Baby Piggies!

Thursday, Tonya slept all day long.  I threw a few bails of straw in the lean-to and in the hole she's been sleeping in lately.  I also stacked four bails around the lean-to as extra protection from the wind.
Friday morning rolled around and there were no babies.  We were expecting freezing temperatures Friday night, so I was getting worried.  From sunrise to sunset on Friday, Tonya nested.  Mouthful by mouthful, she carried the loose straw from the lean-to to her spot against the fence. After she leaned out the lean-to, she dragged the four additional bails, popped the strings and spread out even more straw!  At nightfall, she finally fell asleep.
Saturday morning rolled around and there were no babies.  We were expecting 19 degrees Saturday night, so I was even more worried than the night before.  Tonya slept all day on Saturday.  She never moved, never ate, never drank.
Sunday morning rolled around and there were no babies.  We were expecting 22 degrees Sunday night, so obviously, I was a wreck.  When I visited her Sunday morning, she was laying on her side.  I had a feeling theywere coming.  I went into work to get a few things done.  At 2pm, James and I took the girls to a birthday party, and my Mom went out to the local shopping center.  I asked Mom to check on T when she got home.  We were getting our coats on at the birthday party when Mom called.  She walked down the hill and found a bunch of piglets!
When we arrived home, Mom showed me that there was one that wandered off, so I jumped in the yard and carried it over to T.  You shouldn't go in for at least a few days because the Mama can get aggressive.  I trust Tonya and the baby was squealing and shivering.  When I got it over to Mama, she immediately started nursing.  At this point, we counted seven.
James and I walked down around sunset, and we heard a desperate, weak squeal coming from the far side of the lean-to.  Number 8, whom no one had seen earlier...  I jumped in again.  Her body was cold and beginning to stiffen, but still breathing shallowly.  I knew we were going to lose her, but I tried anyway.  I placed her in Tonyas neck, hoping she would warm up and have the strength to nurse.
This morning it was so cold outside.  I found her little lifeless body.  T had pushed her away a little and covered her with some hay.  The other 7 are healthy, but cold.  Mommy and babies have been sleeping in the sun all day today.  Tonight we are expecting some snow and sleet, first of the season.  I am about to go down and get some type of cover of them.  The first 72 hours are crucial for piglets because there internal thermometer isn't working yet, just like any other animal.  The difference is they can't get completely under Mama like a dog or cat because Mama is 500 lbs.

I feel pretty confident, but cross your fingers they all make it through tonight.

Preparing for Tonya's Birth

Tonya is due in 10 days.  We expect her to deliver 10-12 piglets, hopefully all healthy and alive.  Due to three weeks of on and off rain, her pen is a wreck.  She has also knocked down most of her lean-to and pulled down most of the chicken wire from scratching her ass on the fence.  The chicken wire runs along the lower half of the fence so the babies can't slip through the cattle fencing.
Today was like a Spring day, as every other day seems to be right now.  James and I mended all the chicken wire, straightened out the lean-to, and planned where we will build a run for everyone.  Next week I will buy 8 bails of straw to stack around the lean-to and spread out for some bedding.  This Winter has been so mild, I really worry that we are going to get an ice storm near the due date.  All I can do is insulate her house as much as possible and hope for the best.

About two weeks ago I told James I was worried that she may not be bred.  In the last few days, her size has doubled and her milk has come in.  Yes, she is definitely bred and ready to go!

What IS Growing on Black Opal Farm?

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.

Chicken Processing

Well, we processed 7 chickens today.  Nikky was sick and couldn't make it, so I had to help James.  It is a very simple process and with practice we will get cleaner and faster.
I cried during the first bird... I'm sure all of you can imagine how it must feel the first time...

We set up about 50 yards down from the backyard on a little bit of a slope so the blood and water would run downhill.  On the back of the pickup, we placed a sheet of plywood covered with a plastic tablecloth for evisceration and along side the tablecloth was the tabletop chicken plucker.  We filled the crawfish boiler with water and set up pickle buckets for ice baths.
Unfortunately, the chickens weren't very close by, maybe 200 feet away.  One by one, James would pick a chicken and walk the green mile to the processing area.  I held the cone while he slit the jugular.  Each chicken bled for about 3 minutes, then it was on to the water, set at 145 degrees.  Each bird was dunked for 60 seconds to open the follicles before plucking.
The tabletop plucker is motorized.  Rather than dropping the chicken into a barrel, the tabletop plucker requires you to hold the chicken up to the spinning rubber fingers.  Since we had to hold the bird to the plucker, we had to pluck a few feathers by hand on the ends of the wings and the bottom of the legs.  I helped a little with the plucking.
James did all the evisceration.  He used to duck hunt in Louisiana, so he has had plenty of experience cleaning birds.  First he had to cut off the head and legs, cut the oil gland, sliced into the breast to pull out the windpipe, went up the bottom and pulled the guts and organs out.  That is evisceration in a nutshell.
They got washed off and dropped into an ice bath until they cooled off, bagged, then into the freezer.  James cooked the heads and feet for Tonya, the dogs got the organs for dinner.

