Pinehill Farms: Small-Scale Free Range, Natural Swine & Poultry

2009-12-17T09:58:00.006-05:00

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

Here are some cute winter photos from the farm! Suzy is (hopefully) pregnant again, and the piggies are almost ready for their final sale, and that means a slower, more relaxed attitude at the farm with less for us to do! Yay!

Hope everyone is safe and happy this holiday season!

-Matt & Angie

It's been a long time...

2009-11-05T09:06:00.012-05:00

For starters, I feel so bad that I've been so bad at updating this blog, but it felt like I had no time to do anything but go to work, and then work on the farm lately. Then there are days where I would get home later than usual, and simply decide to do NOTHING. I guess it's ok to do that once in awhile, but the last few weeks, it's been more and more. Ah well, maybe it's the changing weather, and I'm going into hibernation mode? :)

The piglets are doing well. All 10 that survived the first fews days are still going strong. We have decided to keep two gilts for ourselves and breed them again. We are making initial selections, but are also waiting until they are market weight to really decide which ones to keep in particular. Most likely we will pick the best looking, but perhaps smallest and most gentle ones, since if they are small and lean, they won't be as good at market. We sold off two boars as feeder pigs to a local buyer, and have sold out of the rest as either half or whole hogs.

To sum up the excitement with the piglets: we had to give them iron injections within the first few days - which involved removing them a few at a time so as to not upset momma, and give them the injections, cut needle teeth, and get them back into the pen. Thanks to Angie's parents helping, we were able to do this with no problems! Next, we had to castrate the boars, which Angie did very well, with me being the assistant. This went off without a hitch! Then came the small boar who cut his ear, nearly severing it from his head. After three attempted suturings, we decided to let it happen as nature decided - and it healed on it's own, with the ear just being lopsided (you may see him in a few pictures). After this, was the weaning stage, where we moved Suzy back into the large area with Roxy and the Mulefoots, and generally went well, despite feeling so sorry for Suzy as she filled with milk and looked very painful! Next, we had to give the piglets a vaccination and ear tag them, which went surprisingly well! Lastly, we switched the Mulefoots and piglets, letting the piglets back in with momma (who went right back to being a good mom!) in the large pasture. Whew!

As for the rest of the pigs - Roxy was taken to market shortly after weaning the piglets from Suzy. We did not want to do this, but from a business standpoint, we didn't want to invest the money into breeding her again, since she had a bad first litter (small, and she had no motherly instincts). She was a good, fun pig, but ultimately is fulfilling her purpose by feeding us. We got back about 390 pounds of meat, and are mostly keeping it for ourselves and close friends and family for resale. I have to say, we are enjoying it a LOT after having not bought pork from the store in a long time! The Mulefoots are currently being finished, and will be taken to market in about 2 weeks. At that point, they will be taken out to California and Chicago for resale. They have been an interesting experiement!

We are about to finish our last round of meat chickens for the year, which were a new breed that we hadn't tried before, but are very excited about. Bought from J.M. Hatchery in Pennsylvania, they are the second generation removed from a totally Free Range bird from France, where they are an important part of the Label Rouge free ranging system. We refer to them as Rangers, or Colored Rangers, and they are fed a lower protein feed, kept for longer (10 to 13 weeks, as opposed to 8 weeks for other meat birds), and are a beautiful array of colors, from tan to dark red, to a mottled blue. We are hoping that we can keep some next year and start our own breeding program with them.

The turkeys are just about done as well, and we are excited to expand the turkeys next year. We are going to stick with the Bourbon Red and Blue Slate turkeys, and are considering keeping some of them as well to start breeding them ourselves. We are going to reinvest farm income this year to buy a high quality incubator for this purpose. In addition, we are going to try and raise ducks for meat as well. For the turkeys, we are looking into getting portable electric netting so we can rotate their pastures during the year next year.

The meat chickens and turkeys will be butchered on November 23rd, and available that day or after. Sorry, but this year, we're all sold out of turkeys, but next year, we'll have many more! Soon we are hoping to have a real website launched, thanks to Randy and Cindy, and we'll let you know when that's ready for viewing!

Another Litter!

2009-08-03T14:13:00.006-04:00

Suzy farrowed her little on early Friday, July 31. We had gone to bed with no indication that she was actually in labor, but when we awoke in the morning, we walked into the barn to find her nursing 10 piglets! She ended up having 14 total, with 2 stillborn. She took to being a mom right away, and was nursing all day long.

Unfortunately, as can often happen with new mothers especially, we lost two more pigs due to Suzy rolling on top of them. Those who do not learn her verbal and physical signals do not learn to get out of her way. After the first day or so, we 'shouldn't' lose any more, but obviously, it's not for certain.

Anyway, they are doing well. We were able to give them their iron dextron shots, to help with their iron deficiency, as well as clip their needle teeth, which can hurt each other as well as their mom while nursing. This was done using the help of Angie's parents.

We're keeping our fingers crossed, and hopefully in a few short weeks, we'll have an abundance of piglets running around the pasture! :)

Happy and Sad News...

2009-07-30T07:56:00.009-04:00

Well, one of our sows finally gave birth last weekend, but things didn't go as planned. The first one out was a Hampshire Gilt, and with her black and white markings, was exactly what we had hoped for. We had images of raising her up, breeding her, and getting more baby Hamps from her. Next out was a pink Yorkshire Boar, that had muted black markings on his head, almost just like his momma, Roxy. We removed both pigs to clean them off, and planned on putting them back in to nurse once Roxy settled down. She was constantly getting up and laying down, and basically just stared at the pigs when they came out. So, we thought, once she lays down again, we'll put them in to nurse. We tried this first with the Gilt, and Roxy did not like it. She jumped up, trampled, and finally bit and shook the gilt to death right in front of us. Not a good experience, and one we won't soon forget.

