October 12th, 2014

With the beginning of the school year things get really busy around here!  We still move cows and chickens every day, wash 24 dozen eggs, and keep the hogs happy.  But that all has to happen before 7am now.  So, time to type is not very available.  But, here is what is happening.  We have one calf left to come.  In the last 3 weeks we have had 12 lovely looking calves.  They are full of energy and growing well already.  We are on our last pasture rotation for the year, but have stockpiled a lot of grass.  We will easily make mid to late November before moving to the barn and opening the silo for the winter.

The broiler chickens are all gone.  We had another great year with the help of our spectacular staff.  Without our chicken processing crew, we would not be able to provide our healthy, pasture raised chickens to you. 

The layers are still on pasture where they will remain until the snow flies and the grass is gone.  I hate to clean the coop out and they like the freedom.  They are producing very well still.  We should be able to carry production throughout the winter.
 
The hogs are growing like crazy!  The weaned hogs are ready to go out to pasture and finish on the leftover corn and grasses.  The sows are moving to a new pasture we built for them in the woods.  The nuts and apples are plentiful.  They should be excited!  The boar is still in the bachelor pad until January so we will not get any cold weather piglets. 

We just poured 7 yards of concrete on the kill floor of the butcher shop.  We will be roofing off the room in preparation of this years harvest. 

Next spring we plan on installing a new water system that will provide fresh drinking water to our cattle on the entire farm from a gravity fed system.  We will also be creating 15 acres of new grass and pasture on the north side of the farm.  The project is shaping up nicely and will be ready to go when the snow leaves.