by Ethan
on January 27, 2009
In the comment section of my “Dirt Hog :: Chapter 2 Book Report” post Mike and Rich asked similar questions about what I have learned by just jumping out and raising pigs and what was different than I expected from when I was planning it out in my mind and on paper. I thought those we such great questions and important things for me to think about, so here is a whole post dedicated to just those thoughts!
So, since it is always better to finish on a good note I thought I would start out with the bad. Here are some of the surprises and difficulties we faced raising our first batch of pigs:
- We had everything ready. A spot for the sow and the piggies and a spot for the big ‘ol boar to hang out until he was needed. Even though we didn’t have running water on the farm yet we had it covered with our 300 gallon water tank that we pulled out from town. Despite all of our planning we lost our boar just a couple days after getting him home. He got out and I’m still not sure what led to the death … it was pretty sad that it happened literally about a day and a half after he arrived. That was difficulty/bad thing number one.
- Feed cost wise the timing wasn’t perfect and we bought our pigs just as commodity prices started to skyrocket. This really wasn’t a huge difficulty because the same thing was happening for everyone, but it did make things different than what I had imagined “on paper”. Also, I don’t think we switched the ration to a lower protein content early enough. Not a huge deal, but it may have saved us a few bucks in the end. That was difficulty/bad thing number two.
- Pigs are ornery! I can’t say that I didn’t know that going in because I had experienced it on the farm as a child, but I do think I had forgotten how ornery they were. When the water tank got low enough the liked to knock it around like a toy, when the were done eating they liked to flip around the trough like a toy, when I went in to fix something they liked to rub their beautifully muddy noses all over me! That was not really difficulty/bad thing number three … and now that I think about it… it kind of is funny 🙂
- They get big quick and lift gets busy. This problem is really a problem that came about because of all that we were trying to do. Our pigs really were ready around November and we should have and could have sold them then. It would have saved feed money and been a good deal all around. But, because of how crazy our life was with the move and the construction it just didn’t happen. We knew we had customers interested, but we just didn’t make the time to get everything lined up and by the time we did it was deer season.
Deer season in Iowa means some lockers shut down all processing except for deer. That meant we weren’t able to secure our processing slot until this past week. Like I said, this was really poor planning, but we have been able to work through it with a great batch of customers … That was difficulty/bad thing number four.
Other than that there were a lot of things that we learned and some great things that came out of our first batch of hogs. But, I think that really should be a post unto itself. Check back tomorrow for the good of what we learned and experienced with the first Stoneyfield Farm pigs.
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by Ethan
on January 26, 2009
That is the title of our text book (actually a big binder) for the “Grow Your Small Market Farm” workshop that we started this past Saturday. If my first impressions are any indication we are going to learn A LOT in this class and come out so much better (as far as farming business goes) because of it. Our teacher has been leading this workshop for nine years now, so you can imagine she has a pretty good idea of what and how to teach the lessons. It also means that she has experience in a diverse array of farming opportunities available in Iowa. I am going to look forward to each class (except for the early mornings!).
Here are a few of my thoughts after three hours of class:
- I was amazed at the diversity of people and farms represented. There were people ranging from almost 72-year-old market gardeners to young singles with and without land at the moment. There were people there that were already “doing” the farming thing and those that are hashing ideas out in their minds. We were one of the few livestock farms represented and I think the only (or one of a couple) that were interested (and slightly doing) grassfed beef.
- It is great to hear a teacher say things like, “you will save money” or, “profitability is the only option”. I can tell that she has a lot of good advice to pass along and I already appreciate her passion for small farm businesses.
- How wonderful is it to be around like-minded people. We were able to hear about what other people are already doing and what they hope to do. Plus, we had opportunities to share about our farm. And, to think this is only the first class. I know that by the end we will probably learn as much from the other class members as we will from the teachers.
- If only I had had classes like this when I was in college … maybe then I wouldn’t have taken such an extended sabbatical from college (I did finally receive an A.A. degree).
So, there you have it. Just a few thoughts from the first day of class. We even have some homework this week and we are supposed to begin working on our mission statement. Good stuff … good stuff indeed!
