If you are like most Americans, you are not crazy about dark turkey meat. In fact, you don't like it at all, which is why Big Ag figured out how to grow turkeys with breasts so big that they can't fly or mate naturally. (Yes, that means supermarket turkeys are the result of artificial insemination.) I was right there with the majority of you, only eating white turkey … [Read more...]
Hatching & Brooding Your Own Chicks
To continue “Chicken Week” on the blog, I wanted to write about Hatching & Brooding Your Own Chicks by Gail Damerow. I read this book last spring as part of a Pastured Poultry course I took through the UMass Amherst Stockbridge School of Agriculture. For the class, we also read Harvey Ussery's The Small-Scale Poultry Flock and Joel Salatin’s Pastured Poultry Profit$, both … [Read more...]
Making turkey bone broth
Have you ever made turkey bone broth? Like many Americans, after cutting all the meat off our Thanksgiving turkey, we used to throw the bones in the trash. It breaks my heart now thinking of all the lost cups of bone broth that we didn't have through the years. However, as the saying goes, you're smart if you learn from your mistakes, but you're wise if you learn from someone … [Read more...]
Poultry processing options
Raising chickens, turkey, and other poultry to sell as meat is a little more complicated that just finding out what you can legally do in terms of slaughter. Liability is also an important consideration. Meat sold across state lines falls within the jurisdiction of the USDA, so should be processed in a USDA-inspected facility. If you are selling meat within … [Read more...]
Farm animal psychology
The children chased the chickens. They couldn't understand why the chickens didn't want to cuddle. Last week was the first week of Nature's Farm Camp on our homestead, and I had to explain farm animal psychology to the children. I often find myself playing the role of psychologist when people are first introduced to chickens, turkeys, goats, sheep, cows, and other farm … [Read more...]
5 tips for turkeys in cold weather
by Victoria Redhed Miller We live in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains in northwest Washington state. At our elevation of about 1000 feet, we typically get a fair amount of snow between November and February. An average winter would include a lot of nights with temperatures in the 20s, some nights in the teens and often a week or so in single digits in … [Read more...]
Why do we eat turkey on Thanksgiving?
Just a few weeks ago we looked out our windows and saw the first leaf falling to the ground. Now it’s already time for Thanksgiving! We will be raking the leaves, inviting the family over, setting the table, and – of course – preparing the turkey. But why do we eat turkey on Thanksgiving? What is its significance in the holiday? Besides making a delicious part of the feast, … [Read more...]
7 tips for success with a farm dog
Many people think a dog is a dog, but when it comes to working dogs on farms, nothing could be further from the truth. Just as you would never hire an unqualified person to do a job in an office, you should not get an unqualified dog to do a job on your farm. While you might laugh at the idea that a chihuahua could herd sheep, plenty of people have gone to the local animal … [Read more...]
Chickens and turkeys together?
If you have chickens and are considering adding turkeys to your homestead, you have no doubt either read or been told by a well-meaning friend that you cannot keep chickens and turkeys together. It is widely believed that chickens will give blackhead disease to turkeys and wipe out your flock. This is not usually true in natural situations, and there are several things you can … [Read more...]
What is natural?
A few months ago I was giving a talk and brought up aquaponics as a good way to grow vegetables during times of drought. Aquaponics is growing fish and plants together. It could be outside or in a greenhouse or even in your basement, but the beauty of the system is that the plants take up the waste products of the fish, and the fish thrive by having the plants clean their … [Read more...]