We made the decision to bottle feed the other pig, and he was doing ok after a visit to Meijer for baby bottles, TSC for milk replacer and colostrum, but after a few days, he was not looking good. We believe he finally succumbed to anemia and hypoglycemia, and most likely an infection that spread to his lungs. There just was nothing we could do in the end, even though we tried as much as we could. Thank God I have a wife that's a veterinarian (just not officially, yet).

All in all, the experience has left us shaken, but not enough to make us stop. We are looking into options to replace our girls with a more motherly breed, most likely a heritage breed such as Mulefoots (which we have some experience with already, and know a reputable breeder), or Tamworths, both of which are known to be excellent mothers. The fact that Roxy reacted badly, in addition to her only bearing 2 pigs, was two strikes against her. She is normally sweet, but not this time.

While we are preparing for Suzy to farrow, we are very cautiously optimistic that she will be a better mother, mostly due to her laziness. :) We are prepared to lose sleep to bottle feed the little ones if needed, but we are going to play a more hands-off role this time. Wish us luck!

On a positive note, we were able to harvest quite a bit from our farm this year. You have read about our cherry trees and mulberry bushes, but we also found that we have an apple tree and a couple of oaks on the tree line as well. How we missed these before, I don't know. But, both are great for pigs, so we have been feeding them apples every day, and will try to get as many acorns as we can in the fall - it's a great pig finishing food, used in Spain for the famous Iberico hams. We've also harvested quite a few black raspberries from a few bushes around the property. In fact, I have some in my lunch today! From our regular vegetable garden, we had already gotten radishes, and the other day we picked 3 heads of lettuce (two types), 4 small bunches of spinach, 3 decent sized white onions, and a large amount of regular and snow peas and green beans. Tomatoes aren't far behind! :)

Garden's-A-Growin'

2009-07-23T08:51:00.012-04:00

The garden is coming along nicely this year, especially compared to the last few years attempts! This year, we took care to kill off the weeds (last fall and early this spring), added sifted top soil, and hand-hoed it all before planting and laying down wood mulch, which is helped immensely!

We planted everything from seeds, with the exception of the tomato, red pepper, and jalapeno plants, which we bought already started from Horrock's. We have already picked the radishes, which Grandma Lyman loves fresh, so we passed some her way (which she was excited about, cause they were straight from our dirt!), and we love to add them to salads.

The onions are doing well, as is the corn, though we have obviously not had anything harvested from them. The peas and beans have started showing their pods in the last few days, and the peppers and tomatoes are growing like crazy! We are really looking forward to harvesting and canning them, for our own homemade diced tomatoes and green chilies. :)

Hope everyone out there, who has their own small gardens, or even a window-sill herb garden, are having the same or better luck than us!

Jams and Preserves!

2009-07-08T14:22:00.007-04:00

Angie and I decided this year to get into canning. It was something that her mother used to do every year, but I never had. We bought a set of canning materials, and armed with those and a oversized book on how to live off the land, country-style, that included numerous canning recipes, we began canning.

We started by visiting a local berry farm, Bird's Berry Farm, in Belding, MI, and picked almost 14 pounds of strawberries in a half hour. It helped us that we went in the evening, as this was one of the hottest days of the summer thus far. Without going into the deep dark details, we ended up with semi-watery preserves. There just wasn't enough natural pectin in the berries, but they sure taste great on ice cream and pancakes!

We are starting a new batch tonight, and added pectin this time, hoping we will get better results for use on toast and peanut butter sandwiches. We had to go picking again, this time netting a little over 13 pounds of berries in 20 minutes! We will also mix some with rhubarb for strawberry-rhubarb jam. We tried just plain rhubarb jam, which turned out great, so why not add good strawberries to the mix? :)

In addition, we made some exciting discoveries on our property, that we don't know how we missed before. We have two large cherry trees in our tree line. I believe we saw them before, but assumed they were crab apples, but this year, I decided to try it, and to my surprise, they tasted like cherries. They were tart, but cherries nonetheless. Angie seconded it, and we decided to pick them as well, and try a preserve from them. Using our step ladder to reach higher branches, we picked 6 pounds of cherries, and it looked like we barely made a dent in the tree! And we have a whole other tree further down the line!

The other discovery we made was what we thought was a blackberry bush. But, after some research, it turned out to be a Mulberry Bush! So we picked a bunch of them, and will try and make some jam out of them as well. We'll let you know how it goes!

Turkeys!

2009-06-23T10:38:00.008-04:00

The turkeys have arrived! We got a call early one morning (about 6am) that they had arrived at our local post office in Belding, and were ready to be picked up. We were expecting them to be a bit larger, but the day-old poults were the same size as chicks! So, with some quick planning and building, we constructed a small brooder to go in the middle of the range shelter to help contain them. We made the brooder out of some scrap wood and left over window screen. It worked great, and with a barely-long-enough extension cord, we had heat, food, water, and shelter for them.

We lost two to unknown reasons within the first day or two. Then, recently, we lost two more after four of them escaped through a small gap near one door (this was after we realized they were already too big for the brooder box after two weeks). We think the cats got to them, but we only found one body. The two escapees that survived were actually hiding under a tarp! Smart birds!

They are about 3 weeks old now, and growing a little faster than we expected. They are fun to watch, and a few are already showing Tom characteristics - puffing up, tiny tail feathers rising up, wings drooping, and just strutting around. Adorable! All in all, so far, it's a great experience, and something I feel we will be repeating in the future!

Back from Vacation and Back to Work!

2009-06-03T09:45:00.009-04:00

Angie and I just returned from our early summer vacation. We decided that going in May would not only be cheaper and cooler, but was also necessary since both our soon-to-be-sows will hopefully be delivering in mid-July. We had a 10 day 'camping' trip - in quotations, since we stayed a few nights in hotels - to New England. Lots of historical stops, mostly from the Revolutionary war, but also the mansions in Newport, RI, Acadia National Park in Maine, and lots of wonderful food along the way, thanks to Roadfood.com. Pictured is Angie with her Sweet Potato fries at Charlie the Butcher near Buffalo, NY (known for their amazing Beef on Weck), and myself at Beal's Lobster Pier in Southwest Harbor, ME, enjoying an absolutely delicious Lobster Roll.

