Pasture%20Raised%20Pork%20Presentation.ppt

 

I am doing a class at the Country Living Expo at Stanwood High School on January 29th.  The class is on raising pasture pork and above is the presentation that I am giving.  The keys to the pasture pork conversation is what breed to use (heritage…

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We weaned our last set up piglets this week.  We had 2 litters in November and then we bought a litter of large blacks over Thanksgiving so we had 3 litters going there for a while.  We keep the piglets with the sows for about 6-8 weeks and then I move them into a separate pen (the pit in the milk house where you use to stand to milk the cows) for a few weeks until they get use to being weaned and big enough to eat a pound or so of food in short order.  After 2-4 weeks I then move them out…

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I have not been great about blogging since May. The weather this summer was terrible and kind of took the wind out of my sails about blogging when nothing would grow. It is now the start of a new year so I thought I would update everyone on what is planned for the upcoming year. Before doing that, however, a quick review of 2010:



- Miserable weather lead to almost no vegetables

- We erected 2 permanent hoophouses

- We now have 5 sows (2 large blacks and 3 mulefoots) and 11… Continue

Here is the chicken tractor that I built. It is 4ft by 8th and right now houses our 20 Buckeye chickens.

Over the last couple of weeks we have been doing a lot of planting. Last weekend I got the potatoes and bush beans planted in the front, although we have some room for some more beans that I need to buy this week. This morning I got corn, pole beans, summer squash and winter squash started in our back pasture. We expanded the area back there this year and have about twice as much room and still have a bunch more room back there to plant some more corn. We also got some weeding done in our back… Continue

I am finally getting some pictures that I promised a number of weeks ago. We have a couple of hoop houses that built. One of them will be used for tomatoes and the other one will grow some french…

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The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic trying to get a couple of projects completed. I few weeks ago I started a chicken coop inside of our barn. We need a place for Kaden to keep his bantam chickens for the fair and wanted a winter home for some laying hens that we could then build an outdoor access area for them. It took a little while, but finally this evening we moved the chickens into their new home. Our Buckeye chicks are almost two weeks old and they are now occupying the big… Continue

Our first batch of Buckeye Chickens arrived on Wednesday. We ordered 25, they sent 26 and 4 did not survive the trip so we have 22 chicks on our make shift brooder. I am currently building a chicken coop in the barn and we will move them into that when it is done in a few days.