Let's start with veggies. Right now I am harvesting fresh crunchy spinach. Cauliflower, beets, and cabbage are steadily growing. I just filled the open spaces in the garden with last years compost and lots of llama poop. Our compost amount has diminished since most of the leftover food goes to the piggy now. Come Spring, I will order some more worms from our local worm farmer/expert, Scott Harke.
Tonya the pig is super hungry. She's eating for a dozen, you know. She is on freshly milled corn from Campobello, SC, restaurant scraps by the bucketfull, our kitchen scraps including the leftover breatmilk and formula from Skylars bottles (there isn't much after my chunky monkey eats), and Stella helps me gather acorns for her. She is so big, whatever she runs into normally knocks over. As we get closer to her due date, 13 February, we will fix up her lean to. She doesn't sleep in it much. I think she prefers the stars. I'm sure she will choose to use it for her little ones. When tax season rolls around, we will extend the fencing in the pig area. We plan to sell the piglets, but I have had inquiries about raising the pigs to slaughter size for some people who live in the city. that means more fencing.
We still have a small handful of chickens to process. We are only processing roosters. The 11 hens have been moved to the Big House with Sid. He is going to be the brooder rooster. The meat on most heritage breeds is pretty tough, but tasty. Sid is a Dominicker which is a dual purpose breed as well. We plan to cross the Naked Necks with Dominicker to get a fatter, more tender bird. The ladies are just starting to lay eggs. We expect a dozen a day.
Why are the ladies in the Big House? Because we lost everyone except Sid. My ducks are gone and so are the few Silkie Bantams we had. Not only do we need to watch for wild predators, but neighbor dogs were coming over and running off with them. I think my dogs trusted them because they would come over and play and hang out in the yard. We trusted them too... You can't remove a labradors instincts I guess.
Needless to say, the front gate that we used to keep open, now stays closed at all times. We will let the hens out to graze on Sundays when we are home all day so we can keep a watchful eye.
Overall, things are pretty good on the farm.
