Caedon was playing with Jon's guitar tuner and the Turkeys LOVED it. We managed to catch the last verse
Clinck here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2qrhxTc07Y
Friday, November 25, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
DIY Fodder System
With the drought and winter coming on, I was trying to figure out how to get my animals fresh greens. Greenhouse? Dumpster diving? Take out a loan for feed?
I came across this interesting youtube video .
From there I began my research on sprouting, not just for livestock but also humans. Research shows a dramatic increase in vitamins and digestibility. It sounded like something I would like to try but I couldn't find anything done on a small scale. I wasn't about to spend 1000's on a system to "try out" for my pigs, chickens, and eventual cows.
So we bought a bag of barley seed, the most common seed used in fodder systems. I poked some holes in hard plastic zip lock sandwich containers and made my first batch of sprouts. It was pretty easy. The animals weren't thrilled. I figured it was probably like eating a Mcdouble everyday and then someone putting a salad out.
Now we needed to try it for an extended amount of time and see what results we got. The problem was we needed a low cost system. This is what we came up with.(click the youtube link below)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwdvHH_vspg
We have plans to move it to our utility room and hook up a mister systems on a timer to the cold water for the washing machine. It will drain to the washing machine drain. We also plan at some point on recapturing the water to water the garden.
This is a work in progress but so far our chickens are LOVING it and the pigs are liking it too. One drawer feeds the pigs for a whole day with supplementing a little pig feed and chicken eggs. Our nursing sow also gets some corn to keep her weight on. It has already cut our feed cost substantially in just the few weeks we have been using it. It takes about 10 extra minutes each morning to clean and reload the drawers.
I will do more videos later on the specifics of how we built the system and the seed amounts etc.
I came across this interesting youtube video .
From there I began my research on sprouting, not just for livestock but also humans. Research shows a dramatic increase in vitamins and digestibility. It sounded like something I would like to try but I couldn't find anything done on a small scale. I wasn't about to spend 1000's on a system to "try out" for my pigs, chickens, and eventual cows.
So we bought a bag of barley seed, the most common seed used in fodder systems. I poked some holes in hard plastic zip lock sandwich containers and made my first batch of sprouts. It was pretty easy. The animals weren't thrilled. I figured it was probably like eating a Mcdouble everyday and then someone putting a salad out.
Now we needed to try it for an extended amount of time and see what results we got. The problem was we needed a low cost system. This is what we came up with.(click the youtube link below)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwdvHH_vspg
We have plans to move it to our utility room and hook up a mister systems on a timer to the cold water for the washing machine. It will drain to the washing machine drain. We also plan at some point on recapturing the water to water the garden.
This is a work in progress but so far our chickens are LOVING it and the pigs are liking it too. One drawer feeds the pigs for a whole day with supplementing a little pig feed and chicken eggs. Our nursing sow also gets some corn to keep her weight on. It has already cut our feed cost substantially in just the few weeks we have been using it. It takes about 10 extra minutes each morning to clean and reload the drawers.
I will do more videos later on the specifics of how we built the system and the seed amounts etc.
Monday, October 17, 2011
We Got Milk! (pig milk)
Lois is due tomorrow. In my extensive reading (not experience), when you can express milk easily from a sow, it is 12-24 hours before she will farrow (give birth). I've been checking Lois at every feeding, plus other times during the day. At the evening feeding I expressed milk from her teat!!! Yeah!!! Piggies are on the way!!! I noticed today that she drank A LOT of water. That was my first indication something was different. I usually have to fill up her water 2 or 3 times, but today it was no less than 5. I guess she needed it for the milk!! Hopefully tomorrow I will have video of some cute.....er....soon to be yummy.....babies!!!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Our Frankenstein Experiment
YouTube
This is a Cuckoo Marans X White Leghorn. It was the only one to hatch so far. I had incubator problems so I'm not hopeful for the rest. I guess we'll call him/her Frankie.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Are you kidding me?
Let's just cut out the middle man shall we? Lay the eggs right on the cooking surface.
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