Oh it has been awhile since I've felt the urge to post, not that I have one now but if you don't keep the ball rolling then it stops which I cannot afford. I am here at Fresh Pasture Farms by myself after on my thrid week. The Rabon's all had vacation so I am running things. It feels pretty good to have the responisibilty but its not too hard really. I just have to feed and water the animals, keep everything alive and manage the lawn by chopping mesquite. Mesquite is a rather large problem for the arid climates, they are thorny bushes that can take over a pasture-their lively hood taken over by a hardwooded bush. The animals at the farm are free range Freedom Ranger chickens, pigs of the Yorkshire and Red Wattle, two horses for pleasure, a few cattle not sure the types and white turkeys. My daily chores have been to wake up at 630 to chop mesquite and reclaim pasture or knip them in the butt before they grow too big. That is a good wakeup then I feed the turkeys and layer chickens with some scratch grains consisting of corn and sorgum possibly some other grains and give them water. Then I take the truck to give the hogs water and give them their feed and any leftovers from the family and feed the chickens plus water. Then I just do odd jobs like weed the garden or water the plants or fix a gate or chop down a tree-all fun stuff. The farm is largely a hobby that feeds the family and helps the community. I work till 1130 then eat lunch and take a siesta then maybe an hour or so before dinner do something else for them.
Raising livestock really is a piece of cake if you give them everythign they need to grow. I have been reading alot of Joe Salatin books Salad Bar Beef, You can Farm: An Entepeneurs Guide and Pasture Raised Poultry along with Michael Pollan's Omnivores Dilemma. These are all fantastic books I highly recommend them. Salatin has a very colloquial tone and is easy to read; his books are full of anecdotes and "dirt under the finger nails" knowledge that is very useful. Its too much to summerize although I may try sometime before I leave lol. Pollan's book is basically the documentary Food Inc in book form with more detail obviously and a bit more story and it is incredible; it will turn you vegetarian or activist very quickly. I despise our current food system it is sucking the life out of everything we hold dear and I cant stand it.
All that is for another time, my rant for tonight will be about pigs. If you have a backyard you need a pig. It would literally end all food waste in the country or industrial countries in general. All the families leftovers or just food waste like the part of veggies you do not eat, the peel of potatoes or mango or banana for example all to the pigs. They are omnivores and will eat anything, its true. They turn waste into delicious pork. Homegrown pork tastes so good. Factory pork is an abomination. They live their whole lives in darkness so they don't attack each other from being body to body. They have their tails docked because as piglets they are weaned (taken from their mother and off milk) at 3 weeks instead of the proper 8 so that they have a life long oral fixation and suck each others tails until they are raw as the pigs are all depressed from their lives-yes pigs are intelligent and understand enough to hate their lives that fate has handed them-and become infected due to the unsanitary living conditions and die. If that was not bad enough each pig is given a set ration of 6 lbs-factories are mechanized and automated with standards-but some pigs are hungrier than others so to satiate themselves they balance the difference with feces. YES they eat their own crap becasue they are hungry so I dare anyone who reads this to eat pork from the grocery store again, it is the most immoral act we can do as human beings. If we are to eat pork at all, pigs should live their lives out as pigs rooting in the grass or forest eating acorns and bugs and grass-whenever i move pigs they go first for fresh grass then the feed-then end their lives quickly and painlessly just as I want to live and die. There are many more rants to be had about factory farming so I will later till then, stay hungry
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