P.S. The above picture doesn’t really have anything to do with the class, but we received a nice clean dusting of snow and I couldn’t resist taking a picture of our dun polled heifer Tabitha.
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by Ethan
on January 24, 2009
Wow, it has been a long time since I have done a chapter book report on the blog. It isn’t that I haven’t been reading lately, rather it is just that I have been reading books that I didn’t feel the urge to report on after each chapter. But, now I have picked up “Dirt Hog” by Kelly Klober again and I wanted to share some thoughts after each chapter. You might think it weird that I’m starting out with chapter two, but in reality I already did a report for chapter one … way back on May 14, 2008! You can take the link to check out my thoughts from way back when.
Chapter two is a looooong (70 pages or so) chapter titled, “Housing and Fencing”, and probably should be broken down into a couple of reports because there is a lot to think about in this book. One thing that I am finding is that even though I know that I won’t be employing every concept this book is making me excited about pigs … plus, there is the fact that we just took five to the locker so they are on the brain.
The very beginning of this chapter actually doesn’t start out with the nuts of bolts of housing and fencing, but rather a short discussion of getting started. One sentence really piqued my interest … “I am a firm believer in doing all your early farming on paper.” I totally get what Mr. Klober is saying here because he goes on to talk about six things that you really need to look at, but one thing that I am continuing to learn is that at sometime you just need to jump.
For quite awhile I farmed on paper. I read books, I talked with people, I did research, and I wrote stuff down. I learned a lot! I studied a lot! And, when the rubber met (and is still meeting) the road I found that there is so much that you can only learn by doing. So, there are my thoughts on that…
Much of the next portion of the chapter deals with farm layout in relation to range hogs. I believe many of the set-ups that this book is talking about are more permanent than I’m going to focus on, but there is a lot of good information on fencing, watering, and feeding. Also, there is a good bit of information on electric fencing.
So, there you go. We’ll call that part one of my chapter two book report…
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by Ethan
on January 23, 2009
Well, I can’t tell you how excited I am to say that we have finally taken our first livestock to the processor. We decided to go with the Milo Locker in Milo, IA because of the good things we have heard about them from different sources. It also was nice to find out that they have “state inspected days” so we can sell individual cuts in the future and that they process poultry if that is something we want to give a try on a small scale to begin with.
But, that is really another story. Today’s story is about how we loaded up some livestock from Stoneyfield Farm and traveled the country roads (it is pretty much gravel the whole way) to the metropolis of Milo. Those of you that have loaded pigs before know that the process is a little more involved than that. You know, the expression “pig headed” just didn’t come out of nowhere.
Thankfully my dad (who has loaded countless thousands of pigs) was able to come up and help us get everything figured out. Plus, he was able to bring a couple of sheets of plywood that made the whole process just a bit easier because it helps when the pigs can’t see daylight on the other side of a barrier.
My wife and I were thankfully able to get them all sorted and put the ones we were taking with us in this nice little pen I put up in the morning. You can see that the process didn’t make anybody to wild because they were all laying down in the sun in a matter of minutes. But, I know that it would have taken both of us ALL DAY to load if it wouldn’t have been for my dad.
All in all things went very well and I am very glad to have less pigs on the farm … for the moment. I think it even made my dad think about having a few pigs around again. When he put his last contracted load on the trailer he was sure that he was done and confident that he never wanted to smell like that again. But, today maybe he opened up a little to the idea of some “range hogs”.
**I’ll give a taste update in a couple of weeks!**
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by Ethan
on January 22, 2009
Well, after encouragement from Kelli at Sugar Creek Farm and the folks at Blue Gate Farm (along with other great reviews) we have decided to take the plunge and attend the Grow Your Small Market Farm workshop. We had considered attending last year, but the timing just didn’t work out. This year there may be a couple of classes that I have to miss because of work, but we decided there would never be a better time and this was a class that looked like it would help a lot!
The class meets each Saturday from January 24 until April 11 and after that until October there is one-on-one help at each of the farms. Finally, you end the year with one last meeting in December. Through out the weekends workshops we will be covering everything from business plans to tax stuff. I’m especially looking forward to the sessions on marketing, business plans, and of course the chance to meet with other farmers in similar situations as us.
