I haven’t had time to write much these days, so I thought I would share some pictures of the newest arrivals on the farm these past few weeks.

The first to arrive were two Limousin heifers and a Simmental steer last Thursday.  They will be butchered for meat in the fall, unless we decide to keep one of the heifers for breeding stock.

We also have new calves and cattle arriving daily from the farmer who rents some of our pasture.

Next arrival was 3 Berkshire pigs on Friday.  They are a heritage breed that are supposed to do very well on pasture.  That is, if you can keep them contained.  It took them about 30 seconds to get out of their new pen when they arrived.  A lot of chasing and yelling, trips to the hardware store and installing of electric fence resulted in a pen that kept them in.  Unfortunately we finished with the pigs that day at 4:30 instead of before lunch like we planned.  Oh well, at least we keep the neighbours entertained.

Our newest arrivals are three colonies of bees that Mike has set up in the pasture.  He is trying a different management approach than most apiarists in order to reduce management time and increase hive health.  The main difference is using frames without foundations (predrawn wax that looks like little honeycombs). There are many other differences as well, but Mike is the expert on that so perhaps I can convince him to write a beekeeping post.  We shall see how well the bees do their first year.  Hopefully with lots of honey to eat and beeswax for body care products.

We have also dewormed and deloused the cattle, goats and laying hens.  For the lice we used a mixture of diatomaceous earth and sulphur.  For one heifer that was really infested, we also used a spray made with apple cider vinegar and essential oils of tea tree and lavender. It has seemed to be effective, but time will tell. Deworming was attempted with a mixture of herbs and diatomaceous earth.  The chickens and goats took it no problem, but the cattle and horse were not so interested.  We decided to just give them the DE mixed into some alfalfa pellets.    Next time we are going to try mixing the herbs with molasses and pellets to make them more appetizing.  The downside of natural deworming methods is that you have to treat once a day for a whole week.  The upside is that it is cheap.  We paid under $50 for 50 lbs of diatomaceous earth and all the herbs.  That should last us for a couple years!  The smallest bottle of IVOMEC at the feed store cost $58 and wouldn’t have been enough for everyone!

We have also learned that chickens LOVE compost.  It does seem to reduce their feed intake, but we haven’t had a chance to pay much attention.

On top of all of this, we are in the middle of putting in the vegetable gardens.  I won’t be showing a picture yet.  It is certainly not picture ready yet. If ever.  I haven’t had time to mow the grass.  So my friends are doing it for me.

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