We pride ourselves on our ''farm fresh' meals every now and then. I'll post pics of tomato salads, venison tenderloins (not
grown but
harvested here) zucchini casseroles and beets and beet by-products. It was a good year for beets. I never want to see another one.
What I've not discussed much is what the animals of Capra Lane dine on. Dawn and dusk, day in and day out the feeding regimen continues.
The meat birds are almost done cooking. In fact, D-Day is tomorrow. One thing to check off the daily routine! They eat a high protein meat bird grower and are free ranged on grass and bugs as well. We raise them in an interior coop until they are about 3 weeks old and feathered out then they move outside to forage.
The laying hens receive a high protein mix of layer pellets and crumbles, as well as oyster shell and calcium to strengthen the eggshells. They enjoy cleaning off our sweet corn cobs the most but will eat any type of leftovers, greens, beans, tomatoes, melons and squash. They are supplemented with whole grain scratch and are free ranged on rotating yards. Right now they are decimating the sunflowers lining the coop which are beginning to seed out.
The turkeys are growing very well. We aren't going to make the 35 pound turkey mistake again. We have a slaughter date scheduled far in advance of Thanksgiving, so this year we can serve more than a leg and a wing. They eat a game bird pellet and are supplemented on scratch grains and vegetables. They're either picky or just plain stupid, some days they eat whatever we toss in and other days are terrified of it. On this day they were feasting on cucumbers with their scratch grains.
Our bacon seeds are growing! Look at those hams! The hogs have free choice grain which is a mix of cracked corn, rolled oats, hog grower and sweet feed. They eat a lot of it. What they really look forward to is milk, drinking from 3-5 gallons per day. The little tail stubs start wagging as soon as they hear us coming. By the way, any idea why 3 hogs will produce 100 times more poop than 2 hogs? We can't fathom why they are so much more disgusting than when we just had 2. They're topping the scales at about 150 now, butchering weight is 250-ish and they average 1.5 lbs of weight gain per day. Yes, per 1 day.
The pigs are our garbage disposals. Today I was canning beets so they got a whole bucket of beet tops and peels and tons of fresh beet greens as well as some cabbage and zucchini ends. The massive beet harvest meant lots of beet parts went to the pigs, the goats readily eat the greens but not the flesh and the chickens kind of shunned them. The pen looked like a crime scene though with beet juice running everywhere. One morning they ate a 'too-soft' batch of cheese, one morning had our leftover pancakes with an overripe avocado. Cracked or pecked eggs are boiled and fed twice weekly. Peach peels and leftover cobbler caused quite the ruckus and they really seem to enjoy stale bread soaked in milk as well. We bed them on hay which they also use for feed and pick out all the good bits. Pigs that eat vegetables make healthy bacon, right? The only thing we restrict is meat since we definitely do not want to encourage carnivorous behavior.
Next onto the biggest eaters of all - the goats. They eat a Nutrena grain blend of pellets and whole grains lightly sweetened with molasses. As you can see, they really like it.
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| Goat feed. It smells really good but it's deceiving. Don't ask me how I know... |
The babies also receive alfalfa pellets at each feeding for the calcium and protein needed for growth. We use them in some of the adults as well to push weight gain and milk production.
Hay is, of course, the star of the show given that these guys are ruminants. Good quality hay is essential and grain is really just supplemental. We grow a mix of alfalfa, clover and grasses, speaking of which our last cutting is drying as we speak which means a busy week of scrambling after work to get it baled.
Enough about hay, can we eat now?
Seriously, we're staaaarving!
Accepting that no additional treats (ie saltine crackers) are headed their way tonight they settle for hay. Some of the goats like apples, some carrots. A few like cucumbers, a few zucchini or melon. Elina will practically kill you for a banana and Massey and Luna will eat anything that isn't moving. A favorite is sweet potatoes and marshmallows, although we reserve those for hiding pills / supplements. We also keep sunflower seeds on hand as well, they can help fatten them up and keep their coats very shiny and healthy.
Blessing doesn't care about much, but she loves to eat. She has a private dining room. She eats a combination of llama feed, cracked corn and rolled oats and has her very own himalayan pink salt block as well.
Blessing and the goats graze freely as well. Our 'fast growing' trees finally after 8 years reached a suitable height to offer tiny areas of shade in the pasture. They all shift and shuffle between spots during the day and are lounging late as the nights grow cooler. Up next, breeding season...
