The Hog Highway

Today was a day of taking the road to Guilford to our butcher with a load of pigs and sheep. I am always asked if I feel sad when taking the animals to be processed. I can answer it easily, no.
Loading the pigs and the sheep take two very different techniques. First the pigs. The pigs will just about follow me anywhere especially if I have food with me. So I did not feed them dinner last night knowing they would be very hungry in the morning. I backed the trailer up to the old milk room (VoterVale Farm was a big dairy farm back in the 70’s) so the pigs could literally hop onto the trailer. Once they did that I shut the inner compartment door so I could leave the outer door open for the sheep to go in. Ah the sheep. Not as easy as the pigs. First sheep are very cautious animals and are very jumpy. They won’t follow me even if I have grain, so I tried to “push” them in the trailer by going behind them and they would run away from me but they would not go into the milk room and into the trailer. So I had to corner them, catch them and get a harness on them to lead them in. Sound easy? Not so much at least I was in the barn and couldn’t get outside but difficult still. After about 15 minutes and many a word uttered very loudly (good thing the kids were at school) the sheep were caught and put in the trailer.
The road to Guilford is a lonely road dotted with rural villages, old farms and general stores along the way. Only one, I say one, food chain store (or any kind of chain store) in the 70 mile one way trek and of coarse it is Dunkin Donuts in Madison. I am a sucker for a good cup of coffee. (I do not think a Starbucks would put in a store on this route)

Loading animals

The cell phone service is spotty at best and the radio stations do not always come in crystal clear. I have this road memorized and could drive it in my sleep. The road is very bumpy so the animals get entertained on their way there. During the trip I always brainstorm from the farm, to soccer teams,(by the way one of the butchers there is a huge soccer fan) to planting a new forage crop. Lots of time to think on this trip. When I get there I always and go inside and speak with Ellie the awesome receptionist and get the paperwork straightened away and then go for the unloading. This usually takes 10-15 minutes and we are off for home. I have dubbed this route the Hog Highway as I have taken many hogs over the last few years over this route.

VoterVale Farm

barley and oats

old and should not be lifting 100 LBS grain bags)
Grain for pigs however is not really where we want to be in the long haul. It is a short term solution to growing pigs. We want to be able to feed our animals with what we have here on the farm so in case at some point grain just becomes way too expensive to purchase anymore or (gulp) something catastrophic happens and the government doesn’t allow commerce to come over the border to deliver grain for the farmers. A possible solution is dairy. Dairy waste grows pigs well and currently we get some cheese whey from a creamery in Norridgewock. (around 40 gallons a month) Now if you have ever witnessed a pig when it realizes it has dairy on its menu, please do not get in the pigs way. They absolutely go oink over dairy. 40 gallons of dairy waste lasts 10 minutes with our pigs. Now with all being said, to become more self sufficient in regards with the pigs, we would need our own source of dairy which means we would need cows or goats. We have talked about getting cows but just a small number for our consumption with the beef and dairy. Our kids drink milk like their is no tomorrow. This week has been a gallon a day. 5 gallons in a week at $4.50 is $25 a week, 52 weeks in a year is over $1000 a year in milk. We will likely purchase cows in the future to feed our kids and what they do not eat, the pigs will get.
Feeding Katahdin sheep is easy. They eat grass and leafy shrubs (yes even pine trees) so becoming self sustaining with the sheep is easy. Now, haylege is where we draw the line. Some things are best done by others. Haying and having hay equipment is one of those things. Other farmers all around us have the equipment and its done right here locally. Why not barter or pay for haylege (marshmallows)? Cows eat it, pigs eat it, sheep eat it. All grass all the time. One bale roughly costs us $40. We figure currently we need 40 bales to get us through the winter with our pigs and sheep that we currently have. That is $1600. That is very achievable and it is local. With haylege (marshmallows) you can also get away from feeding lots of grain to the cows and sheep as it has a higher protein content then just plain unwrapped hay. This is our idea that we have for our future here with our animals and we will try it, see how well it works, tweak stuff if it needs tweaking and if it doesn’t work then we will try try again to see what works best when it come to try to be more self sustaining in feeding the animals.

VoterVale Farm

Sweet Maine Breakfast Basket
A Pint of Maple Syrup with 2 jars of our sweet berry jams.  $25

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Where is the defrost button?

It isn’t really buried, that would take a whopper of a snowstorm for that to happen. Wednesday November 23 was the first significant snowfall for the upcoming winter. (Technically it is still fall) We received about 8-10 inches of snow.
As of today November 28th, the snow for all intent purposes is gone. Today we saw near 55 degrees and while unloading marshmallows (hay) the ground got muddy in a hurry while lifting them out of the livestock trailer with the tractor. Ideally I wanted to have all of our ordered haylege here already, but like all things on the to do list before winter starts, it isn’t done yet. 24 more bales to go and Ill have all of our ordered hay here. What a relief that would be.
The boys (well 2 out of the three) help me put the chains on the haylege so I can pull them out of the trailer and push them into place. Like I stated in another post, bale grippers would be a valued addition to the tractor. That way the risk of tearing the plastic wrap on the bales would be greatly diminished. Maybe I’ll ask Santa for that for Christmas, cause that is what I really want (and need).

VoterVale Farm

Some breeds, including Katahdin hair sheep, are more likely to breed off-season.  This year, we decided to introduce our young ram, Buddy, to some of the ewes in late May just to see if we would have off-season lambs.  Success!  We had our first fall lamb born on the farm this morning and we have a few more who look like they’ll give birth soon.  The good news is that this first lamb was big at almost 13 lbs.  The bad news is that it was only one.  We usually have twins and sometimes triplets.  Now we’ll  have to wait and evaluate how many lambs, how fast they grow, and all those other things!

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