From talking with the teacher, Penny Brown Huber, it seems like the greatest part will the the one-on-one time when she comes to your farm and helps you take stock of your resources and your business plan. It will be great to have have someone with experience on small farms to come out and take a look at our place and our plans. Also, I’m sure that we will get plenty of help hashing out some of the questions that we have.
So, this Saturday we are back in school … hopefully I enjoy it more than the last classes I took on a college campus. I’m sure that I will!
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by Ethan
on January 21, 2009
I love my wife! When all these crazy farm ideas started hatching in my head and we began talking about buying 40 bare acres and building a house/farm she was okay with it. When we talked about having wood heat (kind of dirty bringing all that wood into the house) she was okay with it. When we discussed the possibility that we would have to move into the house before it was done she was okay with it … as long as it had a working bathroom! And, when it was her birthday a bit over week ago I knew that she would love getting “The Encyclopedia of Country Living” by Carla Emery.
So, after I posted my question about chicks the other day I got to think, “Duh! I bet my wife’s new book has information on raising chicks”. I was right! The book had information on breeds, mail order companies, how to start chicks, brooders, feed, water, and so much more. I have combined all of that information with all of the great information that I received from you all (the readers) and the added bonus of having a wife that raised plenty of chicks and chickens as a child (what can’t she do!).
I think I’m going to spend the next couple of weeks seeing if we can get everything cleaned out to do this properly. It isn’t an issue of having the space or the right equipment, but rather the fact that we have boxes stored where we would put the chicks. Maybe getting chicks would be a win/win situation. The house would get a little closer to being completed and we could have a beginning to the end of store bought eggs (our chickens are pretty much old and on winter strike).
There is still plenty to think about and get ready, but it would be nice if we could add some egg layers to the farm. One thing that I do have a question about though is specific breeds. After doing a bunch of reading last winter I kind of had my heart set on Barred Plymouth Rocks, but I’m finding that they are a bit difficult to find (at least in the three Iowa hatcheries I know of). Beyond that we would like some of the standards. What are some of your favorite brown egg laying breeds and are there any heritage breeds you are especially fond of?
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by Ethan
on January 20, 2009
While I was checking various blogs on Sunday evening (something that I love to do from time to time) I came across an interesting post on the “Living Off Grid” blog about agritourism. This caught my attention because it is something that we have thought about in the past (for a future project). My thinking was that it would be a great way to connect my love for interacting with people to my love of the farm and sharing it with others. So, I decided this was a post that I needed to read…
The post, titled “Using Agritourism to Finance Your Life in the Country“, shares some nice links and few examples of people that are already doing it. Of course as you can see from the title the main thrust of the post is to share another way for people to get onto some land in the country (instead of waiting for retirement).
In our case it wouldn’t so much be a “financial center-piece” for the farm as much as it would be another tool in the business and marketing plan (by the way, I see this as a LONG way down the road kind of thing). One of my passions is sharing the simple and quite beauty of God’s creation with other people. We live in a world that is running too fast and I strongly believe it is important that we take time to get outside and away from all the things we feel we need to be “entertained”. I think agritourism would be a great extension of my passion.
And, there is another angle … it would be a great tool to get people interested in having a connection with their food. Obviously if someone wanted to take a vacation at a farm they would have a desire to get to know farm life and would be open to seeing what goes into bring food to the table. I guess you always have to be marketing…
Anyways, check out the post and let me know what you think of the whole agritourism scene. Is there anything like that around you? Have you ever been to an agritourist farm?
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by Ethan
on January 19, 2009
How is that for a title? That is the kind of post title you get when I have a lack of sleep from spending the weekend in cabins with high school kids and the time to think about a title because of a late post! But really, we are thinking about picking up some chicks and I would love to gather some advice from those of you that are more chick inclined than I am. More specifically, I would love to know how it would work to raise them in the situations that we have available.
We can start them in our mud room which is insulated and warmish (60’s) if we leave the door open. Of course we would have as many heat lamps as needed and plenty of fresh newspaper or bedding or whatever you need. Does that sound like a location that would work as a brooder?
