I don’t know about you but I’m a pretty happy girl with these cooler temperatures. The shorter days most certainly mess with me and the animals but everyone is doing just fine as we head for winter.
Last weekend we butchered our Thanksgiving turkeys. We ended up with 17 birds ranging with the largest being 33.7 lbs. Last year we had two come in at 45 lbs. so we’ve managed to tone things down a bit thankfully! We also sold out this which was such an incredible feeling. We noticed a lot more people growing turkeys this year which from seeing a community turn and grow more of their own food is amazing. I would be lying if there weren’t moments I was worried we wouldn’t sell out but the community showed up as you always do and we are very grateful for that!
2023 was the year of butchering our own birds, chickens and turkeys. Matt had always wanted to get into it, we got a great deal on a plucker and after crunching the numbers there was no way I could argue. Fun fact about me, I can’t touch raw meat that is to be eaten and I’m horrible with a knife. For me personally, there was a very steep learning curve followed by huge amounts of personal growth. I couldn’t have done it without my family pulling me through all of it.
Another bit on poultry, this year we decided to try to increase our egg production, keep birds comfortable and in my humble opinion, spoil them with no snow. It would seem that the molt and Mother Nature had other plans. For three weeks now we have yet to get more than one egg. Total. You want to talk about frustration. We feed a mill mix, we supplement with flock blocks, scratch and meal worms. From a textbook standpoint, we shouldn’t be having issues like this. With all this, we started to look into natural remedies and have now added herbs into our feed. Soon the baby birds” will be laying, hopefully. We miss seeing all of our egg regulars and hope to be back at it soon.
This year we had out first 100% outdoor farrowing (birth of piglets). You want to talk about nerve wrecking…. I can happily say that we still have a 100% survival rate from this litter and they are noticeably the nicest piglets we’ve had. Momma Peaches did amazing and is thriving as well. We expect to have another litter in January.
Also on the front of pig news, we have selected 3-6 gilts (young female pigs) to keep an eye on with intentions of breeding them in the future. Our two current sows (mature female pig who has had babies) will continue to live out their days here in farm just being a pig. Matt and I feel we owe them a happy retirement, without them we wouldn’t be where we are today.
As we settle down and head into winter, we get time to finally rest (a little), regroup, redirect and rebuild. We look forward to our last handful of pork shares going in soon as well as our retail cuts being restocked. Yes, that means more bacon coming soon!
~Jessie