Anyway, we enjoyed our vacation, but are happy to be home and working on the farm. We spent the last two afternoons digging, cleaning, and planting our summer vegetable garden. Lots of good things that, if all goes well, we may be offering along-side our meats and eggs in the future.

The hogs are doing well. Roxy and Suzy are about 1.5 months along right now, and no indication of any problems with their pregnancy. They are a bit more lazy, if that's possible, and a little slower than they have been. Could be because they are closing in on probably 450 pounds or more too!

'Green' and 'Red', our two adopted mulefoots, are growing well. Green is larger, and seems to be a bit faster growing, but they are both bigger than when we left. They are large enough to be let our free-range in their pasture, and seem to love eating grass when they can. Luckily, they don't root as much as our gilts, so they will probably have more grass to munch. They also have graduated to their large, round self-feeder. Don't know if they have learned to agitate it to receive more food or not, but they'll get it eventually.

The hens are well. Sugar is broody now, and unfortunately, we have no fertilized eggs for her to lay on! Production of eggs has been good, with us having about 4 dozen by the time we got home! I think we've managed to sell most of them though. The new pullets are getting close to laying age, so we may have to try and integrate them in with the old hens soon. We are of the assumption that one of them, Garlic - an Americauna - is actually a rooster. She has a weak crow, and gives the stance of a rooster. We hope this isn't the case, but we are about 90% sure that she is a he. This may work out well, though, as we can try and breed the others so we have more of the 'easter-egg laying' hens. THey lay a blue/green egg, in case I forgot to mention that before!

Lastly, the meat chickens are about done. We are having them processed on June 15th, and hopefully picked up that day by their buyers. We will be receiving a new shipment of 25 New Hampshire Reds that week as well, so the next round will be started. We decided to go with the smaller Reds, as opposed to the white Cornish Rocks, as we wanted a more slowly developing, darker meat, healthier bird. These, we will plan on having an outdoor run for, most likely. The turkey's are coming this week, and hopefully, we're ready for them! It's an exciting month here at Pinehill Farms!

Mulefoots!

2009-05-19T07:40:00.004-04:00

The Mulefoot barrows are here! They are adorable, one with a curly tail, and one with a straight tail, that seems to wag all the time! They are much smaller than we expected (which resulted in us running around the larger pen trying to catch them once they realized they could slip through the divider fence...). Our two gilts were about 2 or 3 times as large as these guys when we bought them (around the same age, mind you). They settled in quite nicely, and love to dig in the straw. We have no names for them, but just refer to them as their ear tag color (red or green) or by number (5 or 8). Thank you so much to Mark Sponsler of Parmanian Acres in Parma, MI for selling us these two boys and for comtinuing to raise beautiful Mulefoot hogs. We look for ward to hopefully doing more business in the future!

April Layer of the Month

2009-05-14T08:16:00.002-04:00

Well, as it's now mid-May, I figured I had better stop being lazy and announce our winner and runners-up for April's Layer of the Month here at Pinehill Farms

To no-ones surprise, it's once again Cinnamon at 29 eggs layed that month. She finally took a day off, after 165 eggs straight (that is, since we started keeping track. I guess it could have been more than that!)

1st Runner-up was Ginger, at 28 eggs layed.

2nd Runner-up was Molassas, with 19.

Followed by: Sugar and Thyme (tied at 12), Yang, our Pekin duck (7), and Rosemary (6) who was very broody last month, and spent a lot of it laying in the nests and trying to hatch the eggs. Too bad we didn't have any fertilized eggs!

The Lean-To is 'Done', and Mulefoots!

2009-04-23T09:17:00.008-04:00

The door has been hung, and the farrowing stalls are virtually complete. There are always a few more things to finish, but the majority of the work for the lean-to has been completed! I built up the stall walls, constructing up-and-down sliding gates, and Angie's father and I installed outside motion lights, inside flood and overhead lights, and some new outlets for heat lamps in the new farrowing area. it was a lot of work, but so rewarding when it's done, and we can start imagining the piglets coming!

Randy was here a few weeks back, and we drove to Parma, MI on a Friday afternoon to visit Mark Sponsler and his family, who are just about the only Mulefoot hog farmers in the state. We had a lot of fun there, seeing this heritage breed of hog (they have a single hoof, much like a horse, insteda of the 'normal' cloven foot of other hogs). We are going to be buying one or two of the barrows (castrated males) from him soon, and raising them strictly for meat. Randy and Cindy will be getting the majority of the meat, which Angie and I plan on freezing and actually flying out to San Francisco with us later in the year. We are very excited to try this, and we may end up investing in a breeding pair, along with our 'financial backers' in California, and help to try and preserve the breed. I'll include some wonderful pictures that Randy took while at the farm. We will take some more when the pig(s) arrive! Thank you so much to Mark and his wonderful kids, who showed us the whole small-farm operation, including their sheep, gorgeous heritage Chantecler chickens, and even a sweet bard cat that loved rubbing on me! They even sent us home with a large chunk of mulefoot meat (which looks delicious, but we are saving it!) and great venison salami and homemade spicy mustard.

You can read a little more about our heritage hog venture, from our 'invester's' perspective at Cindy Meyer's 'Food Migration' blog - see the 'Friends of Pinehill Farms' box to the right!

Broilers, New Play Areas, Growing Pullets, and the End of a Streak!

2009-04-23T08:55:00.005-04:00

The broilers are here and growing fast! The last time my brother Randy visited, we picked him up at the airport. I contemplated wearing my overalls, cowboy hat, and pig barn boots, but decided against it, as I was taking Angie out to dinner beforehand in the 'Big City'. After a long flight, randy was able to muster enough energy to visit our local TSC to purchase 20 broilers for the farm. We chose 10 Cornish Rocks and 10 New Hampshire Reds. The Cornish are growing just too fast, since they were bred for industrial farms, and had to be moved into one of the larger pens, from the brooder box, at just about 1.5 weeks! The Reds are still in there, but will likely be moved this weekend. They will be ready for sale in about 6 weeks!