The next question then becomes where do I put them next? Or more specifically how long do I leave them in there? I would love to get them as soon as we can so that we have some new chickens laying this summer, but I’m not completely sure what we can do with our facilities. I suppose the next natural transition we would have on the farm would be to take them next door to the storage area which is not heated, but is of course completely out of the weather and the wind. We can have heat lamps over there also.
How long does it take until we can have them outside? As you can see I’m pretty clueless when it comes to these things. All of the chickens we have had so far have been already laying so we didn’t have much to worry about. I would appreciate any of you answers or ideas that I missed.
Oh, one more thing … I know that our bloggy friends at Sugar Creek Farm order from Hoover’s Hatchery in Rudd, IA and of course there is Murry McMurry which is also in Northern Iowa. Does anyone have thoughts on either of those places?
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by Ethan
on January 17, 2009
There are lots of good ways to begin farming. You can find rental land, start small with low input cost operations like gardening and poultry, hook-up with a retiring farmer, form a business plan and put it to work, find an apprenticeship and really learn the task, and even get a job on farm so you can pay the bills and learn at the same time.
Then there is the way we decided to begin farming … Save up money through frugal living and sacrifice, purchase cattle (even more than you planned), find bare ground and buy it, buy pigs when you weren’t totally ready, purchase a 50 plus year old tractor, build a house when you have no building experience, not get as much done as you had hoped to be done, and learn by tons and tons and tons of mistakes.
I would recommend one of the options from the first paragraph rather than the way we did it. This winter has been tough in so many regards as we have tried to scratch a farm out of nothing and continue our full-time ministry work. We have lost more of our Dexters than I could have imagined, things that I thought would get done didn’t, our pork didn’t sell as well as we had hoped (but we are blessed by people who are buying some), and now the tractor sits dead (most likely really dead) in the middle of the field.
It’s hard … really, really hard! Just when I think the cattle are taken care of one gets sick and we have to hurry to try and nurse it back (it doesn’t always work). And, just when I finally break down and buy a brand new bale spear to make the job just a little easier I totally clobber the tractor and the engine seizes up.
Like I said, it’s hard … really, really hard! Yet my son still thanks God for the “wonderful” day (the same days that cows die or the tractor gives up it’s life) at prayer times and even though I want to quit and give up there is still a desire for me to farm. My advice though would be to go about it a little differently than I have…
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by Ethan
on January 16, 2009
“Peter Arnold wants his concrete to do double duty.” That is the tag line of this months cover story in “Graze” magazine (it also happens to be my first issue). Anyways, Mr. Arnold’s concrete in this case is dealing with his milking parlor and other things that you tries to utilize as often as possible. Basically he didn’t want to put up a great structure that only had one use … it had to be more that just one thing. Which got me thinking…
What all do I want to do with a building that I put up on this farm, and more importantly how much can I cram under one roof (realizing that not everything should or could go in there). So, what I did was come up with a list of what I would like a building to be. I would love to hear your thoughts or additions to my list.
- Hay Storage: This is probably the number one priority because if I’m going to make small squares I’m going to need a place to keep them out of the weather.
- Deep Bedding Feeding: I have described and discussed this a lot and after my last round, with the help of you all, I came to the realization that doing that in a back lean-to wasn’t going to work. So, now I’m thinking of adding a third 16×24 bay for the winter cattle feeding area. That should allow me to get the tractor in because it would have 12 foot side walls.
- Equipment Storage: Not all of my equipment needs to live inside all of the time, but it would be nice to have a place where I can park the tractor, baler, and a whatever else out of the weather. Plus, there is something to be said for having a place to work on equipment.
- Livestock Stall: There are plenty of good reasons to have a stall in a shed where you can put an animal if need be. Some place out of the weather and relatively warm would be nice.
- Feed Storage: I haven’t really decided how this one would play out yet, but there is a need for storage of pig feed and chicken feed (and may more) on the farm. Having a dedicated place would be a good thing.
There you go … just a few of my ideas. What can you add to the list?
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