They get along so well. These are my hens visiting a new mama in the barn. The chickens eat fly larvae and other bugs plus stray pig feed around the barn every day. They help keep it clean while depositing little nitrogen-rich poops all over the place.
That's mohawk with mama hen's boys
First, I must apologize for taking so long to write this, but Squirt is alive. Turned out he was too small to go to slaughter. I took him back to the Spring pen to live with all the other youngsters this week. Again, apologies for the drama and the late catchup post. Thank you for the sympathy and love.
Second, I have bad news. Everything was back to being ok, and then we had a wicked cold snap and Oscar died. It happened rather suddenly, although we had noticed some funny behavior in the days leading up to his death. He didn’t come eat to eat in the morning, he didn’t get up much for two days. This could have been normal, many pigs just chill out for a little while when the weather’s terrible or for their own reasons. Kate noticed he was really thirsty. We both spent some time rubbing his belly as he lay on his side (his classic snuggle move) in the days before his death and he didn’t let on that anything was wrong. Then, last monday morning, Kate found him cold and stiff, looking alive but clearly not.
Unlike Squirt (or what I thought was going to happen to Squirt), Oscar’s death came without warning. Honestly, it was less painful for me. Most likely because I didn’t know he was going to die and didn’t wrestle with the opportunity to prevent it. Now we mourn him like a lost loved one. Van Gogh, his best pig buddy, seems depressed as well, but is starting to come back around and has been doing a new trick. Now he lays on his side and lets us rub his belly. These pigs are incredible creatures.
Van Gogh getting the Belly Scratch
This is what glasshalfull does with our ground beef. They are adorable and delicious. Kudos to the executive chef, Adam Cobb, who comes by every market to pick his meat up personally.
Squirt is the first pig I ever met. He was a ‘house-pig’ like Oscar and Van Gogh, only about two months before their time. When we first arrived at Elizabeth’s house here at Cane Creek we were greeted by a few-week-old Squirt who simply looked to us for more food. He was a demanding little pig, very curious and loved spending time with the dogs and nibbling our ankles to remind us he was hungry. Unfortunately, Squirt is a boy and the farm has enough studs around, so he has been growing with the rest of the market pigs in a big pen for some time. Since I pick the pigs most weeks that go to market (get slaughtered) I’ve lately been avoiding Squirt; he’s getting pretty big. He knows me (I also became immediately responsible for feeding him after we arrived) so he always comes to hang out when I work in his pen catching his friends, feeding and fixing huts. Being so friendly and thus catchable I knew that one day he’d end up on the trailer heading for market when I wasn’t working. That day is today. He is right now snuggling with the other 5 market pigs in our barn, waiting for this week’s trip to our processor (slaughterhouse) tomorrow. Squirt is also the first pig I could recognize by voice (like a dog’s bark, each pig sounds different). When I approached the barn tonight to check on the market pigs, I heard the ‘whan, whan’ I know so well. I reached into his stall and scratched his head, running my hands over his eyes and around his face. The other pigs hadn’t noticed me and Squirt just enjoyed the friendliness. Tomorrow he will be shot in the head and butchered. Pigs like him are the highlights and the lowlights of this job; the first job ever to make me cry.
He will be missed
An email chain with a friend sparked this thought that I realize is a little late for those of you who have already reserved your turkey. How can you find a happy turkey for the holidays? Here’s some info to help you out:
Courtesy of Luck Photography - Cane Creek Farm
1. Look for pastured, naturally fed birds from a local farm near you. If you can buy a bird from the person who raised it, you’re probably getting something that was cared for. Ask your farmers how they raise them, what they feed them and what breed they are.
2. Certification programs can be difficult for farmers to navigate and expensive to achieve. However, Animal Welfare Approved is a very good program that requires the highest standard of happiness that I know of. It requires birds have free access to the outdoors and enough space to flap around, dust-bathe and run freely. Humane Certified® and American Humane, on the other hand, allow for confinement production, birds living indoors their entire lives. Very sad birds indeed.
