This Little Piggy Had Ten

When we last posted a blog, our Tamworth sow, Stella, had just arrived at our farm and was adjusting to her new life in our fields.  She had a wonderful time of it--eating and digging in the cover crop first, then, later, munching on organic, heirloom corn stalks and cobs as they stood in our garden.  

Stella, mowing down a cover crop,
Summer 2012

We visited her at least once a day, usually bringing her a treat or two from the garden (tomatoes and cauliflower top her list of favorites), but she always seemed sad to see us leave.  Pigs don't like to be alone.  They are very social creatures, living in groups even in the wild.  We knew that Stella wouldn't be alone for long, what with her piglets coming soon and our plan to save one of her girls to live with her from now on, but we just couldn't convince Stella of that.

Co-engineer, Raphael,
in the creep area of Stella's farrowing pen

As summer waned, and the leaves began to turn color, we knew it was time to get serious about building a farrowing pen for Stella in the big, old barn.  Kathy came up with a skeleton-like plan which showed how large each stall should be, but the real engineering took place late in the evening each night as Robin and Raphael took that plan and turned it into real, tangible walls and gates. 

Stella investigates her new home

On conventional pig farms, sows give birth in farrowing crates, narrow areas which confine the sow, not even allowing her to turn around.  The reason given is that this helps to prevent the sow from lying on her piglets.  The reality is that it restricts the sow's movement, even to the point of causing bed sores, and can wreak havoc with nursing, as some of the sow's teats may be blocked by the bars which hold the sow.  So what about the danger of sows crushing their piglets?  On commercial farms, sows are selected based on number of pigs in a litter, leanness of meat, and body conformation.  On small, private farms, and in heritage breed pigs in general, sow selection is based, among other things, on good mothering skills.  This gives us sows that know how to care for their pigs--including how to avoid lying on them--even when not confined in farrowing crates.    

Marcelino and Stella at the farrowing pen

When planning Stella's pen, we knew we wanted to create a farrowing pen which gives the sow a larger area to live in, plus an area for the piglets to retreat to when they are ready for a nap.  This area, called the creep, includes a heat lamp to keep the piglets toasty warm.  Eventually, the creep will also have a piglet feeder with freshly-ground, high-protein, organic feed for the little ones.  A partition which begins eight inches above the floor separates Stella's area from the creep.  This keeps Stella out of the piglets' area, but allows the piglets free access to their mom anytime they'd like.  

Surprise!  The piglets are here!

Upon returning home from church last Sunday, we found Stella accompanied by seven piglets!  She probably had begun farrowing (giving birth) more than an hour before, as the piglets continued to come about every 15 minutes thereafter.  She farrowed 14 piglets, with 10 surviving.  Way to go, Stella!

Mama Stella nursing her piglets

Proud Swine Manager,
sketching the new family

Piglets napping in the creep,
with Stella looking on

Ten Little Sausages

Life is Good

A Star Comes to Our Farm

We never would have met Stella unless we met Harvey Work.  Harvey was giving a two-day Natural Pig Workshop at Moraine Park Technical College in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.  As a leading authority on pastured pigs in the area, Harvey was bringing in a team of professionals, including other natural pig farmers and a pasture management expert, to teach us about the new farming renaissance in raising animals on pasture.

My wife and I brought our eleven year old son, Marcelino, along to this presentation since we have been grooming him to be our farm's Swine Manager.  Marcelino first became interested in pigs through his friend down the road who has been growing out pigs for the Washington County Fair for two years already.  Because of his friend's influence, Marcelino had acquired two pigs, Ham and Bacon, one of which was to be shown at the Washington County Fair a few weeks after the Natural Pig Workshop.  While he was enjoying raising the two pigs, Marcelino had a special wish--to have a sow and to watch her farrow and mother a litter of piglets.

Marcelino showing "Bacon"
at the Washington County Fair, 2012

When they first met, Harvey was impressed with Marcelino's motivation in our farm's pig enterprise and by the end of the lecture series, Harvey proposed an offer to us that we couldn't refuse: to adopt one of his already-bred Tamworth sows.  It was a match surely made in heaven, right down to the details: the sow's name, Stella, means "star" in Latin, making it so fitting that her home will be at Morning Star Family Farm.

