The star attractions this season are a quartet of Berkshire pigs and six turkeys.
Pig fence. |
Eastern Wild Turkey Poult. |
We are raising meat kings again this year. This will be our third summer raising them and we've started 30. We took advantage of having the extra penned area in the barn and moved them in with the turkeys. It has worked out really well. This batch is more active and is already foraging through the bedding. Another week or so and we'll move them out to pasture.
We have new neighbours and we bartered four tractor buckets full of manure for an old chest freezer they were throwing away. The freezer perfectly holds the pig, horse and cow feed and is rodent proof. There's even room for me to keep my brushes for the horse.
We lost one of meat kings this week and one of our layers. Chickens can be hardy and resistant but when one takes it into its head to die, there's nothing you can do about it. They become the most fragile creature on the earth.
Spring is here and summer is at her heels. Tonight's stroll around the fields just reminds me of the beauty lurking just outside our door.
Lilacs in the big field. |