Our pullets are almost full grown, or at least some of them are. Out of the three eggs that we hatched ourselves, we only have one left, named Vanilla. We sold her brother to a nice lady who wanted a young, black rooster. Her sister, unfortunately, was killed by the other hens, when we tried to integrate them into the established flock. We are going to wait much longer, until they are just about 20 weeks, to try again. Our 3 Araucanas and the Isa Brown are coming along nicely, though, and will soon be laying us some wonderful green, blue, and dark tan eggs! They inheritated one of the rooster pens, as we sold Salt & Pepper and Spice to a nice Vietnamese gentleman in Grand Rapids.

We expanded the outside area for the hens, in anticipation of integrating the news ones. We decided they needed more area run around, so I built 3 more gates, and have closed off an area outside their old yard, that borders the pig yard. They love going out there, and finding fresh greens and bugs to eat!

Lastely, a bit of 'sad' news. Cinnamon ended her egg-laying streak last week. We were astonished to find that she hadn't layed that day, after 165 days straight of laying! Since then, she hasn't missed again. We were sad, but still amazed at how this little bird could give us so many eggs! Thanks so much, Cinnamon!

Turkey's coming in little over a month, after Angie and I get back from our Early Summer vacation to New England!

The New Lean-To

2009-04-08T08:34:00.011-04:00

Since there are quite a few teachers in our families, we were able to take advantage of their help during this first week of April, which was Michigan's Spring Break. My brother Jeff came down last Saturday and helped us begin the work on our expansion to the pig's lean-to. We wanted to add two farrowing stalls and a larger storage stall in the middle. This was quite the undertaking, as we had to remove the siding on the old lean-to, strengthen the cross beams on that old part, dig post holes and build the framing for the new part, add new siding to the old and new lean-to, roof the new part, and finish the inside. We got the framing done and siding added to the old part on Saturday, in perfect, sunny, warm weather. Sunday brought colder temps, higher winds, clouds, and the threat of rain and snow. Jeff came back down, with his wife and daughter in tow (who absolutely loves the chickens and got excited every time a rooster crowed), and we enlisted the help of my dad on the final steps. We even had to make some phone calls and make an emergency visit to someone local that sells roofing and siding, as we decided not to use the old siding for the new roof. All in all, we did a darn good job of finishing it in two days, as dad and I put the final roof section on around 9 pm in the dark. There is still a lot of smaller things to do on it, but the majority is done! Thanks everyone who helped!

February's Layer of the Month

2009-03-18T07:35:00.007-04:00

Well, again, kudos to Cinnamon, who layed an egg every day in February, this being the 4th month in a row!

To date, she has layed 137 eggs without a day off! This has to be some kind of record! :)

In light of this amazing bird, we have decided to have a runner-up announcement, to give our other hard working girls some of the spot light. Ginger, again, is the runner up, laying 27 eggs, only taking 1 day off that month.

Coming in third, is Molassas, who layed 25 eggs. She is a tough egg layer, and is probably our most sociable hen in the coop. She is most likely a Black Australorp.

Lastly, I want to recognize Thyme, one of our Blue Cochin crosses. She was one of our more recent additions to the flock, coming in last fall with Sugar and Rosemary, as well as the rooster Spice. She was the weakest of that group, and was picked on (literally!) until she had lost some feathers, and spilled some blood. After separating her for a few while, allowing her to heal, and with an expanded coop, run, and updated laying boxes, she has grown all her feathers back, and is a much more active layer. She layed 7 eggs in February, which may not seem like much, but she has since been more regular. Congrats, Thyme! :)

Spring Has Sprung!

2009-03-16T10:12:00.007-04:00

Perhaps it was nature's way of paying us back for giving us such an early and long winter. Or maybe it was just pure luck. Or maybe, it was both? Either way, the snow is gone, there are small green sprouts amongst all the brown ground cover, the days are longer, baby chicks are hatching, and pigs are in heat.

Our last three chicks that hatched are going on 7 weeks, and have been moved to their own part of the coop. For a week, they shared the brooder with 4 Araucana pullets that I purchased to raise into the green and blue egg layers they are known to be. Sadly, we lost one of these chicks, so we are down to three. As for those we hatched ourselves, looks like we'll be ending up with a white hen, a black hen, and a black rooster, who will help to feed Angie and I. We are currently incubating 25 more eggs, which should be hatching within the next week or so.

I've spent a lot of afternoons and weekends trying to take advantage of the early spring and get a lot of things done early around the farm. Making gates stronger, taking down snow fence, staining wood, and building new things. My latest wood working project has been birdhouses, which a few people think I should try and sell, either at craft shows or down by the road. They are fun to build, and I have put up two out near the pasture, but no tenants as of yet!

During the last week, our gilts have finally come into heat. This meant a lot of grunting, squealing, digging, destruction, and wanting to get out and get bred. Very interesting, but frustrating as well, when they are digging up at the fence, tipping and emptying their water trough, and generally being annoying! We got through it with minor headaches, and are excited to get them bred in the next 3 weeks. We will be visiting a local farm to learn the process of AI, and buy boar semen from the farmer as well. If all goes well, we will have piglets by summer! Yesterday was a bit warm, so to distract the girls from tipping their water yet again, we decided to hose them down and give them a mud pit to play in.

As for now, we are simply working, planning, and waiting! Newest projects are: to expand the hen run outside to give them more 'free range' while still being containing somewhat by large gates, putting in a single or two-wire electric fence around the pig pen, and beginning construction on the new lean-to expansion. Ahhhh, spring!