Our first line of business was to prepare a home for our new "guest" that would give her the best possible pasture, considering the drought we are experiencing.  We had put in a cover crop of heirloom soybean plants, oats, and white clover that was about ready to be turned under. Between their hooves and their snouts, pigs make great rototillers, so we decided to give Stella small sections of the cover cropped area, allowing her to turn the plants under for us.  That would nourish the soil, while nourishing Stella at the same time.

The Quonset hut for Stella amid 
rows of soybeans, oats, and clover

Finally the grand day arrived and Stella moved into her new home.  After a bit of sniffing around, she dug right into her certified organic feed and has been a contented sow ever since.

Harvey Work, Marcelino, & Stella

 Stella's Story:  

Stella was born and raised at Harvey Work's farm in Eden, Wisconsin, just 30 minutes north of our farm.  She is a two year old purebred Tamworth sow that has already had three litters with no fewer than eight piglets each.  She has a special place in Harvey's heart, but the other sows at his farm were ostracizing her and not allowing Stella to have a fair share of feed.  As Stella started losing weight, Harvey realized it was time to explore other options for her.  When he met us at the workshop in Fond du Lac, Harvey thought that Stella might find a good home at Morning Star Family Farm, and I think we've found a match.

Welcome home, Stella!

 Stay tuned--little piglets are due to arrive in October 2012.  

Coming Soon to Your Table: Pastured Broiler Chickens

To show you how we create that flavorful bird sitting on the platter on your dining room table, we would like to take you on a journey that starts on the day the chicks arrive at Morning Star Family Farm.  At the same time we will share with you our top reasons for raising chickens the way we do.


Reason #1...We know what the chickens eat.
You are what you eat.  Do you know what happens to the health of an animal when it consumes genetically-modified foods?  The 2008 Emmy-award winning documentary Food, Inc. attempts to answer this question and the conclusions are unsettling.  One conclusion is that the large-scale production farms are managing to make a profit at the sacrifice of the health and living conditions of the animals and, ultimately, by sacrificing the flavor and nutritional quality of your food.  Our solution to this problem is to raise our chickens on pasture.
Before the chickens get to the pasture, we need to ensure, from the day we get them, that they have a great, healthy start to their life.  We pick up our chicks the day they are hatched at Abendroth's Hatchery in Waterloo, Wisconsin.  The hatchery could send them through the mail, getting them to our farm the day after they hatch.  But sitting in a box on a hot USPS truck would stress the little chickies, and stressed chicks often get sick.

Cornish Cross broiler chicks start in our brooder

When we receive them, the chicks are still living off the rich proteins and fats of the egg's yolk sac.  When they arrive at our farm, we stick their beaks in fresh, warmed water to teach them where to find a drink.  This helps to prevent dehydration and encourages them to drink on their own.  Their natural instinct to peck will lead them to the free-access, certified organic, GMO-free feed we provide--rich in nutrients from cracked corn, whole roasted soybeans and other wholesome ingredients--all custom-ground and mixed for us at a local, certified organic grain mill.


Reason #2...The birds are healthier on the pasture.
According to Jeff Mattocks, a leading authority on poultry nutrition, the #1 cause for disease among poultry is poor air quality.  Tens of thousands of dollars are spent by the mega-industry farms in their livestock and poultry barns to import the air quality of the outdoors to the indoors.  By raising our birds on pasture, their air-quality is as natural as can be.

Moving Day!
Three week-old chicks move to the pasture pen.

Reason #3...The birds are under less stress and more content when on pasture, making them more delicious!
This may sound like some sort of psychobabble, but it has been proven that chickens raised in low-stress environments grow better.  This translates into a more delicious and flavorful bird.  We provide that low-stress environment through the sturdy structure of the movable pasture pen.

Our 10x15 foot pasture pen,
welded by our 13 year-old son, Raphael

Our version of the pasture pen is a 10 foot by 15 foot structure made of welded conduit.  This provides the skeletal framework on which we wrap chicken wire fencing.  A tarpaulin roof over half the pen provides necessary protection from both sun and rain.  The other half of the pen in open to sunlight for the chickens' daily dose of Vitamin D.

