you got a big kitty looking for chow. Saw a young cougar the other day wandering about eyeing some mutton. They have quite the range on them and when they go on the prowl after being protected for awhile, they can all of a sudden become a problem. So do you guys compost your cowpoop and spread it, or is it even more hands off than that?
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| # ? Nov 19, 2012 01:09 |
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InterceptorV8 posted:I wouldn't be surprised if you got a big kitty looking for chow. Saw a young cougar the other day wandering about eyeing some mutton. They have quite the range on them and when they go on the prowl after being protected for awhile, they can all of a sudden become a problem. I compost a small amount, my garden doesn't require much, it is only for my own use, as I don't sell produce. I try to leave most of the cattle's manure on the pasture. I run chickens over pastures where cattle have been grazing. For example, the day after I move the cows out of a paddock, I move a portion of chickens in, either in a movable coop from which they range freely during the day, or in contained pens. The chickens decimate the cow pies with their feet, to get at the seeds and bugs therein. This spreads the manure out over an area of grass up to four or five times the area covered by the pie, in a kind of thin smear. This prevents cow pies from sitting in the pasture forever (since they'll dry up and harden), helps the manure assimilate into the soil, and prevents the pies from becoming fly-factories.
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| # ? Nov 19, 2012 01:18 |
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I don't know much about farming, but have dreams of one day having a smallholding of my own, so this is all fascinating to me. To both of you: what does an average day entail in terms of hours worked and timetable? Is it the classic "up before dawn, asleep when it gets dark" that a lot of people think about with farming or what? Also, what DO you do on a grain farm over the winter?
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| # ? Nov 19, 2012 01:58 |
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goatface posted:I don't know much about farming, but have dreams of one day having a smallholding of my own, so this is all fascinating to me. For me, it depends on the season. I'm much busier in spring and summer, daily do-stuff-ing tapers off in the fall and winter is not very busy comparatively. A typical warm-season day: Get up around 7:30, smoke and drink coffee, get out around 7:45, open the coops near the house, let the ducks out, check pigs' water and feed them, go to the broiler paddocks and move the pens, feed and water them, make sure none look sickly. If any look sickly, remove them and put them in the hospital shed. Then walk or drive out to the sheep and cattle paddocks which may be way up on the ridge, check their water, possibly look for calves/lambs, check pregnant ewes/cows, generally inspect animals. Eat breakfast, do "office" work like calling customers, emailing...afternoon is taken up by stuff like fence repair, building repair, garden work, and random tasks like castration, shearing, etc. Then move cattle/sheep to new paddock depending on schedule. Repeat the morning chores in the evening. Hopefully nothing goes wrong after dark requiring my attention, relax and drink beer. Typical winter day: Get up same time, open coops, check pig/cattle/sheep water, break ice or check de-icer if necessary, fork shitloads of hay into mangers and shovel manure if cattle/sheep are in the barn or loafing shed and lay down bedding. Weather permitting, do random tasks. Periodically transport large livestock to butcher, but that's only once every few weeks. I'll use my extra free time in winter to do marketing stuff and office work. And do fun stuff of course. I never go to bed with the sun. I'm usually up until 1 or 2 AM, sometimes later. But it is a busy life. EDIT: Oh, in the spring and summer we butcher a few hundred broiler chickens per month in our own abattoir and that's pretty time consuming. EDIT 2: The more I think about it, "random tasks" is a fairly massive category, hard to explain everything we might need to do on a random day. Globo-Corp fucked around with this message at Nov 19, 2012 around 02:32 |
| # ? Nov 19, 2012 02:26 |
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ghetto wormhole posted:We have the advantage of living within a couple miles of both my uncle and grandfather so they all help each other out and share equipment which REALLY helps. My uncle farms a similar amount of land and grandpa has slowly been transitioning most of his land to his kids, I think he only has one large ~300 acre field left in his name. Would you say that most of the children of farming parents in your area take up the family business, or do you know? What is your impression/opinion regarding the issue of "farm children" being farmers themselves as adults? I happened to live in Omaha for a few years, I've visited SE NE and it is a beautiful area, certainly some of the best farmland I've seen.
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| # ? Nov 19, 2012 04:06 |
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We're getting our broilers next week. They are honestly my least favorite farm animal, no personality. We get 50-100 but we sell half of that at a local poultry auction. I can't imagine doing 100+. We make an assembly, or disassembly line almost, with dad dispatching, me and mom plucking, and my uncle and aunt doing the actual butchering but it still takes us two or three days to do 50. How do you butcher? How long does it take?
