Lessons learned from chickens

[Downthestretch55]

Blood

Anyone that's ever spent time on a farm knows that there's a time when there's going to be blood. Sometimes, it's not very nice.
One of my first memories was about some pigs that came to live behind the hen house. There were four of them, and I was warned not to name them.
They were so cute when they first showed up, skampering around in their pen, roooting in the mud.
They grew quickly on all the corn, table scraps, and everything that was thrown in to their "room".
By fall, I was picking up wind fallen apples from beneath the apple trees in the orchard and giving them a bushel basket full each day. They sure loved those apples.
Came the day in early November when, despite my pleadings to let them live, a "hog scalding" had been arranged. For those that have never attended one, it starts with a fire under a 55 gallon drum filled with water. When it gets close to boiling, the hogs are brought near. A 22 to the forehead and a quick thrust to nick both juglars ends their earthly existance with out suffering. Then they are "gutted" and dipped in the 55 gallon drum to losen their hair so they can be scraped. Then the "cutting up", and then the smokehouse.
My job was as a "gutter". Not an especially nice job, but soon the thought of having blood up beyond your elbows goes away, to be replaced by the thought of "let's just get this done with".
When it was finished, the blood washed off, and all that remained was a lot of meat, and the memory...that I just shared.

Today, the Pentagon released the names of thirty-three military that had been killed in Iraq this past week. May they rest in peace, and may their families find comfort. May all of us pay hommage to the sacrifice they've made.
And may those that put them in that situation also note that their valiant blood is beyond their own elbows, and no amount of washing will ever remove it.

[Downthestretch55]

Lambs

I really like lambs.
Yes, they are very needy and love to follow, but they are indeed cute.
If you have chapped hands, just rub your fingers through their wool and the lanolin will make you feel a lot better.
Mom used to make some great sweaters from their shearings. Her ability with the knitting needles turned ivory yarn into Irish fisherman masterpieces for the whole family...matching caps as well.
In Luke 2:8-9 it says that "And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified."
Some might not realize that the lambs that they camped in the fields to protect were destined to become blood sacrifices on the altar of the great temple in Jerusalem. Yes, Bethlehem was where the lambs came from.
Also the place where the "Lamb of God" came from, aka "the good shepherd".

Lambs have been very important for quite a while. Do you know what kind of blood was put on the doorposts with hysop so the Hebrew people would have the angel of death pass over their houses and spare their firstborns?

Anyway, enough of the history lesson and back to the story.
One day my brother showed up with four fleecy critters in the back of his van.
He had picked up the little Dorsets from Cornell on his way back from visiting his girlfriend at Alfred State.
They were cute beyond words. They bounced all over the place. Barbed wire had no effect as they bounced off of it. Woven wire, though expensive was the only way to contain them. So we worked hard to build them a nice pasture.
It was very nice to walk around with the little flock. They'd follow you anywhere, bah,bah, bah.
I'm not going to say much about what happened to them. I'll just say that they didn't find an altar, but they did go well with garlic and mint jelly.

So at this time when the shepherds were protecting, camping out in the fields and getting themselves terrified, I'd just like to tell you, if you're a lamb, be careful of the shepherd you follow.
One will lead you to overwhelming joy, while others will lead you to untold sacrifice and slaughter. Be careful, lambs.
"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." Luke 2:10

[Downthestretch55]

The Bull

This is not a little story about a "bull in a china shop" or pottery barn where the sign says, "You broke it, you own it."
This is a true story that includes my brother, Gary, two mountain farmers, and the hope of a veal calf.
The farmers, Calvin and Edsel called one day and said that one of their heifers had given birth to a calf in a high meadow, and if Gary and I could get there to catch it, we could have it.
Calvin and Edsel didn't mention how their father had been killed, trampled by a Jersey bull (we didn't find out until much later), sadly, they cried when they shared how he'd been stomped beyond recognition. RIP their dad.
Nor did Calvin nor Edsel mention that they had turned the heifer out in the high meadow with a Jersey bull to sevice any cows that hadn't been caught via AI. Nor did they mention that the calf was four days old.
Did you ever try to run down a deer?
For sure they got a good laugh at Gary's and my efforts. They were rolling on the floor when I told them that when I heard the bull bellow, instead of trying to become an olympic track star running down a very scared vealer, I headed for the six strands of barbed wire as fast as my worn out legs could get me there. To this day, I don't know how I made it over the barbed wire.
I didn't have a scratch. Could it have been a new high jump record?
I'll never know.
The Jersey bull almost came through it right after me, but by then, I was way high up in a tree.
Calvin and Edsel..."HA, HA, HA!!"
Afterwards, I met up with Gary. The bull had gone back to his "girlfriends" and I finally caught my breath.
Luckily, I didn't even have anything clinging to the bottom of my sneakers.
Plenty of that was to be found in that meadow. Luck is luck.
Well, Gary still wanted a calf. On the way back home we stopped at another farm. Sure enough, one of the old farmer's cows had "freshened" that day,
and since that's what cows have to do so the baby can be taken from the mommy for her to continue her lactation (that's how milk is gotten), and her milk would be given to the milking machine and the bulk truck hauler, the calf was something that wasn't needed anymore.
So, the old farmer said we could have it...free!
We thanked him very much and brought the little guy home. Being as it was July 4th, we named the bull calf "Independence".
We both took turns feeding him milk replacer, mucking his little pen, and making sure he had the finest life we could give him.
Well, about ten weeks later, he was made to be what he was meant to be.
As we sat at the dining room table when he was served up, Dad asked, "What do you think of Independence?"
No kidding...at the same time, Gary and I said with food still in our mouths,
"He's delicious!"
Anyway, be careful of the bulls. Watch where you step. And always remember, eat them before they trample you. Bulls want you to die.
Get them first!