Rex, poultry guardian extraordinaire

Our chickens enjoy having plenty of room to move around in the spacious pen.  Between the sturdy structure and our roaming guard dog, the chickens are safe from both aerial and terrestrial predators.  With constant access to pasture as well as certified organic, GMO-free feed, the chickens' ability to forage for bugs and eat chemical-free grasses and legumes allows them to grow in a natural way.  The pen is moved daily to give the birds a new area to roam in and to maintain variety in their diet.  If you look closely, you might catch a smile on one of those chickens!

Content, curious chickens

When we first began our life in farming, our goal was to become self-sustaining.  Since then, more and more of our friends, family members, and now customers have become interested in our venture of pastured poultry and have been positive and encouraging in our method of raising animals.  Much of the interest seems to come from the growing desire to find good, healthy, and delicious food.  We hope you will find all of that here at Morning Star Family Farm.  Our first batch of meat chickens will be ready for purchase in August 2012.  Feel free to email us or call to place your order!

Seeds of Life

Every day we make choices.  When we get out of bed in the morning we choose how we will spend our day.  When we pick what we will eat for lunch we make a decision that can bring us closer to or further from health.  And when we order seeds for our gardens we choose what industry we wish to support.

One pound of Reid's Yellow Dent Corn, an heirloom feed corn

In planning our garden for this year, we decided to plant only heirloom seeds.  Another word for heirloom seeds is "Open Pollinated" or "O.P.".  Until the 1930s, all commonly available seeds were O.P.--that is, they bred true.  If you save seeds from an O.P. tomato plant this year and plant them next year, barring cross-pollination by other tomato plants, you will grow tomatoes that look and taste like the tomatoes from the original plant.  So, when we made the choice to grow O.P. varieties, we were also making it possible for us to save our own seeds for next year, if we want to take that step.  

Lancaster Sure Crop Dent Corn--look closely; it looks like
candy corn--turns out that's what corn used to look like!

Our primary reason for choosing heirloom seeds, however, is nutritional.  Many of the heirloom vegetable varieties have greater nutritional potential than their modern hybrid counterparts.  An heirloom vegetable will only grow as large or as well as the nutrients it draws from the soil dictate.  This makes the resulting food more nutrient dense than the hybrid varieties which have been bred to grow large and colorful regardless of the nutrient uptake of the plant.      

Super Sugar Snap Peas--a sure sign of spring

Today, we spent the day planting some of those beautiful seeds in the garden.  Eighteen cauliflower plants, 8 broccoli plants, 10 pounds of seed potatoes, 200 onion sets, and 4 1/2 pounds combined of feed corn, sweet corn, and popcorn were all planted today.   

Broccoli and Cauliflower seedlings adjust to garden life

We seeded a little over a quarter acre today in corn alone--a tiny amount compared to our neighbors' tractor-planted fields of RoundUp Ready GMO Corn, but way too much to seed by hand.  To make the job more manageable, we used an Earthway Garden Seeder.  

The Earthway Garden Seeder,
filled with Orange County Dent Corn

The Earthway seeder did the job in under three hours, one row at a time.  (Of course, our entire 16 acre field was planted to soybeans with a huge tractor pulling a 24-row drill in just two hours last year...)

Kathy, midway through the corn planting

Meanwhile, Robin and the kids were working in the garden beds, adding a straw mulch to help keep down the weeds.  In our Brookfield garden, wood chips did this job nicely.  But now that we have increased our scale, we need to use a material that will break down quicker and be an asset to the compost heap at the end of the season.

Robin, adding that beneficial mulch that will help
hold in moisture and prevent weed seed germination,
while a few of the chickens look on

All in all, a very productive day at Morning Star Family Farm, as we continue to strive to make the best choices for our family--and yours.

An Architectural Metamorphosis

When we first shared pictures of the farm with friends and family, we enjoyed calling it "The Living Room"--just to get a smile...

