Jazz ten weeks old
Here you can see he is a very intelligent young dog it has taken just 15 minutes to teach him to come on command sit and lay down on command reinforced by hand signals. That was just 3 training session each 5 minutes long and now it’s his pleasure to do any and all commands before you even ask in the hope of convincing us he should get a treat.
Jazz Sit
Jazz Down
Jazz Pose
I am writing this for two reasons one to celebrate the memory of Moss and two to warn anyone who does not already know the dangers ticks hold for our animal friends.
Moss came to us as a reject from a neighbouring farm in mid Wales; he had been kept back as best of litter from a champion mother but developed fear for the sheep he was supposed to control and preferred to chase sticks rather than sheep. This made him perfect for us; we were surrounded by sheep and wanted a dog that would not bother them.
Moss turned out to be much more than perfect he became a best friend always around with Fiona or I depending on which one was working quietly and more actively. Ever ready for the next adventure or activity he preferred to be with us or near us even if that meant sitting in the car rather than be left at home, which we did only when we had no other choice.
I know we will not be the only ones who have fond memories of Moss as he has shared his love and loyalty with many of our friends, visitors and volunteers. Many thank you letters we have received after visitor have gone home included a mention of Moss and his eagerness to fetch sticks or any object you could throw for him. Moss would play fetch until he had worn out your arm and then find someone else whose arm could still manage to throw him something to fetch.
Today as I write this it’s just 8 days since Moss died and it’s the first day I have felt I could write about him without being overcome with the loss of such a great friend. He is now buried in view of our back window in the middle of our biggest field with an oak tree planted by his head to remind us his boundless energy and love as he is taken up by a tree which reflects the size of his heart.
So to the warning Moss died of a blood parasite called Babesia it’s transmitted by ticks from dog to dog, in just four days Moss went from fit and active to dead. Despite the best efforts of our vet who gave him drugs to kill the parasite and a drip to help build his blood volume and antibiotics to take care of potential subsidiary infections Moss give way to the infestation around 7:30am on the Friday morning. Our lack of knowledge of the existence of this parasite undoubtedly contributed to the parasites ability to take Moss’s life.
Above Moss just a week before he died picture taken by Alun.
I just want to share this post to let some dear friends know their hard work did not go to waste; Julie and Alun came to us in March 2011 for five days of volunteering and became instant friends. We just fitted each other like hands in gloves they came to work and we needed the help, but we also share many of life’s important values in common at the same time as being very different in many ways. Later in 2011 they came back for a longer visit and again worked for us as volunteers these exchanges have become so important to Fiona and I it’s hard to describe how valuable good volunteers are to us and our life style. Julie decided to come back again in September 2011 to take our Permaculture Design Certificate course, and Alun came along and volunteered helping us out with the catering for the course, their presence on the course was a rewarding one for us and the students who attended along with Julie, Alun contributed to a varied and interesting diet as well as becoming the resident guitarist for the last night of the course which is of course a celebration of the two weeks learning and sharing. Julie shared her insights during the course and wrote a poem to contribute to the party.
Now in 2012 they had come back for two weeks to finish off their leave quota for the year, they came geared up for two weeks hard work from dawn to dusk most days, together we have laid the entire hedge which runs along our front boundary with the public road measuring about 180 meters. During the process Julie asked when the pigs would be aloud out from the shed which has been their winter quarters. I explained they could be put out once we finished laying the hedge past their summer quarters; Julie was now on a mission to break the pigs out of their winter prison. The two weeks passed quickly and we laid the hedge along its complete length two of the pigs were moved to their summer house all be it reluctantly a third refused to cooperate and is still sadly in captivity condemned to a short life in her shed before the freezer callers for her.
We never got round to the final stage of the release process while Julie and Alun where here, they left this morning for their trip back to the UK and the grindstone of work a day for pay. So Fiona and I set to task and connected the electric fence up and tested it before the final release of the pigs on to open ground
Above in the film you can see the pig just five minutes after we opened the gate to let them out, they initially explored the small area to find its limits and had their first introduction to electric fences a couple of thousand watt shocks a piece and they have found the limit to their new domain, resided to the limit they seek to explore what the new home extension has to offer them and discover their nature as if they always knew what god gave them that funny looking nose for.