The veal recipe is in the DT Cookbook. Enjoy!

[Downthestretch55]

Where the heck did all these rabbits come from?

For those that haven't tried rabbit, I'll just tell you that it's really pretty good "eats". I have a cottontail in my fridge that I intend to stew up in wine for tomorrow night's supper. No, it wasn't a "road kill" (though I've gained a few that way). My friend, Ken, dropped it off as it somehow stumbled into one of his beaver sets. No beaver (shucks), but a bunny is fine.

The rabbit story is about my brother, Gary. Somehow he got the great idea that he could make his fortune with rabbits. He must've read about it in the classifieds of "Boy's Life" when the Boy Scouts gave him a subscription.
He definitely took his business venture seriously.
Gary did lots of research to find the best breed, and settled on New Zealand whites. Let me tell you, those bunnies are beautiful, big, and...fertile.
So he somehow did a deal for two does and then found a buck from a different place, so as to avoid "inbreeding".
We worked together to build a nice hutch with a hardware-cloth bottom, water bowls, and nest boxes for the moms-to-be.
Before too long, there was a need to build a couple of more six room hutches for the does. This, despite all the rabbits the family could eat twice a week, different recipes, he was now up to fourteen does and the buck.
I'm not too sure he knew what he'd gotten himself into. The hay and rabbit pellets were looking to consume all of his available funds, so he did his best to find a market for the bouncy whites. Frantic phone calls to restaurants near and far, and selling them "ready to cook" for a very narrow "profit margin" gave him something to take up his time long enough for still more bunnies to show up. He supplied restaurants all along route 28 between Kingston and Arkville, some in New York City, people that came to the house, and still there were more rabbits.
I was getting tired of helping him build hutches, so we decided to buy mesh fencing and wall off a big circle in the middle of the barn.
The bouncy things filled that up too.
I'm telling you, it was becoming a "WAR on RABBITS".
They just kept coming despite everything we could do to get rid of them, kill them, eat them. Feeding them was bankrupting Gary.
Well, the story ends when he finally decided to fill the freezer with everything he'd invested, besides those that didn't fit that he gave away (about 100), and all those that had "escaped" to the apple orchard where Bugs, Peter, and their girlfriends lived on for two more years.
Well, many years later, we still get together and laugh about his "business venture". And we still both enjoy a nice rabbit dinner, though we should be sick of eating them by now.
So when he invited me over to his place for supper last week, and I pulled into his driveway, guess what was bouncing in the headlights...
Yup, two giant white long eared critters.
I laughed so hard that tears were coming down my face, He must have seen me sitting there trying to gain my "composure". He came out on to the porch and said, "Come on in!"
I said, "What are they?"
He said, "My new bucks, Sadr and Al Queda."..."I have four does in the shed too."
Shaking my head, I went inside his kitchen door.
Some people just never learn, especially where all these rabbits come from.
You'll never guess what we had for supper.