Planting Room Interior
June 2010

...but all along we had plans for the derelict room.  Fondly referred to as the Planting Room, the east end of the chicken coop has been set aside as a place for Kathy to start plants for our garden.  
Back in our Brookfield days, Kathy would start the year's seedlings on a workbench in the basement of our home.  Having, at most, six flats of seedlings coming along at any given time, the set up worked well.  But now that we have increased our scale to, depending how you look at it, a large family garden or a small market garden, it was time to move out of the basement and into a building dedicated to the task of fostering baby plants.

  

Planting Room Exterior
June 2010

The work in the Planting Room began last fall when Dad replaced the rotting, broken windows with new ones.  

A Work in Process
July 2011

Then Robin and the boys did exterior work--removing the old, warped siding boards, replacing rotten wall studs, and putting up insulation and plywood.  With the craftsmanship of barn-restoration specialist, Matt Rateau, the building was transformed into this...

Planting Room Exterior
April 2012

This spring, Dad took over once again and patched the sorry plaster walls and ceiling, giving it all a cheery coat of fresh paint.  With electrical work completed by Raphael, the room was ready. 

Planting Room Interior
April 2012

Then it was Kathy's turn.  Working on our old schedule for starting seeds, first came tiny seedlings of white onions.  Next came the tiniest sprouts of parsley, celery, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, peppers, and herbs.

So, with contributions from all of us, the previously unusable room has been turned into something productive--tiny steps towards our first garden at Morning Star Family Farm.

Chemistry, Biology, and Farming

     One of our goals is to raise animals in as natural a habitat as we can. Since many common farm animals naturally live in grassy areas, our first order of business has been to convert our tilled acres from row crops to a lush, fertile pasture.  But in order to grow grass, we first needed to tend to the needs of the soil.  
     Before we even bought the place we ran soil tests to see how we needed to improve the chemical composition of the land in order to grow better crops.  The farmer who has grown corn and soybeans here for the past several years did a pretty good job protecting the soil by using what is known as no-till--leaving the remains of the last crop in place on top of the soil for soil bacteria to digest and make available to the next crop.  Compared to over-farmed land, our soil didn't look terrible on those initial tests--maybe a C.  But we're not going for average here.  We're shooting for an A+.

Healthy Soil grows Healthy Crops, improving the health
of those who eat them--animals and humans alike

     Our next step, then, was to apply soil amendments as recommended by our consultant with Midwestern Bio-Ag, a biologically-based, organic fertilizer company based in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin.  Based on our soil tests and their recommendations, we chose to spread Hume-Cal, a blend of gypsum and humates.  We also chose to apply a blend of micro-nutrients which showed up as being deficient on our soil tests.  

Moving the fertilizer buggy with our 
little lawn tractor, November 2011

     With the calcium, sulphur, and micro-nutrients now improving the chemistry of our soil, it was time to focus on biology.  Soil is made up of billions of micro-organisms--the true workhorses of the farm.  We would never think of going a day without feeding our animals, but it is altogether too easy to forget to look after the little critters that really make it happen underground.  It is said that the micro-organisms living in one acre of good farmland eat the equivalent of what a 1,000 pound cow eats--every day!  So, how do we feed all those workers?  One excellent way is through cover crops.

Winter Rye coming up as a beautiful cover crop, 
March 2012

     While they are growing, cover crops like clover, buckwheat, and winter rye, provide needed shade for micro-organisms in and on the soil.  Cover crops also hold moisture in the soil, providing a more hospitable environment for the tiny bacteria and fungi.  But the real kicker comes when you till the cover crop back into the soil.  Taking those lush, young, green leaves and turning them under moves the leaves underground, providing a hearty meal to all those tiny farmers in the soil.

Raphael on Old Red, tilling in the Winter Rye,
March 2012

     So, with our chemistry becoming more balanced, and our biology kicking into high gear, we're ready to start farming.

An Unexpected Twist

They arrived as tiny puffballs just last November, but they are already more than half-grown.  225 pullets--or, at least, that was the plan.  When the little chicks were a week or two old and beginning to feather out we noticed that a few of the Anconas had larger combs than the other chicks.  Uh oh.  Sure enough, as the chicks continued to grow we became more certain that there were ten Ancona cockerel chicks among them.  