Building Projects

2009-02-12T08:48:00.010-05:00

Cabin fever can make you do wacky things. For me, this in combination with reading a number of new books and magazines dealing with the topic of self-sufficiency for farmers, this lead to me deciding that I would start making my own buildings, tools, and other items around the farm. Now, I realized something the other day. I have a huge love affair with history - from ancient civilizations to the American Civil War (Angie and I participate in Civil War reenactments during the summer). But, what I didn't know, is that I love the turn of the 20th century, where mechanization and industrialization clashes with 'the old ways'. Where cars and tractors are appearing alongside wooden wagons and horses. When people built a wooden frame for the bed of their new pickups, to haul their hogs from place to place. I guess the best examples of what I mean are during the times of The Great Depression - probably the best show of self-sufficiency that anyone living now can relate to. Where a wooden trailer was made stronger by angle iron and a steel axle and rubber wheels. This time just facinates me!

So begins my attempts at building with wood. There are numerous sites on the web, where you can find simple wood projects for free, like yard chairs, simple tables, etc. Though the cost of lumber has risen, I still feel that it's cheaper to build your own 'stuff' than to buy pre-made items; and often, you can build them much stronger as well. Even small projects can take up an entire saturday afternoon, but the pride you can take in what the final product is - man, that's a great feeling. I sort of started this by building the new chicken coop areas, but I still bought some pre-made items, such as the screen doors. That was mainly due to the fact that I bought 2 to start, and then we wanted the other two to match. I've also built gates using 2x4s and combo panels or fencing, Angie and I built a new front porch, and also the previously talked about pig self-feeder. Here is a number of projects that I've worked on recently, and in order:

Wooden Bench:

Picnic Table:

Pig ramp, circa 1933, for loading/unloading in the truck. It will be mounted to posts outside (at an angle up to the truck bed), but can also be laid down and, with another 'door', will act as a shoot for us to give the hogs shots, check weight, etc. :

Screen Door for chicken coop:

Chick Brooder Box w/ hinged lid:

In addition, I decided to try altering the nesting boxes I had made for the hens. I didn't actually expect it to work, since they simple would roost in them at night, and never once layed eggs in them. But, I built a roost about a foot out from the front, using 2x2's, and then placed a 1x4 board over the front to a little more privacy. The next day, all but 1 egg was layed inside them! It was amazing! By the 3rd day, all of them were layed inside! I was shocked!

New Arrivals!

2009-02-11T07:49:00.009-05:00

Although the weather may finally be warming, we all know it's only February, and Michigan always loves to give us false hopes of an early spring. This year is no exception. Yesterday, it was sunny, blue skies, and nearly 60 degrees - tomorrow, it will be 35 and snowing again. :) Oh well, the warm-up lets everyone know that we are on the down-slope of winter, and spring is just around the corner.

With spring, comes increased hormone production in the ever-crowing roosters in the coop. They are getting a little more aggressive, but we're taking this with a grain of salt. If it gets worse, then we may be serving them...with a grain of salt. So far, just scaring them away seems to be doing the trick. As for their incessant crowing, well, we love to hear it, and one neighbor told us the other day that his wife likes to stand outside and listen to them crowing! That's a wonderful thing for the owners of 5 roosters to hear! Yes, that's right, we have added a 5th rooster. Combing through the Farm & Garden section of the Grand Rapids Craig's List, we found a local farmer selling a few Rhode Island Red roosters in Zeeland. So, one day after work, off we went, through a developing blizzard, to purchase a new mate for our two ISA Browns. Paprika Jack was the best looking boy in the group, so for $5, we had us a new friend! Pete Alberda, the owner of
Twin Maple Farms ( http://www.twinmaplefarms.com ) showed us his beautiful Ewes, and discussed hogs with us for awhile - he's even pre-ordered 2 piglets from us! His farm is beautiful, and anyone looking for some good lamb for their freezer, should definitely contact him or his son. We ended up knee deep in snow, trudging through a few cluttered barns, in search of a round pig feeder and a small metal creep feeder that he sold us as well. Amazing the things you'll find that people no longer need!

We decided to try our own breeding program here at Pinehill Farms. We started by using our large black rooster, Licorice, and put him into one of the new pens with Cinnamon and Molasses. After about 5 days of mating, we started collecting the eggs. We collected 10 total, and began incubating them. Three weeks later (this past weekend), we ended up with 4 chicks! we sacrificed one egg prior to this, which turned out to not be fertilized. After these four hatched, we gave the others a few days before cracking them open, and we found them in various stages of development, including one that was almost fully grown, but was not alive. We are planning on using Paprika Jack with the two ISA Browns next, since they are such amazing layers, and demand keeps growing for our eggs! This coming weekend, we'll be finding out how many baby ducks we'll get from the 7 or so that we are still incubating! Speaking of ducks, you'll have to see the picture below of the TINY egg that Yang layed for us one night - Angie just about fell over laughing when she found this little nugget in the nest! :) It's an exciting early spring here!

January Layer of the Month

2009-02-03T09:05:00.003-05:00

Well, it's that time again - Time to hand out the award for Layer of the Month for January. Again, for the 3rd month in a row, the honors go to Cinnamon. Besides laying every day last month, totaling 31 eggs, she has layed an astounding 94 eggs straight without a single day off! She lays the biggest eggs of the group, and one day hopes to pass on her amazing laying ability to her children. :) Congratulations again to Cinnamon!

December's Layer of the Month!

2009-01-01T11:58:00.003-05:00

We have a two-way tie for Layer of the Month for December.

Our two Isa Brown hens, Cinnamon and Ginger, both layed 31 eggs this past month! For those of you who can't think at the moment, that's every day! :) They are both very similar in their attitudes - quiet, gentle and sweet - and both enjoy digging in the grass and dirt, eating fresh greens, egg shells for calcium, and their delicious layer feed! They have been amazing layers for us, with Cinnamon laying for an amazing 61 days st raight! Basically, she's been laying since November 1st (when we started keeping track). Hats off to the both of them!

Ginger / Cinnamon

Christmas and The New Year!