Many thanks to Alun and Julie for all your hard work, Love Steve & Fiona
Free Livestock
A double edged sword, this is a scenario we have been through before a few times now we have a well advertised web site a broad spectrum of friends so many people know where we are and what we do. On occasion people who for some reason or other need to get rid of live stock somehow end up in touch with us, this time round it was through a friend of a friend of a friend, the message was that someone had to leave their smallholding and wanted all her livestock re-homing free to anyone who can collect. Fiona and I responded interested in the sow with piglets and a trio of gees. There were 8 goats, 3 sheep, 3 adult pigs and 5 piglets, 8 chickens, 3 ducks and 3 gees all in little more space than a large garden and no money to buy feed for the animals. We agreed to take all of the animals accept the goats which we are not set up for, goats eat small trees and jump meter high fences easily so they just don’t fit in to our system. However we agreed to help find a home for the goats with someone else, we put an ad on TotalFrance.com and found a home for all of them within two days.
We visited the site on the Tuesday and provided some much needed straw for bedding and a couple of sacks of urgently needed feed for the pigs. We arranged to return on Friday to kill the two adult male pigs for pork, which was distributed among friends’ theirs and ours. While ringing around acquaintances for homes for the goats we also agreed to let someone else have the sheep which we did not need, this left us with a trio of Chinese gees, a trio of Muscovy ducks, 8 Maran chickens some copper and some cuckoo with cocks and hens in both colours and the sow with five piglets at foot.
The sow pictured below is very underweight having been underfed and feeding five hungry piglets herself. The nourishment needed buy a sow due to give birth is nearly twice that of her maintenance ration, a typical maintenance ration for an adult pig is 3 kilos of high protein food, so by the time the sow is due, she should be fed around 5 to 6 kilos of high quality food. Maintaining this ration will still see a sow lose weight over the first few weeks after giving birth unless you give her even more food each week typically around half a kilo more per day, a sow who gives you a large litter will need perhaps and extra kilo per day each week until you separate the piglets from her. The reality is she won’t eat all this food herself after 3 or 4 days the piglets will start to eat some of the food themselves by the time the piglets are three weeks old they will be able to eat as much as half of the food they need as solids, this gives the mother some relief from having to provide them all their needs. An underfed sow will not share her food but she will give the piglets all the milk she can make from the rations she gets and she will also give her own body mass over to milk production, the result will be an unhealthy emaciated sow who could eventually die from her efforts. The sow is now back at our place in our barn being fed as much food as her and the piglets are able to consume in a day and plenty of fresh water is being made available too. In the spring they will all be put outside in a concrete pigsty with ¼ acre paddock to root around in and fed plenty of grain and comfrey until they gain enough weight to make good pork and bacon.
The hens have been put in with our Maran cockerel and the rest of his brood and the cockerels are housed separately for now. They are in good shape and the hens have settled enough to keep laying eggs for us.
The 3 Chinese geese and the 3 Muscovy ducks are in an outside house built in the middle of our orchard which has plenty of grass left after the sheep have been moved on in their normal rotation around our growing number of paddocks. The geese will have gained enough weight by spring to get them laying and hopefully sitting on their own eggs to hatch them and bring them on in time for nice fat geese ready for Christmas 2012.
So what’s the second edge of the sword then? Well having reduced our livestock levels and planed to have a pig free winter reducing our need for winter feed and the inevitable cost, we are now flush with stock again. Free animals are never free from some kind of cost, feed, medication, vets and housing all cost money and the time, morning feeding time just rose by 10 minutes or so and an evening trip across the fields to lock up the ducks and geese will become another evening chore which has to be done every knight come rain or snow.
We started this work back in February it was an attempt to regain control and productivity of some of the old and now completely overgrown hedges towards the back end of our property, below you can see what the hedges look like after we started work but before we actually got round to the hedge itself.
You can see we have cleared our way in to the base of the hedge cutting down the brambles and digging up the suckers from the blackthorn. Suckering blackthorn is a problem which needs yearly attention, but as in all things permaculture the problem is the solution; for another problem. Laying our hedges and establishing new fences is all a part of our overall system and all the new fences are to be planted to hedges, this means we need new hedge plants which would cost us a small fortune, but by digging up the suckering blackthorn we can then plant them in to the new fence lines and they will become the future hedge we want; solving one problem with another problem.
Left you can see both the suckering blackthorn before its starts growing for this year, and then below a replanted sucker six weeks after it was moved to its new home. we have mulched the ground to preserve the moisture for the plant and surpress the plants around it to reduce competition. blow you can see what the hedge looks like after laying has been done.
