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| Our empty chicken pens. |
God was so good to us and taught us much through this batch. The new hoop-house pens were a blessing beyond compare as we didn't have to crawl around with the chickens. And my favorite thing about them is that you can see the chickens when you move the pen so you don't run over them. Heh...yeah, that happened a few times last year. So far everyone is very pleased with our product and we had a few new customers this time as well.
Something God has really been showing me this year with the chickens is that there is an interesting relationship between farmer and livestock. We order them knowing that our purpose is to kill and eat them. Some people would think that that is cruel and that you have a mean spirit towards animals but this could not be further from the truth. I find that when I know that an animal is going to be used to sustain life by being part of the groceries, I have a special respect for it and want to make it's life as good as it can be. I don't want it to have stress and difficulties as the sacrifice of it's life is for my family to survive. There is an amazing principle in life that it takes sacrifice for life to continue. We have to kill animals and eat them, we have to pull plants out of the ground and eat them, even in growing trees it is in pruning the trees, which is taking away from them, that they produce the most fruit to sustain us. It took killing animals to cover the sins of Israel and it took the shedding of Christ's blood to give us life. Without sacrifice, there is no life. God is so good and I love the principles that he teaches us in his creation.
Aside from the chickens now being gone, Truly (our milk cow) has almost become a top notch milker. We had our bouts in the beginning with that leg of hers that always wanted to connect with my arm, but she has calmed down and has the routine down pat. Granted it took a few training sesssions to accomplish this i.e. *cow kicks....I "tap" cows leg with stick*. :) But she is quite the milk cow now. I can walk up to her and milk her in the pasture...while keeping an eye on her horns. heh.
We were able to build a nice stanchion that REALLY helped too. It only cost about $100 to build and took about a half a day working by myself. Here are a few pictures of it.
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| Truly walks into the stanchion...sticks her head through the head catch to get to the feed on the other side, and we lock her head in so she can't go backwards. |
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| Next the right side, which is on hinges, gets swung around so she can't move side to side. |
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| Then the chain that is attached to the right swinging side is latched to the stationary side. This not only helps keep her from backing up...but keeps her tail pinned down so you don't get a face full of cockleburs! |
With this system we have been very successful with her. Taking her from straight off the pasture never being touched to hand milking was a little challenging but she is worth it now. Below is a picture of one day's worth of milk. Those are 1/2 gallon jars and we get that everyday. 2&1/2 gallons and sometimes 3 gallons per day. Needless to say we drink a lot of milk and have found many interesting things that you can do with it.
One thing I have noticed with having different people come over and milk with us is that most people don't have a clue how to milk a cow. Not that that's a bad thing...it's not common practice anymore. So I decided to make a really short video on how to milk a Bessy cow. You'll have to forgive the quality...my cinematography is still in training. I thought the music was appropriate. :)
May God bless you in you farming ventures!
The Farmer