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| # ? Nov 19, 2012 04:19 |
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Disco Nixon posted:We're getting our broilers next week. They are honestly my least favorite farm animal, no personality. We get 50-100 but we sell half of that at a local poultry auction. I can't imagine doing 100+. We make an assembly, or disassembly line almost, with dad dispatching, me and mom plucking, and my uncle and aunt doing the actual butchering but it still takes us two or three days to do 50. How do you butcher? How long does it take? Ah, my least favorite task after anything to do with pigs.  I built a tub-style plucker, and installed a heating element in a 55-gallon barrel to convert it into a scalder. I get up at about 4:30 AM on butchering days, to fill the scalder and cooling barrels, because it takes a couple hours for the scalder to reach optimal temperature. Just before dawn my brother and I go out and catch the chickens and bring them over to the abattoir in a trailer. I don't know how you go about it, but we have a rack with a row of four cones that we stick chickens in, one per cone, with foot clamps to hold their legs so they don't panic and hurt themselves. My brother kills the birds and lets them bleed out, then scalds them and toss them in the plucker for 20-30 seconds or so. They generally come out totally plucked, he hands them to me. I rinse them off and dress them, rinse them again and put them in the cooling tank. I can dress them faster than he can get them to me, to be honest. If we start slaughter at 7:30 AM or so, it takes us until about 4 or 5 in the afternoon to do 100 birds, then another two hours to clean up and bag. Add another hour to squeeze in breaks for the essential chores, we usually finish the day around 8:30 PM. It is exhausting, but I prefer to get it done in one day and have a two-or-so week break. How do you do your processing (perhaps I should ask, what kind of equipment do you use, etc.)? What other animals do you raise? EDIT 2: I should note that we don't cut all of the birds into parts, most we sell whole. EDIT 3: I am a dumbass, can't keep track of my own thread. You already told me what animals you raise. Globo-Corp fucked around with this message at Nov 19, 2012 around 06:46 |
| # ? Nov 19, 2012 05:15 |
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goatface posted:To both of you: what does an average day entail in terms of hours worked and timetable? Is it the classic "up before dawn, asleep when it gets dark" that a lot of people think about with farming or what? It depends a lot on the time of year and what you have to do that day. During planting or harvest time you might end up working from dawn until dusk especially if you're behind schedule. During the less busy times between planing and harvest you'd probably only work an eight hour day on average. Like Globo-Corp said there's an enormous amount of random tasks involved in farming and farmers tend to be a jack-of-all-trades. Livestock farming is obviously an entirely different thing schedule wise too. If you do both crops and livestock then you end up having to make time for both. Most people only do one or the other, and if they do both then they almost certainly only do one on a large scale. Dad generally goes to bed between 9 and 12pm and wakes up at 6-8am. goatface posted:Also, what DO you do on a grain farm over the winter? If you don't have livestock then there actually isn't a whole lot to do, it's definitely possible to work another job over the winter if you wanted to. Winter wheat is planted anywhere from September to December and is harvested in June-July so you might be planting wheat in the early winter but it goes dormant when it's actually freezing out. After harvest you have to put nitrogen in the soil but that's more of a fall job than winter. Winter is also a good time to do maintenance on things or do any projects that you didn't have time for in the rest of the year. Globo-Corp posted:Would you say that most of the children of farming parents in your area take up the family business, or do you know? What is your impression/opinion regarding the issue of "farm children" being farmers themselves as adults? Hmmm, this is a pretty hard question for me since I honestly wasn't close friends with any other farm kids! I'd say the majority of boys either stick with it right out of high school or go to college and come back. As far as the girls I'm not really sure, my sisters weren't ever interested in doing any farm work and dad never really made them. If the girls do end up as farmers I think it'll be pretty interesting, I can't think of a single woman farmer in our area, though I'm sure there's some out there. Most of the wives will help out during busy times like harvest but other than that they tend to be either homemakers or have their own non-farming related jobs. There's definitely more farmers than there are farm kids though so it's going to be very interesting to see what happens to the amount of farmers in the coming decades. Increasing efficiency will help alleviate the problem some but I don't know if it will be enough. Maybe big businesses will spring up to work the land the families left? As you said, civilization itself depends on farming so it's not exactly a profession that can be allowed to die off. It takes many years to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to be half competent, and that plus the insurmountable equipment and land costs make it more or less impossible to make new farming families so I think it's very important that at least some of the kids stick with it. Personally I probably won't go back after I graduate which is pretty sad to think about but who knows what the future will hold. ghetto wormhole fucked around with this message at Nov 19, 2012 around 06:17 |
| # ? Nov 19, 2012 05:30 |
