NH Homesteader- turkeys!

[NH homesteader]

They needed some fresh grass!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Looks like they're fat and happy!

 

[NH homesteader]

So I had seen one of these a long time ago, and when I did a Google search I realized it had come from this site. And I got my husband to make me one. Yes!

He closed in the ends after I took this. Thanks BYH!

 

[farmerjan]

Hubby just asked me if we could get more pigs. What? Free pigs even! They are runts, but healthy, and our friend offered them to us. They could go in with our little barrow we just got. For those of you who read my previous posts, our friend has the most amazingly sweet sow and the runts are from her most recent litter. Aka the blood lines I want. We could raise them together and frankly, I have been feeling bad about little dude being alone all winter.

Soooooooo I told him ok but we can't have five pigs so the big girls gotta go. I'm deworming them tomorrow and after the withdrawal period they're outta here and in the freezer.

I have a question, why worm just before butchering? I realize that pork is subject to trichonosis or whatever it is called, but I'm not sure I understand the pre slaughter worming? Never did that in 20 plus years of hogs so please enlighten me on what I maybe should have been doing...

 

[NH homesteader]

Or please enlighten me, haha. This is only my second year raising hogs. I don't have a good answer, I guess someone told me to, so I assumed they knew what they were talking about?

 

[farmerjan]

If your pigs have been healthy, and the pictures look real good, I would not worm them. You cook your pork so the "trich" that pork can have should never be a problem. I don't worm anything regularly, and use D.E. in all our custom feed mixes so that worms are never a real concern anyway. The less chemicals the better, but they are there when they really are needed. Since you are trying to be as self-producing as possible and concerned about what goes into your food, don't worm unless you really need to. We have major problems here in va with the sheep, but try to only worm them if they have the pale gums etc. and we are trying to keep more ewe lambs out of the ones that seem to have a resistance to worms too. TS carries DE here in va and can be added to feed or mineral and they don't hardly notice it in the feed since it is a miniscule amount. Like 2% of a ton of feed so 50 lbs per ton....a little bit regularly will go a long way towards keeping them "clean" inside.

MULCH the garden. I use feed bags that have no plastic liners; our feed store even uses biodegradable soy ink; lay them down the walkways between rows, cover with hay, straw, grass clippings, old cardboard, newspapers; anything you clean out of the barn on top of the newspapers/cardboard/feed bags will not burn the plants. The bags will completely disappear by the next spring when you till again. I have the garden all tilled once, lay out my rows, and plant and mulch and keep adding grass etc. on top of the bags. I don't worry about getting stuff in that early as we usually get dry by august and we are too busy in hay for me to worry about digging potatoes then; so mine are later. I think later potatoes keep better and I will dig them, cover with a couple of bags opened up, cover with mulch hay and then get them moved inside before we get real cold. I don't worry about early beans or push to have the first tomato. I mostly plant everything in one weekend, mulch it as fast as I can and then that's it. It also keeps the ground moist and I have had alot nicer garden then some neighbors and it stays productive if we get real dry. Use a soaker hose right next to the plants in the row once every 2 weeks if a real drought comes along but the thicker the mulch the better. The worms and the toads and all will love you.

 

[NH homesteader]

Thanks! No they're super healthy. I have spent 80 gazillion hours researching goat stuff this year... Including deworming. And haven't done as much with the pigs. Just went with what hubby said. See what happens when I listen to him? Haha! I don't deworm my goats regularly either. And I have dewormed my chickens exactly once because one had symptoms of having worms.

Thanks for the tips. I am totally doing mulch and soaker hoses next year! We have had a serious drought this year so it would have helped me if I had been on top of it. Rough year though and we only got so much done!

 

[farmerjan]

Thanks! No they're super healthy. I have spent 80 gazillion hours researching goat stuff this year... Including deworming. And haven't done as much with the pigs. Just went with what hubby said. See what happens when I listen to him? Haha! I don't deworm my goats regularly either. And I have dewormed my chickens exactly once because one had symptoms of having worms.

Thanks for the tips. I am totally doing mulch and soaker hoses next year! We have had a serious drought this year so it would have helped me if I had been on top of it. Rough year though and we only got so much done!

My parents retired to NH from CT and live near monroe, on the Ct river. They are in their 80's and still pretty active considering. I came south in 81 because I didn't want so much winter but still wanted 4 seasons. They told me that it has been horribly dry up there this year and we couldn't get any hay made for 2 months due to rain every other or every 3rd day. Now it has dried up for the past 2-3 weeks and nothing in the forecast for another 10 days. The hurricane stayed way east off the coast and we had a few high clouds. You might be able to pick up soaker hoses cheaper now as the garden stuff gets pulled like at walmarts etc end of the season. Yeah there are only so many hours in the day and I am not as young as I used to be so things get done slower....How did I do it all when I was your age with a little one ??????

 

[NH homesteader]

We are close to the CT river. We also briefly lived in CT, then came back home. Not for us!

It has been bad. Second cut is coming in now, but it's not great. We lost 16% of the dairies in NH this year. Bad.

Some days I get nothing done but basic feeding chores and reading books with my daughter. Other days we are very productive! Today we were busy, and it was great!

 

[NH homesteader]

New pigs will be here tomorrow! Could have been today but they're calling for thunderstorms overnight and we feel bad taking them away from their mama on a bad night.

Our friend said he wants us to have them because they're special pigs. He always keeps the runts but has so many right now. These two remind him of their grandmother (his first pig of his adult pig farming days.... He used to farm, got out of it and is now back at it). She was an amazing amazing pig. She was a pig you could turn your back on if there ever was one. He is hoping we will breed one or both, and will bring over his young boar (approximately the same age) when they're ready.

So the girls are 1/4 Chester White, 1/4 GOS, 1/2 Duroc. Yay mutts! Haha and the boar we will breed them to is 1/2 Duroc, 1/2 Berkshire.

Pictures tomorrow!