In the photo above you can see to the left the hedge after its been laid and to the right along the fence line we have staked the brush wood from trimming the hedge, this is to protect the newly replanted suckers from the sheep who will graze the paddock next door. Below you can see the whole of the new paddock and its newly laid hedge, in the centre of the paddock you can see a small oak tree protected from browsing by the sheep with three posts and some old chicken wire. The tree will eventually offer shade and late autumn food by way of kilos of acorns year after year without further inputs.
Below you can see the hedge starting to re-grow six weeks after the original work was done.
Below is a picture of the cutting and re-growth of the laid hawthorn you can see that the base is re-growing and also the part cut tree is still growing. This will lead to a denser barrier to contain the stock and a lower hedge offering more forage at stock level, this increases the diversity of the stock diet and offer them the opportunity to self medicate on the more useful hedge plants.
Next you can see a small sapling ash tree planted in the corner of the new paddock, this will offer shade and fodder for sheep and cattle well in to the future.
Next you can see the contrasting difference the laid hedge makes, closer to you can see the light hitting the ground in the paddock next door, but further away the hedge is still yet to be laid and the shade of the trees is still several meter in to the paddock, this was taken around 11am.
So to conclude laying hedges serves several functions in our design improving the barrier containing stock, improving access for the stock to quality forage and plant medication, improving habitat for wildlife and improving the light penetration for neighbouring land.
We have been trying a little experiment here with our pig feed; we are not changing the feed just how we feed it to the pigs. We buy organic grain from one of our farming neighbours this is sometimes Barley and at other times Triticale (a hybrid of wheat & rye) both are used extensively for feeding pigs and one or the other is the largest component of most proprietary pig feeds.
When you feed pellet feed to pigs most recommend a plentiful; supply of fresh water and this is important to help the pigs absorb their food and as much of its available nutrition as possible. We found just mixing milled grains mixed with water helped our pig grow quicker some years ago, now we tend to mix our grain with milk by product like whey or skimmed milk from our own cows.
So what are we doing different now? We now sprout the grain instead of milling it this leads to Increases in Protein Quality & Increases in Crude Fiber content, Sprouts are also rich in digestible energy, bio-available vitamins, minerals, amino acids, proteins, and phytochemicals, as these are necessary for a germinating plant to grow. The benefits in sprouting just from a nutritional stand point are worth the change in feeding regime, but add to this the saving in electricity to grind the grain & the improved air quality in our barn due to less grain milling dust and it’s a win win move.
The pigs have taken about a week to settle in to the new feed as they have to work a little harder chewing to get at all that goodness, but they are already growing even quicker as a result of the improved feed without any increased cost to us.
I have now had a question about this requesting details of exactly how we go about sprouting the grain. This is so simple I presumed everyone knew
how to do it! So we simply put one feeds worth of grain in a bucket, that’s half of the daily ration for all the pigs you need to feed. Cover the grain with water and leave to stand for 24 hours, pour the grain in to a new bucket and refill the first bucket. This goes on for three to four days until the grain has sprouted, this means you need 6 to 8 buckets for the system to work in a continuous cycle. We recycle our mineral buckets for use in this system so they were not an extra cost. In addition to this we have planted comfrey around our holding which we cut and feed to the pigs during the growing season April to October, this replaces as much as half of the grain needed to feed the pigs and will eventually replace as much as 80% of their grain as we expand the number of comfrey plants we have. In the autumn we also collect acorns from our
extensive collection of oak trees in the hedges and feed these to the pigs for the last month or so of their lives, this helps to sweeten their meat and help us produce an excellent dried ham.
Today is the time to put the sheep back in to one flock the ram has been separated now for a couple of months to avoid lambs birthing in the depth of our winter. An old idea which persists to this day is that if you put the rams with the ewes on November 5th you will get your first lambs on April 1st this is a sensible idea the lambs are born at the time when the grass is in full flush of early spring growth. This way the lambs grow with the rising productivity of the grass on your land and are ready for sale or killing before the grass productivity starts to drop off in the autumn.
This won’t work for us this year as we left the ram with the ewes through the summer due to not having enough good productive paddocks ready to allow us to separate our ram out early. We can already see that a few of our ewes are already heavily pregnant. Some breeds of sheep have a narrow season for breading others like our Dorset Downs are capable of mating at any time of year and consequently delivering in the depths of winter.
