Golden Age Farm

Yesterday we added 6 new sheep to our flock. We now have 10 ewes and 1 ram. If our boy is doing his job properly they should all be pregnant by next month aiming for lambs to be birthed in March of next year. That means God willing there will be 10 or so lambs ready for slaughter in September 2024. This is our first major step towards self-sufficiency in meat. Lamb is delicious and small enough to slaughter and butcher yourself on your own property (unlike cattle which need to be transported to a slaughterhouse for processing). 10 lambs will fill our freezer (as well as friends and family) for quite some time, completely shielding us from rising food prices or shortages. For an added bonus - can you spot our livestock guardian dog in the picture?

Farm to table chicken ready for Thanksgiving

Sweet potato casserole from our very own home grown sweet potatoes

Beautiful autumn colours

PO-TAY-TOES Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew. Harvested this morning. Sweet potatoes are incredibly easy to grow and a good source of carbs.

Egg production is at an all time high. Eggs have been our first useful product from the farm and the best so far. Between my daughter and I we eat 6 a day and we still have more than we can eat. Gifts for neighbors and friends! Home grown eggs from chickens free to forage taste far superior to supermarket eggs its almost a different food.

Earlier in the year, five chickens left the main group and formed their own breakaway chicken civilization on the other side of the yard. This group became quite wild and impossible to catch. Even when I trapped one of them inside the electric fence with the others, it simply flew out. The main group of chickens, on the other hand, never tries to escape. They have become docile and calm. Instead of foraging on their own, they simply mill about aimlessly at the edge of the fence, waiting for me to feed them. They are addicted to the free chicken feed, and have become domesticated and dependent. They no longer know how to live outside the enclosure, even though they are perfectly physically capable of escaping. If was a chicken, I think I'd stay with the free life, even though its leaner and harder, and avoid the free grain at all costs. Far better to forage for your own food and keep your own eggs, than become fat and dependent, and have your eggs taken from you. The "free" grain is never without cost.

Autumn is here and we are starting to almost feel a slight chill in the evening air. Testing out the wood stove with cedar wood. Coziness level 10/10

This is not farm related (although we do hope to eventually produce our own!) But we really like these Serenity Kids food pouches. They are organic and high protein and our 18 month old daughter likes to eat them herself.

The next step is to bring Daisy our dairy cow into the mix. She will go first, followed by our 5 sheep, then 20 chickens. We are experimenting on a small scale and learning the ropes before we go bigger. Each pen is made up of 2x 164' electric netting fences. We use these ones from premier1supply (https://www.premier1supplies.com/p/electrostop-primaposts-10-42-12-electric-fence). Each square pen measures ~7000sqft (0.16 acres) and is powered by its own solar powered charger. Right now, the sheep eat down the grass in about two weeks. For ideal rotational grazing, the grass should be eaten down within 5-7 days. So if we double the number of sheep, we are getting close to the right rotation cadence. It remains to be seen how much grass Daisy will require, and if this will be enough for her. Since we can use standard electric fence wire for her, it should be easy to increase the size of her pen as necessary.