Has anyone seen my Buffer Zone?

On organic farms we are required to have a "Buffer Zone" which is a strip of land between your organic fields and your neighbors (or your own ) non-organic fields. The organic standards do not state a specific width for this buffer zone but they will tell you that approximately 25 feet is adequate in most situations.

For example, if my non-organic neighbor owned a conventional farm with 3000 cows, yes we do have some that large in Illinois, my Buffer Zone would need to be wider in order to filter out the chemicals used on that huge farm which might drain into my organic fields. (I heard that. One more crack about the width of my personal buffer zone and you will be promptly removed from my followers list)

Our milking herd on pasture Oct 4, 2011. One of the reasons our
raw milk tastes like melted ice cream

But our neighbor farmer used to be organic himself so those prohibited substances draining from his field towards ours, is minimal and well filtered by the 25 foot wide strip of land. This buffer zone can not be certified organic however, so any grass on it cannot be used to pasture our herd nor can it be cut and baled for winter feeding EXCEPT to our non-organic animals.

Buffer Zone Bales of Hay ready for Barn Segregation

Wait ! What ? How can we have non-organic animals on an organic farm ? Well, we do because a few of our animals are never raised to provide products to others. So when we fill out our organic application we just list which animals we want certified organic and which we do not. Take Doolin for example, our goofy Equus Asinus, (Oh man, I think I just stumbled across a new nickname for some of our more stubborn family members.) that hunk of hide will never be made into jerky for our farm store, even though I have threatened him with that end result a few times.  HE can eat buffer zone hay as can his two other horsey friends.

I call this "Green Hay Against Blue Sky"
an original Midlife Farmwife Composition
8x10 prints just $39.95 includes shipping

So the buffer zone hay is baled and stacked on a rack which must be blown clean of all non-organic hay left over from the last person who used the hay rack. This "blowing clean" must be documented on our Cleaning Log. (Those of you mulling around inappropriate comments involving the phrase "blowing clean"...need to pick up the phone, your High School is calling.) This hay is then stored in our barn AWAY from any organic hay. This buffer zone hay must be labeled as such so it does not get accidentally fed to our organic cows, steers and pigs.

I call this "Prairie Shame"
Male Peacock loses all tail feathers at end of season.
Feels as ugly as hay
8 x10 print On sale for just $ 39.90 includes shipping

 So once again the complexities of organic certification made a little clearer. I hope

In a lather about rectums

January continues and so does our farm planning. We're no where near a ten year plan or a five year plan, in fact coming up with a one year plan is getting difficult. Especially since technically it will only be an 11 month plan, that is IF we finish up the plan before end of month.

Life keeps getting in the way.

The problem of today..the prolapsed rectum. Oh, don't be so sensitive. Farm blogs can't be about sunsets and soap making all the time. Well, its not my fault you haven't finished your breakfast. Get up earlier.

The rectum in hand, so to speak, belongs to one of our our smaller Red Wattle feeder pigs. A runt from the beginning. As soon as we noticed it, we tried to gently reduce it (Keith found the best angle and had the best results) and we separated the piglet from the others it was running with. Then I did some web research and talked to another pig farmer friend. Prognosis is poor and I expect we'll be euthanizing said piglet soon. To avoid future occurrences we'll follow some of the suggestions of the more experienced  pig farmers.
http://flashweb.com/blog/2011/01/rectal-prolapse-in-pigs.html


Seems the problem is often genetic and culling that gene from the herd (over time) is the best remedy. In the meantime prolapsed rectums can be avoided by providing large amounts of water, hay, good bedding and room to stretch out. Pigs are groupies though. They like to be with each other and in the winter have been known to lay on each other thus increasing abdominal pressure and adding to the problem.

So we looked at our largest group of pigs.