[Downthestretch55]

Manure

Seems to me that wherever there are animals roaming aroung, lots of manure gets spread.
All farms have a time of the day devoted to dealing with it.
Some days, there's more of it than others.
Actually, manure can be quite helpful. If put back on the fields, the crops grow nicely. But if it builds up, it makes a huge mess that needs special attention.
One spring I was working on a black angus farm. The cows and heifers had been cooped up all winter inside the barn, and the guy that was supposed to deal with it just let it build up. By the time I showed up for my first day on the job, those poor critters were deep into it. It was close to the top of my barn boots, and frankly, I didn't have the strength to do much more than turn them out and go back to the farmhouse and call a friend that had a bull dozer.
He came that afternoon and pushed it all out into a great big pile.
His bill was almost as huge as the pile.
Now don't get me wrong. Manure can be good. There's all kinds.
Chicken is nasty. Hog's isn't much better. Sheep's is hot. Rabbit's is ok but tends to take on ammonia smells if it's left too long.
Horse's is a lot easier to handle than cows.
Heck, there always seems to be more than enough manure. It's best to not let it build up. Watch where you step. And at all times, consider the source.
It's all different. Though somehow it tells my sniffer that it pretty much smells the same.

[Downthestretch55]

More Manure Musings

I must admit that I've long held a fascination with manure, and since I made an agreement with someone that I wouldn't post anything in response to threads of his creation, I find that this might be an appropriate place to recount where my fecal fascination originated.
It began with a "TEACHER"!
This one come into my fifth grade class with an amazing piece of rock. He placed it squarely on the table in front of me and asked the class to guess what it was. Many of my classmates made guesses...like "igneous", "metamorphic" or "sedimentary"...all wrong.
After a while, I timidly raised my hand. When I was called on, I stated that it looked like "dung".
The teacher's eyes lit up and told me I was correct. He went on to explain that it is called a coprolite, the petrified fecal matter from a dinosaur!
Then he GAVE it to me! I was launched as a paleontologist.
I've since passed it on to my son, who is now a PHD in genetic research, but he also started as a paleontologist. Now, he's a "mouse farmer", but that's another story. Suffice to say that coprolite has been used to launch interest in many scientists that came through my classroom.
So, now back to the musings about manure.
It always amazed me that similar herbivores could eat exactly the same food, but produce different forms of manure. After eating hay, a horse produces something that looks like a big chunk of tootsie roll, a cow makes a mushy pie, and a deer makes pellets that look like peanut M+M's. Fascinating fecal stuff.
Birds are even more amazing. Take the wild turkey for example. Gobblers and jakes make something that always comes in a "J" or backwards "J" shape while hens make something that looks like a hersy's kiss.
Of course I haven't mentiond humans yet, and you all probably have been waiting with baited breath (or held noses). Of course, behind the house we had a litle place called an "outhouse" (privy). Our's was a three holer, so of course I got to see plenty. There was no flushing at all.
Everyone's was different!
One day, a porcupine found it's way inside and after munching all around the openings, for the residual salt, it left some of its own, kind of like brown pencil pieces.
Then, in the kitchen I discovered little black rice like things. Yes, if you guessed mice, correct! Knowing when to set traps (and when to avoid them) taught me a lot. I could go on and on, and probably will at a future time.
To think it all started with a teacher and a coprolite, a hundred million year old chunk of dinosaur poop.
I end with a short tale about one of my first days at the track. Another guy, a teacher of sorts, told me that he heard something from the "horses mouth".
So, I bet on the horse, big time. The horse finished last.
My guess the guy that gave me the tip was listening to the wrong end of that horse. Some folks never learn, nor do they know which part is doing the speaking, yet they're quite eager for you to appreciate what they say. Just remember which end is talking.
Watch your step, but enjoy fecal matter for exactly what it is. You might learn something.

[Downthestretch55]

I saw Mike's Christmas poem, and the request for poetry, so I'll share this one.
It was written by a friend and myself. He had been going through a difficult time. He wrote the first part. I had just bought my first two horses and was looking at things a bit differently. Maybe those that are participating in the DT partnership will find something in this.

"Green and Gold"

Are all the farmers dead now?
Dead, dying, or waiting to die?

Subdivisions all around,
All brightly lit and empty
Stand where cows once fatted
Feasting on lush red clover, so pink and sweet.

Are there new farmers now?
Those with calloused hands and light minds,
Are they really gone?
Or are there others?
Those with light hands and heavy minds?

Those who knew not cow trodden toe
Nor long sun drenched days
Nor seeing fields just sown
Through sweat of their own,
Hoping for growth.
So long ago their toil.

Yet sons and daughters of farmers old
For reasons they do not know
Take long afternoon rides
Past fields of green and gold,
Under mountains of pink and skies of azure blue.

Do new farmers know of rain drenched days?
Or drought?
Or doubt?
Of planting with a horse drawn plow?
Of harvests? Births? Deaths?
Or waiting for the promise of a golden sunrise?

Yes!
There are new farmers now!
Those with thoroughbreds.
And clean fingernails and heavy minds.

High in these green hills,
See? As always...
Another golden sunrise!

See them ride through fields of green and gold,
Under an azure sky.