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ghetto wormhole posted:As you said, civilization itself depends on farming so it's not exactly a profession that can be allowed to die off. It takes many years to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to be half competent, and that plus the insurmountable equipment and land costs make it more or less impossible to make new farming families so I think it's very important that at least some of the kids stick with it. I pondered for quite a while before I wrote this post. A few points, first: I have seen and experienced antagonism between conventional and non-conventional farmers. The fact that it exists is very sad. I admit I disagree with many conventional farming methods. And some conventional farming advocates would disagree with me. My best neighbors are conventional farmers. Mr. Smith (as I will call him here...  no that's actually his real name) has done more to help me out than my own drat family. I can only hope to one day repay him, I do what I can by letting him use my abattoir and butchering his chickens for him. I have no combines or tractors, I can't help him that way. But if he needs a hand, I'll help. He is a true neighbor. He has openly told me he is skeptical of my business model, and I'm down with that. I am too. I think he is under the impression that I am some rich city kid with too much time and a hobby horse to ride. It may take some years to show him otherwise. And then there are the organic farmers I meet at the markets. The affluent ones, who sell to rich urbanites that pay the hefty price for prestige's sake. These farmers gloat and are  as though they were above their own drat customers! What?? Farmers' customers are supposed to be the people they live near. You want to look down on the "dumb ignorant poors" who can't afford your gourmet organic meat, gently caress you. You'll die in the streets when the fad ends.Yeah I have beefs with conventional ag, but it feeds people who need to be fed. That's our system, there it is. Breadbasket of the world. My second point is this: I think the idea that big business will take over the responsibility of individual farmers is incredibly dangerous. I really hope it does not turn out that way for either crop or livestock farmers. I can't see how it would go differently than other market consolidations (which is why I used the term "Wal-Marts of Agriculture"). More domination of the quality and product by the producer, less choice for the consumer. That is where that would lead. And where, I think, we are currently headed. EDIT: Actually now that I think about it, Mr. Smith's salvations provide more stories. Ask me about the Angus Rally. Globo-Corp fucked around with this message at Nov 19, 2012 around 08:02 |
| # ? Nov 19, 2012 07:49 |
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This thread is great. I ran a five acre market garden selling food through a CSA and at farmers markets, and we also had a half-acre hopyard, ten hives, wholesale garlic, and a 70 tap sugar shack. This was in Southern Ontario, near Guelph, which is sort of a mecca of small organics, because they teach it at the university and everyone's into it. I can offer a Canadian perspective, and talk about market gardening, internships, wwoofing, and a little bit about agritourism. We had a workshop series at our farm. Thanks for the fun stories, OP!
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| # ? Nov 19, 2012 08:44 |
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DavidAlltheTime posted:I can offer a Canadian perspective, and talk about market gardening, internships, wwoofing, and a little bit about agritourism. We had a workshop series at our farm. Welcome. I get the feeling my agritourism stories might be close to yours  . Moana is interested in beekeeping, care to share any bee stories?I'd also like any "crazy/weird customer" stories" btw. . . those are universal to farmers I think. Please share any other thoughts you have on farming from your perspective. What is woofing?
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| # ? Nov 19, 2012 09:44 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 13:50 |
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Globo-Corp posted:Welcome. I get the feeling my agritourism stories might be close to yours Our workshops became my favourite thing about our farm, and the saddest thing to leave when we left, well, one of the top saddest aspects anyway. We had workshops on composting, raised beds, bees, but also astronomy, wild edibles and a jam night/music workshop. Cooking demos too. So much fun. My original life plan was to teach, so it was nice to have an educational side to the farm to let me express that side of myself. I only hosted a couple of them though, we usually got actual experts in whatever field it was to teach people, it was a fantastic part of our farm. Another way I got to teach was by hosting interns and wwoofers on the farm. Wwoof stands for 'worldwide opportunities on organic farms' and is basically a website that links travelling farm volunteers up with farms, all over the world (my friend helped pick olives with nuns in sicily). They get room and board, and we get 6 hours of labour a day from them (we usually got more than that). We cook for them, and they for us, and we take them into town and show them what Canada is all about. It was such a good experience, and they always appreciated being taught why they were doing the work they were doing. I always wanted wwoofers to leave my farm more capable than when they arrived. They weren't all ready for farm life, but I had good experiences with most of them. A bee story?? We had well-bred bees, so they were pretty docile. You pat them and they scuttle away if you need to inspect the comb, it's crazy. I'd end up there without a shirt at times and it'd be fine if the weather was right and they were happy. You get stung though. Bee stings smell exactly like bananas. The goal when you work with bees is to keep all your movements smooth and flowy. Don't jerk around or they'll get scared and might sting. I was working with a veil on one day and had a bee crawling around on it, on the part you look through, and that's pretty normal, but this one was sticking around for too long. Then I realize: she's inside. With my face. And the veil is tied to my head. And if I move quickly she'll sting. I got the panic quite quickly but luckily I had a more experienced beekeeper with me who said 'look at the sun, she'll go towards it!', and it totally worked, I stayed looking up towards the sun while I tried to calmly untie my veil. No sting! Sting story! When I bought some hives the fella I got them from delivered, and as we were setting them up he calmly comes over and says "Can you get the stinger out of my eyelid, I can't quite get it." Or sure, let me scrape BEE GUTS OFF YOUR EYELID. Of course, I'm happy to help, but it was freaky and looked like it hurt like hell. Dude wore it well though. If you ever get stung, crush up any green plants around you and use the juice to soothe the sting. Wild plantain works particularly well. Thanks for letting me join in. God I miss that farm. Globo-Corp, which animals do you make the most bank from? Do any not really seem worth it? Any ideas for new animals on the farm? Do you do any dairy? What's your agritourism all about?
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| # ? Nov 20, 2012 06:13 |
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