Looks cozy and spacious. Room for both the bacon and the eggs. But if you pan that eye of yours to the left

You can see how the hogs like to snuggle. Outside of this barn is lots of pasture and room to run but when it is cold pigs will lie together for warmth and debauchery.  So today, after Keith takes yet another hog to the locker, we'll talk about how to move which hogs where and when. Yesterday we tried to warn them of the upcoming moves

But when there is milk in their feeder, attention span is short.  So come on you fellow pig farmers out there. Tell us how you deal with the prolapse issue. How often do you see it , what do you do about it and how do you avoid it ? And thanks again to Walter Jeffries who covered the topic so much better , which I swear I did not know until I was researching this here blog and THEN looked at his blog to find he had blogged about said rectums several days earlier . That's my story and I am sticking to it. Your honor Sir.

Dangling Participles

Raising calves is generally very pleasant for them.  We feed bottles and then buckets of milk which they like. We feed leafy organic hay in self serve buckets, which they like. We apply organic No Fly spray to ears and other parts which leaves a nice scent of cloves, which they like. We rub their necks and give them fresh cold water. Also well liked.

And then we castrate them.

Different than the cutting process done with piglets, castrating calves involves rubberbands. (Yeah, I see all you guys out there instinctively pulling your legs together. )  At a few weeks of age, and after we are sure the testicles have descended, Keith uses a special hand held device that pulls the rubberband wide and allows him to slip it up and over the testicles wrapping tight to the area that connects the testicle to the calves body.

The calves do jump and or kick for a few brief moments but then very quickly settle down and begin eating again . I am amazed by this. No human male I know would be able to concentrate on a meal, no matter how big the T-bone in front of him, if I had just lassoed his privates. Its not that animals don't perceive pain but I believe they percieve it differently. Or maybe their will to survive is actually stronger than ours.

After a couple of weeks the calves testicles shrivel up from the lack of blood circulation and just fall off.

A bull becomes a steer. And men all over the world feel a little shiver run through them. Not exactly the same as an angel getting her wings everytime a bell rings, but pretty close.

South Pork Ranch is proud to announce...

the arrival of our first Red Wattle litter. I told you a little about it yesterday but without pics what is the point ? The bambinos are doing well this am. Mama Debbie is not being bothered by the other 3 sows and in fact when she gets up to go outside the hogcienda to eat, the little ones are smart enough to find their way over to Lady Anna's wide bottom. They snuggle up against her hide end until real comes back. Then Debbie  makes this little bark noise and they all get up and come back to her.

Debbie had no problem with me being in  her space this morning. I went slowly with my back to the open doorway (just like they teach  us nurses to do with psych patients) but she was totally OK with me being next to her. I scratched her ears, rubbed her neck and she fell back asleep.Suddenly, she lifted her head and growled this low, deep, alien coming out between her udders , menacing growl. I thought "here we go, she is going to make an HLT (that would be Human-Lettuce-Tomato )  sandwich out of me !  Then I noticed from behind me, one of cats sneaking in for a closer look at the new arrivals. The cat got Debbies hint very quickly and RAN out of reach.

The piglets remind me quite a bit of human babies with their delicate see-through  skin, their little wrinkles, the fine hair on their back. But those crazy ears ! Never seen those on a humanoid. Good thing.  

And check out that nest Debbie made ! Keith put in three big bales of straw on Wednesday but did she use that ? Nope. Obviously that building material was too common for her. Instead, she tore away at the big bales of organic hay just in front of the hogcienda and used it for the king size mattress she built with JUST HER MOUTH. If I had to rely on just my mouth to make a bed, well it would still be unmade. In fact it is still unmade now at 10 am. So what was the point of that comparison ? I have no idea. I have flights of ideas lately but no real solid ones. I blame it on the plaster dust from our recently sanded , lead painted windows, walls and trim.

What was I talking about ? Oh yeah, global warming . There is no such thing.
Oh, I almost forgot , we have Red Wattle babies and we like them.

