Frozen Farm

So in my struggle to be a better blogger, I thought I'd have a farm photo shoot on the coldest day of the year! Had to share this photo bomb by Jenny James.... Have you ever seem a goat who's horns grew so strange? 

For some of my family this is only something to laugh at, but it’s been the coldest this week on the farm the pond has a couple of inches of ice on it. The low hear Wednesday night was 9. What is so sad about all this is that its dry cold!! No snow! If it’s going to be this cold I want snow!! 

This cold just creates some extra work for us making sure all the animals are snuggled up and warm with hay, lights, and have fresh, thawed, drinking water. Rabbits have been the hardest thing to water, but I'm going to hopefully fix all that with an automatic watering system, insulated... Everything else you just have to take the wood splinter and bust the ice in the trough or on the pond. Not before taking a quick slide across.... A very swallow spot of course!! 

Here is a quick picture of the piggies we are raising. Ain't those hams looking tasty? We have been raising these pigs since August and its been a pretty enjoyable experience. When my dad told me the stories of how my Papaw used to have a dozen sows, and over 100 piglets at a time I thought he was nuts. I'm starting to think that pigs would be so much easier than goats!! 

So much so that we picked up a couple new babies last weekend!! Look at these cuties!! We got two Hereford gals, and four more to feed out. 

That kinda wraps up the week here, its been cold and everything frozen. Today its wet, right above freezing, so everything is horribly muddy. I dread even going out. Thoughts of spring and gardening bouncing around in my head bring joy and dread at the same time. I'm not going to lie, I've gotten pretty lazy over the winter, and there is still so many projects I need to do before spring that I should even have time to sit down a throw this sloppy post together!! 

• Build shelter for the goats, so I can lock them out of the barn lot
• Chicken proof garden fence, so I can have a few tomatoes this year
• Fence of greenhouse, to keep goats and chickens out
• Run watering system in greenhouse
• Plant fruit trees
• Order seeds
• Build compost bin
• Finish rabbit poop collect thingy

And so on.... Whats your  get done before spring list look like?

Oink! Oink!!

This year we are going to raise six pigs to market size!!

 Please meet Bacon, Hamlet, Sausage, Pork Chop, Barbecue, & Princess.

On our last adventure with pigs, we raised three pigs who weighed up to 300lbs each. I did have a cost analysis after we took the pigs to slaughter, but I moved and had a baby since then so I'm fairly clueless as to where it is...
FOUND IT!! Whoop! Whoop! Happy dance! I typed it in an excel spread sheet,  luckily, but it doesn't look like I finished it. Bummer! 

Last time we started, we got two Duroc crosses piglets, and added a boar about half way through the process. We fed our pigs corn, the pig feed that the local store carried, scraps, pumpkins, and loads of free day old bread. It was a trial and error kind of project, and we also decided to cut a boar at about 150lbs... I say we, but really it was my husband and his friend.
Did you know that pigs can be some of the loudest farm animals when they want to be?? We got a little smarter this time and had them cut when we bought them. We went with a White Chester mixed with Yorkshire this time, and they are all between 6 and 8 weeks old weighing in at an average of 20lbs. As for their diet, we checked around at our local feed stores and the only thing they have in stock for pigs is a medicated corn or soy based feed, which we did not want to use. I did finally find a mill that provides a non-medicated, corn and soy free feed which I could buy in bulk and save money! It includes sunflowers, barley, wheat, and oats. We plan to pasture raise these pigs, and supplement them with a non-GMO feed.

We've started the pigs off in our summer garden spot, since it's overgrown and dried up... totally different story. I'm hoping that the pigs will root it up and fertilize it really well for next year. They've been in there a week and I can already see where they are tilling the soil! I plan on planting some winter crops like turnips in our other garden spot to feed the pigs as well as our family. 

If this post seems choppy, it's because I had to rewrite it! I wrote the original, and I thought I had saved it, but I guess I didn't. I barely remember my name on a daily basis much less what I blogged two nights ago!