Blog Archives: Animal Husbandry
We have created this blog categorization system as a way to organize and preserve the daily blogs written about our farming life. We hope you find this categorization system helpful.
The following blog entries are all related in some way to the topic of animal husbandry. They may cover any one or more of the following topics:
livestock nutrition
animal welfare
pasture rotations
holistic and alternative health care options
livestock breeding management
Or they may simply be essays about some other aspect of animal husbandry. We hope you find something useful here, or at least some pleasant reading.
If there is some way we can improve our archiving system, please Contact Us and we'll take your recommendations into consideration.
Enjoy!
A Visit With Animal Control
April 16, 2011
Preview for this blog entry:
"...When I got home, I found an official notice on the farm gate. Someone had called Animal Control the day before (during my time at the hospital), and had complained about our farm. My first thought was that the noise had annoyed someone, and I could sure understand how that would be the case. But instead of complaining about barking and mooing and neighing, the complaint had been that our animals were subject to cruelty, neglect and deplorable living conditions. I stood there at the gate, dumbfounded, staring at the formal notice. Cruelty and neglect? Deplorable living conditions? Us?"
Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.
Land Clearing
February 22, 2011
Preview for this blog entry:
"...The year we got goats was the year everything changed. Goats are not grazers like horses, cows and sheep. They are browsers, which means they prefer shrubby and leafy growth rather than grass. They will definitely eat grass, but if given a choice they will snarf down brush like it’s going out of style. And they absolutely adore blackberries. Our first two goats could clear a 50’x50’ area in a few days. It took me longer to build the fence to contain them than it did for them to eat the entire contents of the yard I’d just fenced. We figured we’d found our answer to clearing our land..."
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It's What's for Doggie and Kitty Dinners
February 12, 2011
Preview for this blog entry:
"We have five dogs, four of which are actively engaged in providing protection against predators. Our fifth dog is retired and currently guards the couch, but her years of service to our farm and household has paid for that retirement a hundred times over. Given that these animals are a crucial part of our operation, we need to be as careful with their daily management needs as we are with any other livestock on the farm. But let's face it - several hundreds collective pounds worth of canine will go through its share of the grocery bill in a hurry..."
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Kick the Feed Bag Habit
February 3, 2011
Preview for this blog entry:
"...With the announcement of deregulated GE alfalfa spreading around the various livestock communities, many folks are wondering for the first time how they can go about raising their own feed. After all, the vast majority of small scale livestock owners have been working out of a feed bag for the past 50 years if not more. Yet that is not the norm for the bulk of small family farming history. It used to be very commonplace for folks to either raise their own feed on their own place, or partner with neighbors to raise feed in exchange for meat, dairy, eggs and other livestock products. If there is a silver lining to this whole GE nonsense, it would be that small scale producers are once again looking at how to provide their own feed..."
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Our Successful Farming and Ranching Books
We released our very first self-published book. The Chicken Coop Manual in 2014. It is a full color guide to conventional and alternative poultry housing options, including 8 conventional stud construction plans, 12 alternative housing methods, and almost 20 different design features. This book is available on Amazon.com and as a PDF download. Please visit The Chicken Coop Manual page for more information.
Rabbit Colonies: Lessons Learned
We started with rabbits in 2002, and we've been experimenting with colony management ever since. Fast forward to 2017, when I decided to write another book, this time about colony management. The book is chock-full of practical information, and is available from both Amazon and as a PDF download. Please visit the Rabbit Colonies page for more information.
The Pastured Pig Handbook
We are currently working on our next self-published book: The Pastured Pig Handbook. This particular book addresses a profitable, popular and successful hog management approach which sadly is not yet well documented. Our handbook, will cover all the various issues involved with pastured hog management, including case studies of numerous current pastured pig operations. If you have any questions about this book, please Contact Us.
Weblog Archives
We published a farm blog between January 2011 and April 2012. We reluctantly ceased writing them due to time constraints, and we hope to begin writing them again someday. In the meantime, we offer a Weblog Archive so that readers can access past blog articles at any time.
If and when we return to writing blogs, we'll post that news here. Until then, happy reading!