It's gonna be a lot easier next time.

pigs, chickens, turkeys, oh my!

Yesterday my friend Jenny and I drove South to Newberry and picked up a new addition to our family, Tonya, a bred 400+lb. Tamworth pig.  We bought her from Butter Patch Farm and Dairy.  She is super sweet and due with her fourth litter on Valentine's Day.  She is expected to have 10-12 babies.  I found her this morning, sound asleep with a smile on her face, in her house on a bed full of straw.  She seems happy in her new home.

Both dogs got to take a ride in the car last weekend for their rabies shots, woot-woot!  They don't care where they go, they just love to ride in the car.  They may be dirty farm dogs, but they are always on their best behavior when we take them off the farm.

Tomorrow is D-Day for the chickens.  We have a makeshift processing facility set up outside.  Our friend Nikky is coming over to help James.  I want to be a part, but I'm not sure how much help I will be this first time.  I think I can dunk, pluck, and eviscerate, but I know I can't slit a chickens throat.  Maybe down the road.

Thanksgiving is becoming a tradition on the farm.  My Mom and Sisters party of five come from NC, James' Mom drives up from LA, and his brother and wife fly in from TX.  We all bunk in the house for a few days of eats, drinks, and games.  I can't wait!!  On Wednesday, James will smoke a ham from the freezer and I will make my Grandma's potato salad.  For Thursday, I plan to sage-brine a turkey and stuff it lightly with root vegetables accompanied by roasted acorn squash, garlic romano mashed potatoes, cornbread dressing with fresh chorizo, orange-ginger peas (Stella's favorite veggie), and fresh French bread.  For dessert, I am making a sweet potato cake with marshmallow meringue topped with drippy, gooey pralines---Yumm!  My sister is bringing some homemade quiches, Mom is making Saurkraut Balls!  We will have some great wines (TBD) and beers, maybe even Makers Mark and Eggnog.

Stay tuned, I will let you know how the processing goes...

Trouble on the Farm again

This story is now a week old, but I've been in the weeds.
James went out to feed one morning last week and something tried to get into the chicken house with the Naked Necks (meat chickens).  Seems that it dug under just enough to paw down a hen by the leg and took a huge bite out of her back.
So we brought her up to the house, washed the wound and covered it with Swat.  She could barely walk, and seemed to be in severe shock.  She has been sleeping in the bushes against the house.

Now, over a week later, Florence is doing great!  Yes, she has a name.  She will retire into the brooder house.  She probably won't lay an egg for at least a year, so she will just be another pet.  I plan to introduce her to the chickens and her new home tomorrow.

Finally it's looking like Fall

We never run out of things to do on the farm.  James' Mom was in town from Louisiana last week which gave me a chance to get outside without worrying about the girls.
The Naked Neck Chickens are getting bigger as we get close to processing time.  They should be ready by late September.  I pulled four hens and one rooster and set them up in the brooder house.  Next time I won't have to order chicks, we can produce them ourselves.  We can also get great eggs from these hens when we don't need baby chicks.  Since the fox got most of our hens from the Big House, we only get two little eggs each day.  It felt a little strange the day that I separated the five for the brooder house, "Which ones will I choose to not be eaten..."
We have also planted an orchard, a small one.  Up on the hill in front of the house we now have two dwarf sweet cherry, one dwarf black cherry, one regular sized tart cherry, one pear tree, one pomegranate tree, one fig tree, one thornless blackberry.  We have blueberry bushes in the front yard near the house.  Next year I will add to the orchard.  I found an old lady named Hazel who grows all types of fruit trees, herbs, peppers, evergreens.  Our two grapevines in the "vineyard" are doing well, we should get a ton of grapes next year!
The Big House (chickens, ducks) is looking pretty bad these days.  We need to get it fixed up before the Winter months arrive.  We also need to extend the pigs area while the weather is cool but before Winter. 
I was also able to get down there and mend some of the fencing in the pig pen while Sandy was here.  Thanks Sandy!!  The piglets should be ready to pick up in October.  We plan to get get females from Tapsalteerie Farm.  That's where we bought our last two pigs.  In addition, we plan to find a Boar to breed the females.
Speaking of the pigs,  I have been busy curing bacon and grinding sausage.  I've been playing around with all different flavors.  Bacon has been, brown sugar maple, black peppercorn mustard seed, and white pepper cumin!  Yumm!  As for the sausage, I have made chorizo, stuffed pepper mixture, French garlic, and garlic sage.  Remember all the garlic I grew last Winter?  It's all going to good use in the sausage recipes.
James tilled up the garden and we have started the Fall planting.  Cauliflower has sprouted, cabbage seeds are in, when it cools a bit more, I will plant spinach and beets.  I have 50 pots started with garlic chives, and 25 pots with Lemon Balm.  I hope to get these sprouted and in the ground before it gets too cold.

I think that's about it for now.  Well, besides being a busy Mother of two and starting back to work two weeks ago.  Come to think of it, I'm a little tired. :)  I will get some nice pics this week to post for you all.  Time to watch the Saint stomp on the Packers so I've got to head downstairs.