The Tranquilty of Farm Life

January 15, 2010

Keith and I had the best two days this past Wednesday and Thursday. Nothing on our schedule so spent the days at home just chilling out, drinking wine, watching Malcolm in the Middle reruns.


I just wanted to write that to see how it looks. It looks cute. Totally inaccurate but oh so cute. Here is the real story. On Wednesday morning we got up early to get chores done early to take a hog to the locker plant early. Our son Kyle had time to work for us that day and it was a good good thing because we had lots to do to prepare for our Chicago Delivery Thursday. While Keith unloaded yet another semi-load of organic hay (he had already dealt with two huge loads on Tuesday,) Kyle and I bedded the calves, horses and pigs and then played the freezer flip-flop game.

Meat from the machine shed freezer had to moved to the freezers in our basement, so the fresh pig we were taking to Chicago would have a place to rest on the trip up. Some of you might remember that loose pig parts on the back of a farmers truck seems to draw too much attention on the city streets, so now we put them in containers. Then the burger order we had set aside for Green Grocer needed to be counted, labeled and replaced in coolers to be placed in ANOTHER freezer. After that Kyle and Keith loaded the now empty chest freezer from the machine shed onto the back of our truck . While backing up that truck to hook up the trailer so we could take a steer to yet ANOTHER locker...the brake line on Keith's 14 year old truck broke. We of course had to get the steer to the locker by 4:30.

Now before I drag you further into this saga you readers with common sense might ask "Why did you have to take two animals to two DIFFERENT lockers ?!?! Well, because...our hogs are not yet certified organic, they do not require an organic processor. Our beef is certified organic and the only certified organic processor in all of Central Illinois is in Eureka 70 miles from our farm.

Back to the truck. Still broke. A quick call to son-in-law Donnie who just happened to have bought a new used truck recently. Yes, we could borrow it. Then instructions to son Kyle. "Take my car to Pontiac, get Donnies truck...uh quickly" I did not tell him to speed and I will admit, I did not tell him not too, either. Since I am the one who taught him to drive, I knew he was the man for the job. He returned with the truck in most excellent time and we hooked up the trailer and made it to Eureka Locker with the steer hanging on for dear life ( a lot of good THAT did him ) with about 60 seconds to spare before closing time. We debated for half a second about visiting my sister Teresa who lives there but knew we were already late for milking so went home.

We milked and fed and watered about 2 hours later than usual and fell into bed around 11 pm. At 5am Thursday we were up and out to get chores done early. Left at 8am to pick up the live hog we took to Chenoa Wed. Now dead, it did not mind riding up to Old Town Social in the back of the truck in the freezer at all. I have found that generally pigs are very easy to get along with. We motored up Route 55 in the son-in-laws borrowed truck and made it to Green Grocer in Chicago to deliver burger at 11 am, up to Old Town Social to drop off the pig and visit with chef friend Yoni. Off again and further north to The Bristol Restaurant to meet with more chefs, including friend Jared Van Camp and the members of The Stewards of the Land.

We had a great lunch and meeting which will be a separate blog as it deserves, then back in the truck, down Damien Ave to 55 and the 120 mile trip home. Arriving at the farm at 6pm just in time to look at our mail and take a phone call from sister Mary. Turns out she is in Pontiac visiting our Aunt and since I have to go back to Pontiac to return the truck .....we should meet. Keith unloaded the freezer with his tractor and I got into monster truck again to return it to Pontiac and collect my car. (We were very grateful to have the truck for our use but the sucker was about 10 feet off the ground and very hard for this petite yaya to be hauling her round self in and out of. )

A brief hello to grandchildren, a brief coffee and yakity- yack meeting with my sister and I was home again by 9pm. My last phone call of the day was to my husband in the barn offering him all kinds of favors if he could please do my share of the animal chores tonight. Before he could say yes (he always does because he's that kind of husband) I was asleep on the kitchen floor. The tranquil life hath consumeth me.