2009-01-01T11:17:00.004-05:00

We here at Pinehill Farms hope that everyone out there had a safe and wonderful holiday with family and friends! We know that we did. Having our two families living about an hour apart, we often have two separate Christmas', and this year was no exception. Among the fun things that we got at Angie's parents, I was lucky enough to receive yet more work gloves, chore coats, and insulated pants! Badly needed in winter here! We were able to spend lots of time with her family, including our adorable 9 month old neice, Rylee Ann, who is getting more fun each time we see her! She was given a stuffed horse and a couple of Farm Animal books from her favorite Aunt and Uncle! :)

At my family Christmas, my far-flung brother Randy was able to come in from California. He spent about a half day at our farm, where we collected eggs from the hens and visited the feed store in Lowell to get about 750 pounds of pig feed (a mixture of their normal 13% Pig Feed with an added 250 pounds of whole corn), and 150 pounds of hen layer feed. We were lucky enough to drag, by sled, all the bags of feed to the pig lean-to. We were a bit tired after that! On Christmas day, along with the wonderful chicken and Heritage Livestock calendars, we got a number of pig and livestock books, including ones on how to build various structures, how to keep our stock healthy, and Pig Perfect. :) Our other adorable 1.5 year old neice, Molly Anna, was given a barnyard puzzle and a stuffed piggy, which I heard she absolutely loves! Now she just needs to come see the real pigs!

Everyone is still doing well. The pigs are just as curious as always, the hens are a bit more protective now that they are spending more time cooped up (pun intended). Little Jerry, our adorable and lovable Bantam rooster, has taken to try and defend his coop from us. Normally, he can easily be pushed away with a booted foot, but, as Angie found out, he can fly a bit, when he fluttered against her and tried to spur her - he didn't succeed, but just surprised her a bit and made her laugh! Egg production has stayed fairly steady, with an average of about 3 to 5 per day. More on eggs in our next installment of Layer of the Month.

With the New Year, we are excited about the prospects with regards to our farm. Our delicious eggs are growing in popularity as more people try and love them. Angie sells a lot to fellow Vet students at school, our new neighbors prefer to buy our eggs instead of store bought, and my boss has pre-paid for 5 dozen. Interest in our pork is expanding, through my efforts of promoting it on Facebook, with family and friends, and we are excited to get our gilts bred, preferably with either Hampshire or Duroc, and we are contemplating trying to raise some Heritage hogs, such as Mulefoot or Tamworth. I know our families are excited to have fresh, pasture raised hams for next Christmas! Along with our hog expansion, we are planning on raising turkeys for both our family Thanksgivings next year, which everyone sounded very excited about. Soon, we will be trying to breed our hens and incubate and raise our own baby chicks - keeping the new hens as more egg layers, and providing ourselves and other with rooster for their tables. Another idea we are considering is raising a pair of dairy goats, to provide such products as cheese, milk, butter, and soap. One of Angie's friends already makes her own goat soap (which I love!) and a coworker of hers is interested in buying extra milk from us. We also felt that doing these kinds of things would be fun to do during our weekend Civil War Reenactments in the summer.

Lots of things to do, but we are planning and looking forward to expanding our farm in this wonderful new year!

The Self Feeder

2008-12-16T10:44:00.006-05:00

As winter has definitely greeted us with a fury, things have slowed down quite a bit here at Pinehill Farms. The chickens usually stay inside most of the day, even though their doors are open. The ducks seem impervious to the cold, and spend even the coldest mornings out in the wind. Yesterday was no exception, even though we saw the over night temperature fall from about 50 degrees to 14 by noon, with a steady wind bringing the wind chill down to -2 degrees, the ducks were still a'quackin! The pigs sleep more than before, but who can blame them? They don't seem to mind the cold, but who wants to go out if you can stay snuggled in the relative warmth of a daftless lean-to? :)

As for Angie and I, well our projects have been less and less. We want to expand the lean-to to accomodate our piglets after we breed Roxy and Suzy, but that is going to have to wait until spring! A number of smaller projects fill in the downtime, and are actually better with the shorter and colder days. But, with the colder weather, we decided that the pigs needed a way to get more food without us having to don our pig clothes and warm boots to feed them more throughout the day. There were a number of options out there with regard to self-feeders, but they came with a large pricetag. For a single feeder, the cost was nearly $100.

One night, sitting on the couch, we were looking around the internet (on our new wireless high-speed satillite internet - goodbye dialup!) Numerous sites offered metal or plastic options. Then, Angie spotted a lonely link at the bottom of the search page...Clicking on it, I was confronted with a great website, full of scanned .pdf files of building plans with lumber lists, for such things as hog huts, farrowing crates, hog barns, and even Hog Self Feeders. Jackpot! Here was what I wanted - all thanks to North Dakota State University! Angie remarked on how I love to build things, and it looked 'fairly' easy, and we had to be able to find a cheaper alternative. So many choices, dating back to 1933. The one I finally chose was from the 1940s, and looked simple and relatively painless.

The next day, off I go with the plans and lumber list, to Menards. After gathering all the lumber and loading it into the truck (in near blizzard) Angie and I spent nearly the entire weekend building our self feeder! The one we chose was a four-door (thus four-hog) feeder, that will hold 300 pounds of feed. Using the hog's natural instinct to root with their noses, they can easily lift the doors and eat any time they want now, and all for the cost of about $75 worth of lumber, screws, and hinges! The only downside, is we don't spend as much time with the hogs as we did, except when we feed them slightly 'bad' fruit - their favorite is apples and pears.

I'm thinking about taking the same plans and scaling them down for chickens... ;)

Switching the Coops

2008-12-07T20:52:00.004-05:00

Once winter decided to rear its ugly head here in west Michigan, Angie and I felt that the hens and roosters/ducks should switch coops and outdoor runs. Since there are more hens than roosters/ducks, as well as us planning on incubating eggs in the spring to expand the flock, we felt they needed more room. I guess that's until we found out that they really didn't want to go outside in the snow! :)

Switching the coops was quite a process. It involved expanding the existing coop, moving the nesting boxes from one to the other (and finding where to put them, since they were designed to fit in one spot only in the previous coop!) filling in the gaps in the chicken wire from where the nesting boxes were, switching the roosts, making a new spot for the ducks to drink water (it's complicated, but basically, ducks are MESSY with water, and always made the bedding material soaked, so something had to change - basically, we used sand under their water!), making a new door to the outside run, and many other small things. In addition, we changed the existing doors (just doors we had around the house/garage and thus were free, so we made them fit) to some new screen doors, which not only allow more viewing of the coops, but also more ventilation and actually look better, since they are un-treated/painted to they match the rest of the coop. It was a lot of work, but overall, definitely worth it since the hens are much happier with more room!

