Beau Jackson

Well, birthing season (lambs, goat kids, kittens) is over (unless you count Allena!) and the ranch has expanded.

We ended up with 10 lambs this year out of 8 ewes - which is a pretty low birth rate for sheep. It was a strange year. We had a lot of ewes give birth to single gigantic ram lambs. One of them was nearly 10 pounds - the average size Shetland lamb is 6 pounds or so, just to put that in perspective.

We also ended up with 5 goat kids, which we have taken to calling “goatlings” so that we know we’re talking about baby goats and not our own children. One of them went back to the breeder that we purchased the goats from. We had one little buck and we gave him to the neighbors as a 4H project goat. They were glad to have him, and we were glad to be rid of him, so win-win on that.

Finally, we ended up with 5 kittens. These were born just a week ago or so. One of them was starting to open its eyes last night. We will likely keep a couple of these - we lost a couple of cats over the last several months. One died of old age, the other died of unknown causes - was just dead one morning. However, if you’re looking for a kitten…just let me know ;)

Yesterday, we brought home the newest additions to the ranch - four angora rabbits. These are a 4H project for Dominic and fiber critter for Allena. We traded a couple of sheep for four of these bunnies, and actually ended up with six. The last two are not at the ranch yet as they currently have kits that still need them, but when the rabbit breeder comes to pick up her sheep next month, she’ll be bringing those two with her. I’m looking forward to some very warm mittens next year. Angora is several times warmer (six times? eight times? can’t remember) than wool, and of course is very very soft.

As a side note, I built cages for these bunnies on Saturday out of 1/2 inch wire mesh. I used these little metallic fastener thingies called a “J-Klips” to put them together. For the record, J-Klips rock! :). Also for the record, it is a LOT easier to cut wire mesh using a grinder with a cutting disk than it is to use tin-snips or wire cutters. Just saying. I really need to start carrying a camera around with me. I should have taken pictures of the cage-building process. A lot of people find my site via Google when searching for how to build pig shelters and horse shelters and fun stuff like that. I have one more cage to build for the rabbits coming next month - MEMO TO ME: TAKE PICTURES!

So now we’re just waiting for June when the newest member of the (human population) of the ranch is due to arrive. Nine weeks and counting!

This is our sheep Mist, who was having a bad day :). Allena submitted it to icanhascheezburger.com - click on the picture to vote for it, and fame and fortune will be ours! Well, fame anyway. OK, not really that either, but it’ll be fun for us!

moar funny pictures

We live on a small farm, and we raise some of our own food - other than the garden, this has thus far included chickens for eggs and meat and pigs for meat.  Lamb will be taking its place on the list soon.  We’ve also acquired dairy goats so we’ll be getting milk soon too.  In time, chevon (that’s goat meat) will also be on the list.

Last Saturday I butchered one of our pigs, and today I butchered the other.  I gotta say that butchering is exhausting work, but when it goes well it’s satisfying.  Last Saturday didn’t go so well.  To put it mildly, I botched the kill.  After last Saturday, I was very discouraged and felt like maybe I should just haul the remaining pig back to the stock auction and sell it.  I can think of a lot of good reasons for raising your own meat, but one of the important reasons to me is that the animal will typically have a higher quality of life on my little farm than it would in some feed lot.  Another important reason to me is that when the animal is killed, it happens without a lot of fear or pain.  Hence my discouragement.

However, if you make a mistake, you may as well learn from it.  I was very apprehensive today, but things went well.  Very clean, fast kill.  Consequently the whole process of butchering seemed to go easier, and I’m feeling a lot better about raising meat animals again.

So now I have close to 300 lbs of pork in my fridge and freezer - including (so far) about 40 lbs of home made sausage, and 25 lbs of home cured hams.  We even made some sausage links.  Here’s a tip about making sausage links:  Many references will tell you to grind the pork once, and then run it through the grinder again to stuff the sausage casings.  The tip?  Don’t run it through the grinder the second time.  We did this, and what you end up with is VERY finely ground meat, and while the taste is just fine, the texture is NOT like the sausage you’d buy at the store.  We still have more sausage to make, more hams to cure, bacons to cure, and a bunch of ribs, loin, and chops to cut up, but at least the hard work is done.

On Saturday, we traveled to Monett, Missouri (well, a little South of there actually) to pick up two goats.  Yes, I guess that makes me a goatherd as well as a shepherd.  Total mental jump here for just a sec - how come “shepherd” isn’t spelled “sheepherd”??? Ok, back to what I was saying.  Actually, I’m not a goatherd.  Dominic is a goatherd, and to a lesser extent Elizabeth is too.

Dominic is participating in the goat project in 4H this year - dairy goats in our case, although a lot of kids raise meat goats.  Now, I’ll confess that he was forced encouraged to take on this project, but in theory he will be taking care of the goats - feeding, giving shots, hoof trimming, milking, the works.  Elizabeth will help to the extent she’s able - she really likes feeding them of course, and she’s actually old enough to learn how to milk them.  I imagine I’ll have to help some, so maybe I’m a goatherd too.

So why was Dominic “encouraged” to take on this project?  Simple economics.  We drink a lot of milk.  If we don’t limit our kids milk consumption, we can quite easily consume a gallon of milk a day.  In my area, milk currently costs $3.75 - $4.25 depending on what grocery store you happen to be in.  Do the math.  Trust me when I say that it does not cost anywhere near $3.75 a day to keep a goat.  If the feed and other costs of keeping a goat worked out to be five bucks a week, I’d be truly surprised.

So why goats?  Why not get a cow?  Again, simple economics.  We bought two goats - both heavy producers and from very good bloodlines and both bred for March kidding - for $300.  A cow, especially a grown cow that is already bred, costs a LOT more than $300.  And frankly, even though we drink a lot of milk, I don’t think we could keep up with a cow.  At peak, these two goats should give us a gallon of milk a day each - maybe a little more.  So, we’re planning on making cheese too, and even still we’ll  probably have more than we can consume ourselves.  A cow can give four to six gallons a day (depending on the breed).  Another reason to pick goats over a cow:  Our kids will be milking these animals.  A cow can, quite literally, cave your head in with a well placed kick, or step on your foot and crush it.  A goat can kick you, or step on your foot, and mostly it’s going to hurt but not be damaging.

Yeah, but goats?  Who drinks goat milk?  Well, it turns out we have a friend that has a goat.  She’s an elderly lady from Europe and grew up drinking the stuff, so she keeps a goat.  We tried it and found that it has a very nice taste - very similar to cows milk, only I find it to be a little sweeter.  We’ve also tried goat cheese before and found it very tasty!  (I’m just crackers about cheese, Grommet!)

So anyway, now we’ve added goats to our three ring ranch.  The circus just keeps growing!

We got to do a neat thing last night. We participated in a walk through nativity scene. This was not our church that put this on - but we got a call a couple of weeks ago from them because we have sheep. So we brought a couple of our sheep, and Allena dressed up as a shepherdess. Dominic ended up being drafted into being a wise man, since they had a last minute no-show.

There weren’t a lot of people that showed up (’cause hey, it was cold!) but it was neat all the same. probably 65-70 percent of the people that did show up were kids and they got a big kick out of the sheep. All in all a fun evening.

Update: Here are some pictures (I found the camera!)

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph - Jesus was played by a doll in this case because it was pretty cold out ;)

Dominic is on the right

Allena is the shepherd, and the little girl is playing an Angel (that appeared to the shepherds of course!)