A curious Ancona Pullet

Now, the reason we had ordered only pullets is that pullets grow into hens and hens lay the eggs.  Since one of our goals is profitability, eggs are a good thing.  Cockerels grow into roosters--admittedly more showy than the hens, plus they make that amazing crowing sound.  But can they earn their keep?  You don't need a rooster in order to get eggs.  You only need a rooster in order to get fertile eggs.  There are many in the natural foods movement who believe that there is something better about fertile eggs.  More complete.  More the way it was meant to be.
  

An Ancona Cockerel surrounded by Black Australorp Pullets

I haven't seen the nutritional information of one versus the other, and maybe it would be an intangible improvement anyway, but I follow where they are going with this.  So, while it wasn't our intention to have roosters among our laying hens, maybe it will all work out for the best in the end.  Either way, there still is nothing like the beauty of a strutting rooster with his stunning crow--and that's worth the price of admission any day.

New Life for an Old Farm

When we first moved to what would become Morning Star Family Farm, we were somewhat discouraged by the state of the outbuildings.   It had been 20 years since the previous owners had used the outbuildings and, frankly, it showed.

The original outbuildings, as we first saw them, June 2010

We knew the buildings had life left in them--and we also knew that we had many uses for the structures--but that it would take a good deal of oomph to get the buildings back into working order.  Chickens were top on our list for desired farm animals, so we knew we wanted the Chicken Coop (the middle building in the above picture) to be functional sooner rather than later.  As a result, we decided to tackle that building first.  

Since the Chicken Coop (like the other two buildings) had gaping holes in the roof, the first priority was to replace the old shake shingles with steel roofing.  The work began in March 2011.  It was Robin's project, with help from Dad, friends, and our boys.  As all projects go, the further we got in, the more we realized that we had to do.   

In May, the Moen boys arrived and knocked down the old Machine Shed roof, preserving the original walls.  Our plan was to use the building as a workshop and garage, but the old gambrel roof, while beautiful, was simply beyond repair.  Of course, watching the guys knock down the roof with sledgehammers and then clear it all away with a Bobcat was well worth the price of admission.

Then in August, Robin and the boys removed the Chicken Coop siding and put up OSB, while the Moens continued their work on the Machine Shed, putting up new trusses, OSB, and, eventually, steel roofing.  Somewhere around September we realized that it would be necessary to replace the big barn roof before winter, or we would risk losing that big, beautiful, antique.  With school starting up, though, we also knew that we would need to call in an expert to do the job.  We ended up finding a barn restoration expert who not only installed a steel roof on the barn, but also replaced rotted beams and joists, and missing siding and floor boards so that now our one hundred year old barn has at least another hundred years of life in it.

Barn, Chicken Coop, and Machine Shed February 2012

It's still a work in progress, but in one year I think we've come a long way.  We have finished replacing the roofs on all three outbuildings and are in the home stretch for finishing the exteriors of the buildings, as new wood siding boards are going up on the Chicken Coop and Machine Shed as I type.  It's a project that will never end, but all in all, I think we've breathed a good deal of new life into this place in the past year.  And this is only the beginning.

Spring Promises

Spring brings with it many promises.  At our farm, the promise is of eggs.  On a cold morning last November, over 200 day-old chicks came to be a part of our farm menagerie.  It all began with an early morning phone call from the post office announcing their arrival, then a quick drive into town to pick them up and bring them home.  

Day-old chicks, fresh from the post office

Our chicks are comprised of three different heritage breeds: Ancona, Americana, and Black Australorp.  We chose these breeds because of their foraging abilities, their hardiness on pasture, and for the color of the eggs which they lay.  Anconas lay white eggs, Black Australorps, brown, and Americanas break the monotony by laying eggs of various shades from blue-green to cream-colored.  You can see in the photo below, that even at hatch each breed has a different look. 

Only a few days old, chicks love to bask in the sunshine

With each passing week, our chicks (now called, "pullets") grow closer to the day when they will lay their first egg.  So, as February plods on with its snowy days, there is a glimmer of sunshine in our barn as we look forward to the fulfillment of our spring promise of eggs.