Layer of the Month

2008-12-07T20:18:00.003-05:00

November's Layer of the Month: Cinnamon

A new feature here at Pinehill Farms is recognizing our most productive egg layers each month. We started really keeping track of who layed each day at the beginning of November, so this will truly be our first recognition!

Cinnamon was one of the first of our hens to start laying, and has been a very consistent layer for our small farm. She layed 30 eggs last month, not taking a single day off! In fact, to date, she has layed every day since we started counting - 37 days straight! Our best guess is that she is an Isa Brown hen, born in March of 2008. Thank you for your consistently delicious and reliable eggs, Cinnamon!

Winter's Here, Strange Egg, and Feed!

2008-11-26T10:14:00.005-05:00

Well, it looks as if winter really is here. After so many years of Old Man Winter slacking off until January or so, looks like he decided to come early. It's not too bad yet, and it seems the 'stock are adjusting nicely! It doesn't even seem to phase any of them, except maybe late at night. We've noticed that even Salt & Pepper (our Pig-pasture rooster) has decided it's time to snuggle, and we find him in the lean-to next to the pigs in the straw each morning. :)

The eggs are a little more random now, though, which is a little bit of a bummer. One morning, though, we discovered that Molassas laid us this odd gem! It literally looks like two eggs fused together. We've had double-yolk eggs before, but we have yet to crack this one open to see how many we have! But, nonetheless, she has to feel better with this one out!

Last weekend, I decided I had better head to the feed store and stock up on some feed for both the chickens and pigs. So, I placed an order on Thursday and picked it up on saturday. This was my first large load of feed - 500 pounds of 13% Hog Feed and 300 pounds of scratch grains - for a reasonable fee of $167. Not bad! My truck did run a bit slow, however, on the way home! ;)

We are currently re-vamping the chicken coop. I will post pictures and stories on that once it's finished, as we've been a bit busy with school and work before the 4 day weekend. We've also been planning for our barn and additional livestock. Our next venture in the spring will either be dairy Goats and/or Cashmere Goats, or rabbits. We think it would be fun to have our own (and for local sale) goat milk, cheese, and soaps. We have even talked about buying historically accurate (or close) equipment for doing this at some of the Civil War reenactments that we attend in the summers. I think it would be a lot of fun to teach people how and also have items for sale!

Anyway, I must get back to work and finish this project before the long weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and Roxy and Suzy will see you after the holiday!

Moving Ducks and Craft Shows

2008-11-20T13:56:00.003-05:00

I know it's been more than a week since I last posted, but things have been a bit hectic here in West Michigan, what with the sudden onset of winter in the Great Lakes. In addition to the cold temperatures, sporadic snowfall, black ice, and bone-chilling winds, we still have a few problems around the farm!

The pigs are still coughing, but that seems to be the only problem they are having. Their appetites are still there, they are gaining weight, and generally are in good spirits. They are still on the antibiotic feed, but the good news is, one of Angie's classes in vet school is discussing Swine Respiratory Diseases this week, so hopefully we'll have some answers soon!

We had a problem with our Pekin duck last week, in that she laid us one egg over night, but then that following evening, when we went out to feed them again, we discovered an unprotected (that is, no shell) egg out in the run. Basically, she layed an unformed egg in the same day she had layed a good one! We decided that part of the problem was that she was not receiving enough calcium via her feed, as she is not in the same coop as the hens. In addition to that, she often lays her eggs on the bare concrete in the coop, the drake building the nest all the way down through the wood shavings and straw. So, we moved her to the hen house, where we thought she would be better off. But, right away, we noticed that she and the drake spent almost all of their time next to eachother, through the fence, talking quietly. They would both walk around some, and the drake kept making nests for her, hoping she's come back!

Finally, after a few days of this, as well as a stoppage of duck eggs being laid, we moved her back in with the roosters and drake, and they immediately were chattering away, so happy to be back together! Truely heart warming on those cold mornings! And right away, we got eggs from her 4 days in a row so far! We also purchased a small carpet piece to place under her usual nesting location, hoping to not have anymore cracked eggs!

It's a learning experience, and we love to learn more and more about this new hobby of ours. Friends and family cut out articles from their own magazines to send us (Thanks Cindy! :) ) to add to out ever expanding folder of things to read. I even found that the local library carries Hobby Farm magazine, and unbeknownst to me, you can check it out! So, I've been photocopying articles left and right! :)

Last weekend, Angie and I went to Shipshewana on the Road, a supposed Amish-type traveling craft show / bazzarre. Overall, we were a little disappointed, but we did find some cute chicken crafts, like our new wall mounting in the kitchen. I also got the idea for a good egg basket for Angie, for collecting eggs, and we found a Hen and a Rooster wood cutouts to pount to the side. I built the basket in about a half hour total, and I think Angie was tickeled to have it, and carries it out each morning!

Snowy Weekend

2008-11-10T08:34:00.002-05:00

The first snow of the season has fallen, and actually stuck to the ground! It's exciting for us, as we both love winter, just wish it didn't last as long as it does here in the Midwest! Our puppy Killian hasn't really seen snow before, so it's fun to see her play in the cold - she's definately made for it, being part Husky!

Saturday was COLD and rainy. Started the day watching the weekly U.S. Farm Report and making some scrambled duck eggs from our Pekins, while Angie had to work until about 2pm. So, after doing the morning chores, I started working on 'winterizing' the pigs. I lined their stall with 5/8" OSB sheets and nailed some spindles from our old front porch along the top, near the ceiling. All of this was to cut down on the drafts coming through the old lean-to. After adding some more straw to the floor, and then spanning some tarps over the front of the stalls (about half-way down), I noticed that it was considerably warmer inside the stalls! I think the girls were happy, as they play-fought and ran around for awhile.

