Some Musings on Future Endeavors

Potential Projects for 2008

Animals

Cattle: I would like to get a couple of 18-month-old steers next spring to graze our pastures. They would be slaughtered in the fall.

Chickens:

• Layers: This year's hens should really start producing a lot of eggs in the spring. I would like to build a hoophouse green house for winter poultry keeping, so that I can have more than twelve hens. I'll also be buying another batch of chicks.

• Broilers: Since I actually have the pasture pen finished now, I'll go ahead and get a batch or two of Cornish cross broilers. I'll also probably get the next batch of layer chicks straight-run, so that the cockerels can also be used as broilers. Perhaps I'll also attempt to caponize a few of them.

Ducks: The ducks will be the advance forces in the war against brain worm. I need to look through the duck breeds and see which are the best foragers. I also plan to get Muscovies to keep the fly population down near the goats.

Goats: We'll continue with the Boers, hopefully getting a good kid crop in the spring. I will be keeping all of the good-quality doelings for future breeding. I'm also looking for a dairy goat this fall to provide milk starting in the spring.

Pigs: While Paul is gone, pigs will be in the garden area tilling the soil and eating weeds. I will be planting oats behind them in the summer for winter forage and to keep weeds to a minimum.

Turkeys: Turkeys have been such a disaster this year that I'm not sure I want to try them again so soon. I'll have to make that decision next summer.

Structures

Fencing: I want to finish the perimeter fence around the forest next year. I also want to divide the forest into paddocks so that I don't have to use the electric netting out there. I'd like to save it for the dairy goat on pasture.

Poultry House: With the addition of ducks to my flock, I'll need more space than the brooder for winter housing. I'll probably get a hoophouse kit to build a combination poultry house for the ducks and layers.

Water: I plan to dig out a very small pond at the base of the spring run-off and put a second storage tank nearby. The tank would provide water to the forest paddocks so that the other tank can be used only for the pastures.

No Turkeys for Thanksgiving

I've been weighing the turkeys every week to chart their progress, and the cold weather last week really took a toll on them. They're now a full week behind schedule, so I've decided to only offer them for Christmas. I don't think there's any point in trying to sell 6-8 lb turkeys.

I've added additional protein to their diet, in the form of roasted soybeans and earthworms, so hopefully they'll start to catch up to their projected weight. I've also decided to delay putting them on pasture for one week to allow them to grow.

Speaking of pasture, I need to get started building their pasture pen. Wood and I don't get along, so I've decided to build a pvc pen with a wooden base for strength and weight. There are a few plans available online, but none of them quite meet my requirements, so I'll probably just design my own. The projected size is 8'X 8', which is a bit more manageable than Salatin's 10' X 12' pens. Next year, I'll be able to re-use the pen for broilers, and should be able to fit about 50 of them in it.

Early Birds!

Wow, it's a good thing I got everything ready for the turkeys yesterday. I expected them to arrive in Steubenville tonight, but they were at the Adena post office this morning. They all made the trip alive, and none of them look sickly. The hatchery put in an extra one for free (which they've done every time I've ordered from them), so I have seventeen poults in the brooder.

I think I've found the solution to my protein source problem, or actually I remembered the solution. Journey to Forever has an article on how to create high-protein feed out of the air (scroll down). I just need to breed some maggots to feed to the turkeys as a supplement. High protein feed plus cutting down the fly population: a win-win situation.

Preparing for Turkeys

Today I finished the last of the preparations for the turkeys, which should arrive tomorrow night. The brooder has fresh bedding, the waterers have been thoroughly cleaned, and the chick feeders are clean and filled with feed.

Speaking of feed, my plan was to take my custom broiler feed (which is about 18% protein) and just add fishmeal to bring it up to 26% for the turkey poults. The only kink in this plan is that the feed store doesn't carry fishmeal, and they looked at me like I was insane when I asked for it. They were supposed to get back to me about if it would be possible to order it, and how much it would cost, but they never did and I haven't had a chance to follow up on it. I've had absolutely no luck finding an internet source, either, unless I want to buy wholesale from the fisheries. Yeah, not so much. At 76% protein, fish meal would have been very useful with these fast growing turkeys.

Apparently, dried earthworms are also 76% protein by weight, so I'll remember that in the future. I don't think I have enough earthworms to spare right now to make enough to make a difference, but I can start harvesting, drying, and storing them for next year's turkeys. In the absence of both fish meal and worm meal, I had to go with roasted soybeans, which only have 37% protein. I had wanted to find something other than soy, since that was already the main protein source in my broiler feed. It will take 8 parts of roasted soybeans to 11 parts of the broiler feed to get 26% protein.

Gobble Gobble

After waffling for a few months, we decided to raise turkeys this year. The poults will be hatched on August 28, and they'll be 12 weeks old just before Thanksgiving. They should be 15-20 lbs dressed weight by then, or maybe a bit less. The minimum order from the hatchery is 15 (we bought 16 because that put us in a lower price bracket), so we'll need to find buyers for most of them. Even if there were nothing else in our freezer, we couldn't fit 16 turkeys in there.

So, if anyone wants a homegrown, pasture-raised turkey for Thanksgiving or Christmas, let us know.

Wildlife damage

It was bound to happen eventually. From the scat left behind, it would appear that the wild turkeys have been at my garden. The peas, soybeans, and corn have all taken substantial damage. Mostly it appeared to be scratching and digging, with damage to the plants being random and indiscriminate.

I planted another 5 blocks of Swiss chard today, from an old seed pack dated 2000. I don't have very high hopes; but since I need to use up these old seeds, the remaining five rows (100 blocks) seems like a good place to use some of them up.

I got a call from Park Seed that my order with them had been returned. They are going to resend to my Adena address. At this point, those seeds will all have to wait until next spring. They include habanero pepper, buttercup squash, delicata squash, acorn squash, and tomatillo. I managed to plant tomatillo only because I found the leftover seeds from last year's planting.

Time to finish the fence

Today's planting:

13.5 blocks of soybean (germ ?) (harv 31 Oct) Cold protection
7 blocks of pumpkin (germ ?) (harv 20 Nov)
8 blocks of muskmelon (germ 10 Aug) (harv 31 Oct)
6 blocks of radicchio (germ 14 Aug) (harv 31 Oct) Cold protection
7 blocks of celery (germ 28 Aug) (harv 31 Oct) Cold protection
4 blocks of chile pepper (germ 15 Aug) (harv 21 Oct) Cold protection
14 blocks of corn (germ 14 Oct) (harv 29 Oct)

On my paperwork, I have the pumpkin listed as 85 days, but the seed packet I received from Johnny Seeds says 105 days.

The following crops have germinated:

Brussels sprouts (2 days early)
Quinoa (on time)
Tepary bean (on time)
Hubbard squash (on time)

I had to stop early today due to rain. The next item to plant is oregano, and the seeds are microscopic. There was no way I could do that in the rain.

According to a neighbor (old guy in a chevy S-10) there was a flock of turkeys in my garden the other night. With things starting to sprout now, finishing the fence is a greater priority than before. Not that it will really keep turkeys and deer out, but I hope that it will at least deter them.