December 31, 2009

I had a request for photos recently and the view out my kitchen window this morning prompted me to go outside with the camera.

Before I went out, though, I had to get this Traditional Swiss in the press. The new press is very nice. It was pricey but being awakened by 40-50 pounds of cast iron barbell weights hitting the floor in the middle of the night because the cheese is pressing on an angle is a bit disconcerting.


When I went outside, I fired up my new Johs handmade danish pipe. My beloved bought me this for Christmas. The picture doesn't really do it justice.

Here is a "before" shot of our garage.

After:

The back part is a woodshed.


Here is the bull calf, Porter House, in his new stall.

Here are some of the ewes. Annie the bottle lamb is nearest the camera.

Bunny the favorite. She likes to be scratched behind the ears. The others don't like human touch.

Da Boyz.

Sugar, laying down chewing her cud. I had a snowflake on the camera lens in this one. We got 2+ inches last night and it's still spitting.

Here's another shot of Sugar when she followed me outside. The OAD milking is going great.

Here is the homemade stanchion where we milk. I may have posted this before. I built it on the Sunday morning after Sugar freshened when I stayed home from church because I was afraid of milk fever.

This is what I did when I came back inside - waxed a gouda. That sounds kind of funny doesn't it?

December 24, 2009

It's been about a month since I've posted and don't remember all that I've shared here. If I repeat myself, bear with me.

About two weeks ago, we decided to try milking Sugar only once a day. She was/is giving about 4 gallons (maybe a bit more) each day and this is kind of a borderline amount for once-a-day milking (OAD). Most of the recommendations I've seen suggest 3 gallons as a good quantity for dropping back to OAD. She's done fine with it, though, and we are vigilant about watching for mastitis. At the first sign (flakes on the milk filter) we will go back to TAD. We've cut back on her grain ration and will probably cut it back some more if she maintains condition.

Porter is still being kept in the stall that he shared with Taffy and to be honest, I'm a little embarrassed by that. I've never believed in keeping animals confined indoors except during the most extreme weather but we just can't let him in with Sugar and risk him trying to nurse and injuring her teats again. Not to mention, he is now 6 months old and likely capable of breeding. We should have him moved to the other barn by the end of the year. His stall will be a bit smaller but we can begin to let him outside. My plan is to keep Sugar in the pasture in front of her barn and let Porter have an area behind the other barn so they will be out of sight of one another.

We've all had the creepin' crud here this week - coughing, sore throat, fever, etc. - but everyone is well on their way back to health. This morning, I finished a mozzarella that had ripened overnight and am now working on a gouda-style. We plan on making a lot of cheese this winter.

Merry Christmas to all!

How I Spent My Thanksgiving Vacation

Before:




After:




My dad built the countertop from solid walnut. I also installed a utility sink in the mudroom for washing the milker.

November 19, 2009

Sheep breeding season is turning out to be something of a fiasco. Usually we have the two breeding groups separated enough that they are mostly out of sight of one another. It didn't work out that way this year since Sugar is taking up our big stall and the two calves are in the other stall in the red barn. At 4:50 this morning when I went outside to leave for work the rams were standing there side by side watching me. They were supposed to be separated by two layers of temporary electric fence which they had trampled. Right now all the sheep are together and have access to the white barn and all of the pasture. The two ewe lambs are in a separate stall since we don't want them bred. I'm going to try to work out something better this weekend.

We really need to get rid of Taffy, the heifer calf. She is going back to Jennifer's uncle's place. The stall where we have her and Porter is just too small for both of them. They are 5 months old now and my best guess is that Porter weighs nearly 300 pounds. Taffy is just a little smaller.

Garage is almost done and I didn't take any photos of the process. We do have a "before" pic, though, so I can post a before & after.

November 7, 2009

Not much going on around here to write about. Oh, don't get me wrong, we're as busy as ever but it's just not blog-worthy stuff. Weekends are almost exclusively devoted to working on the garage. The opening for the door is framed in and the installers are coming next week to install the door and opener. Yesterday we worked on sheeting. More of the same today, then door, windows, trim and finally siding.

I got the gates to put up in the white barn for stalls. I'm a little nervous about moving the calves over there because they're not halter trained yet. Based on what I've read, I'm not sure they're old enough to train at this point but they are definitely too big to control. We'll probably end up driving in some posts and making a lane from cattle panels to move them in.

In the next couple weeks the sheep need to be separated into two breeding groups.

Next Saturday I'm going to the hearthside cooking workshop at Malabar Farm State Park. That should be cool but I probably shouldn't take the time to do it.

Copper and Sheep Update

I get requests from time to time to comment on old posts I've written about feeding mineral mixes to sheep containing copper sulfate. Pat Coleby from Australia popularized this and her mineral mix recipes are available online.

We made this mix from ingredients purchased at gardening stores for two years and had no problems and our sheep were healthy and had no parasite problems. In February 2008 we had the mix made for us at a feed mill. I double and triple checked all the info provided by the mill and everything seemed fine. In May 2008 we nearly lost one of our ewes to copper poisoning. I ended up driving to the large animal department at the OSU Veterinary College and picked up some Ammonium Molybdate and dosed the sick ewe with it for three days. She was jaundiced to the point where the whites of her eyes were light brown and her urine was dark brown. She was nursing newborn twins at the time. Contrary to the prediction of the doc at OSU, she lived and continues to be healthy to this day. She continued to nurse her twins and gave birth to another set in May 2009. We added Sodium Molybdate to the sheep mineral and kelp for the next 30 days to help safely flush the excess copper from the other ewes.

We are currently feeding sheep mineral from Countryside Natural Products. It is quite expensive but the sheep don't eat much. We are using the Coleby mix for our cow and calves.

This post should not reflect negatively at all on the recommendations of Pat Coleby. To this day, I believe she is way ahead of the pack when it comes to animal health and root causes of illness and disease. My belief is that I simply had a ewe who overate the mineral. I understand that she has changed her recommendations with the latest edition of her books but I haven't read them yet.

Vote No on Issue 2

This is from the OEFFA website:

Here are the real facts about Issue 2:

-- Issue 2 would create a Livestock Care Standards Board, stacked with Big Ag and factory farm supporters, which would have sweeping authority to make decisions related to farms and food in Ohio that would have the force of law. The Board would have largely unchecked power to override any act by the Ohio Department of Agriculture and the Ohio Assembly.

--Issue 2 will create a Livestock Care Standards Board with no accountability to voters. Their decisions will be final. There is no further review or evaluation of the standard, no established forum for public comment, and no ability to appeal their decisions.

--Issue 2 serves the economic interests of factory farms, opening the door for the proliferation of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in Ohio.

--Issue 2 emphasizes the need of the livestock industry to provide “affordable food,” yet ignores its hidden costs, including environmental contamination, human health impacts, and the loss of rural communities.

The Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association has been Ohio's voice for sustainable agriculture and local, organic foods for more than 30 years. We represent farmers, ranchers, gardeners, and conscientious eaters who value the importance of livestock in sustainable agricultural production systems and in providing prosperity for Ohio’s farm families.