And I tell you, nothing beats watching the snow fall and hear the wind howl outside in the pasture while sitting, relatively warm, on a bale of straw inside in the storage stall, while the pigs dine on dinner. :) One of those well-earned and enjoyed pleasures of life on the farm for us.

We solved the riddle of the mystery eggs! Sugar, our white and grey Cochin mix, is the new layer! She was actually snuggled into the nest at the same time as Molassas, and we ended up finding 5 eggs both days over the weekend! That should definately help our egg sales, if they all keep up over the winter, which it (so far) seem to be the case! Exciting!

Piggies are sick, and the mystery eggs...

2008-11-07T12:38:00.002-05:00

A few weeks, back, we noticed Suzy, one of our two starter pigs, was coughing. Obviously, not something you want. At first, we thought maybe it was her getting dust up her nose or something when she ate her feed. But, she would do it in the morning when she got up, before she ate. Even though we don't want to use antibiotics, we also don't want to lose one of our girls, so we administered a dose of Duramycin (oxytetracycline to those chemists out there, like Angie). They seemed to be getting better, but about a week later, the coughing came back. So, today, I went out and bought some medicated feed, but we are only going to use this to treat the problem (which Angie believes is a chronic disease with low mortality), not as a preventative measure, which we are very much against. So, those out there who salivating over our future pork, fear not! We will still be raising them with minimal anti-biotic interference!

Now, for the mystery eggs. Since the days are getting shorter, and the weather colder, our mother hens are laying less frequently. over the course of the last few days, we've noticed some odd eggs in our group. Twice now, we have gotten 2 very small eggs that do not match the coloration of any of the previous eggs. And once, we got a large egg that also did not match any other eggs in their pattern or color. We have no idea if this is a result of the changing weather effecting our current layers, or if we have two new layers! 3 of the hens had yet to lay anything the last we checked! This could be exciting news! I suppose I will be checking the hen house throughout the weekend to see if I spy any of our non-layers nesting!

Background

2008-11-06T09:32:00.005-05:00

So, a good place to start would be some background info on who we are, where we came from, and how we got to here. I'm Matt, and my wife is Angie. Well, we met online when we were still in high school, and we lived about an hour away. To make a long story short, we met, 'dated' as I went off to college, and she came along 3 years later. After college, I got a job in Grand Rapids, MI so we moved to the 'big city'. We both worked and lived with our 2 cats, Guinness, Amber Bock, and our terrier mix, Blue Moon. We decided after year, and after countless trips to look at low-cost homes for sale in the city, that we needed to move to the country. We found a double-wide that sat on 2.5 acres, surrounded by corn and hay fields, and boasted a 35'x40' 2 stall+workshop and coop garage. We knew this was it!

Angie got accepted to Michigan State's Veterinary Medicine program for Fall 2007. I work for a commercial mapping company as a 'Geographic Analyst', but I prefer 'Digital Cartographer'. :) At this point, we added a third cat, a stray who became our garage cat, named Honey Brown. I think maybe this was the point when we realized we were NOT done adding animals!

Along came Killian Red, our reddish brown and tan/white husky mix that we adopted from the Animal Placement Bureau. Her brothers and sisters looked like they were mixed with German Shepherd - Killian looks more like a husky/beagle cross. We call her a Huggle. Most recently, one night, a black kitten showed up on our side porch. Being the suckers we are, we have a new outdoor cat - Sam Adams. Somehow, he hasn't found his way outside yet! ;)

Chickens. This past spring, they started selling chicks at Tractor Supply in our town. We decided we wants to try our hand at poultry. We bought a mix of pullets and straight runs, and ended up with 6 hens, 6 roosters, and the 2 Pekin ducks, named Yin and Yang. After taking some of them to the Amish up north for slaughtering, we found ourselves with 3 hens (2 Isa Browns named Ginger and Cinnamon, and a black Plymouth Rock named Molasses), and 3 roosters (a Plymouth Rock Bantam named Little Jerry, a black Plymouth Rock named Licorice (or Anise), and a cross that we aren't sure of named Salt & Pepper). We later purchased 4 mixed hens from a woman nearby, who we believe are all Cochin mixes, named Rosemary, Thyme, Sugar, and Spice.

So, now the outdoor runs are established, the coops were built, half the hens are laying (we just had a new egg laid yesterday - no idea who though!), and chores only take 15 minutes. Apprently, we thought we needed more!

So, along came the idea of pigs. We had fence laying around from opening up the pasture behind the house. We had an existing lean-to, used for parking the truck under and for our compost heap. Angie remembers...as women seem to do...that I promised her a pig WAY back when we were dating. Having been in 4H since she was a kid, she has raised virtually all livestock except pigs. Cruising Craigs list one day, I see Feeder Pigs - $50. So, off we go, we buy 2 gilts, drive them home, carry them to their pasture, and let them loose. Of course, we had lots of fence work, making gates, countless trips to the feed and farm stores, etc, prior to this. So, now Suzy and Roxy are a part of our every day life, doubling chore time, but making us laugh and feel proud when they come to the fence, snorting their hapiness at seeing us.

Obviously, I skipped a lot of details, but that is the jist of how we got to this point. My brother and his girlfriend, living in San Francisco, are our main supporters, seeing as they eventually want to have us raise livestock for them as well. They were finally able to come and see the farm this past weekend, and had a wonderful time holding the chickens, mucking the pig stall, and doing all the feeding chores. In fact, it was Randy (my brother) who recommended starting a farm blog. When I'm not working, I'm online reading Hobby Farm articles, National Hog Farmer's weekly postings, reading back issues of Keeping Chickens eZine, or looking through the 10 or so books from the local libraries. We want to make this not only a wonderful hobby that we love, but also a small, prosperous business taht we look forward to running each and every day.

More to come as the days pass, and I look forward to updating things in our lives to those who care to read it! Thank you!