3. Organic means the birds ate well but not necessarily lived well. This is a good standard, but consumers should look for pastured in addition to organic.
4. Most turkeys over 15 pounds are of a breed that has been genetically manipulated to produce humongous animals. These birds can’t survive on their own past 6 months; they get so big they break their legs and suffocate under their own weight. I suggest finding heritage breed birds but that means getting two or more to satisfy your party as they are likely between 10 and 15 pounds each. Some good breeds to look out for are Narragansett and Bourbon Red. These are endangered breeds and the farmers who raise them care for the genetics and happiness.
At the end of the day, if you manage to navigate the great variety of choices out there to support a neighbor, eat a healthy and nutritious bird that lived a decent life, and raise awareness about these issues, you’ll have achieved something great this Thanksgiving. If not, don’t sweat it, there’s always next year.
I’m walking our biggest ossabaw sow, bess, to the barn today so she can farrow (give birth) in peace. Here she is taking a cool-down break in one of our ponds. 
We have many chickens on the farm here, many of which are the product of barnyard in-breeding, mutt-making and the freedom to choose their mates. Since the owners have always been interested in heritage and endangered breeds, we also have many old-timey and rare breeds from different parts of the world. I believe, from all this, we have spawned a few red-jungle fowl chickens. Red jungle fowl are the original chicken. They are like the rock pigeon or the wolf, who each gave birth through genetic manipulation (natural and unnatural alike) to all our breeds of doves and dogs. This makes me pretty excited, to have a wild chicken like that on the farm. I’m hoping to isolate this rooster (below) and get him and mama hen together to breed the most wild-ass chicks. Aside from their charm, I’m hoping these jungle birds forage like hell and make some good meat birds and laying hens.
Our pigs are hilarious. I think these are all boys.
We started breeding our sheep this week which means sorting out the fit mothers and creating two groups. Sheep gestate for 150 days and we want babies in the spring for good grass and warm weather. I set up a corral for the sheep in the summer and although it works really well, I managed to get a nice shiner from a one-year old trying to leap over my head. Once again being short hurts. 
Some people think my last Livestock Farmer post trailed off into nowhere. Maybe it ended a little abruptly, either way, I was done writing about pigs. Yesterday and the day before were my two days off. I work Thursday through Monday, pretty much all the time since I live on the farm. I am the kind of person that used to like getting work email on my phone so I could work anywhere and thus not have to be in the office all day. Living on the farm is similar in that I can manage my time with a lot of flexibility. I regularly work after dinner in exchange for a long lunch or afternoon expedition. I’m also available for any crisis that arise in the middle of the night or when no one else is around. Heavy rains, escaping and sick animals don’t keep business hours. With plenty to do on my days on, what do I do on my days off?
I used to fill a lot of my free time with socializing, bars, driving-out-of-the-city-adventures and random hobbies like hunting, fishing and housework. Then, when I had a mostly boring job, I lived for the two days a week I could finally do what I wanted. Now that I have a mostly fulfilling job I find myself puttering around like a recent retiree not knowing what to do with myself. I get bored. I miss socializing, but not as much as I’m happy to be where I want to be. In other words, the trade is worth it, except when you have two days off and nothing to do with them. Then it starts to feel overwhelming. I ended up driving to our farmers market in Carrboro yesterday. It’s the most social time of the week for me and since I started taking Wednesdays off, I’ve missed the market a lot. I chatted with some pretty cool beekeepers and farmers and felt partially sustained with enough socializing for one day. But man, did I feel kinda pathetic driving 40 minutes to have a couple conversations with strangers I barely know.
I’ve got plans to take a class on Permaculture beginning in January and Kate and I are going to make a trip to New York City sometime soon. I guess I need more going on than bees, chickens, pigs, goats, sheep, donkeys, turkeys, geese, dogs and cats.
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