Texas Drought

You know my goal is to have a productive farm, so I am knee deep into my 30 minutes and 3 things routine. I work daily taking care of farm animals and tending to the garden. Yesterday I worked in  my garden like I do everyday. I weeded for 30 minutes around my asparagus and mulched them with dried pond weeds to help retard the growth of future weeds and help keep them from drying out so fast after being watered. I also dug up 3 red potato plants to put up for winter use. Lastly, I planted 3 rows of beets. 

We fed the free range chickens a bit of corn. They get most of their food by searching around the pasture and under the shade trees. I then fed the farm dogs and 1 grey cat. My husband used his tractor to pull out the weeds growing around the pond to feed to the pigs. To help supplement store bought pig feed we also feed them weeds from my garden and weeds growing around the farm. We noticed that on one side of the pond there were no weeds growing because the cows kept it all nice and trim, so we decided to feed the weeds growing on the other side of the pond to the pigs.

Taking Weeds to the Pigs

Feed cost for the farm animals has increased about 60 percent for us. There are rumors the prices will incur more increases due to the continued inflation and of course that is now being complicated by drought.

 It's been awhile since we've had rain. Well, I'll take that back. We did have a spit of rain a couple of weeks ago. It rain or spitted on us for less than 30 seconds. This drought or lack of rain in our area of Texas has us worried. How are we suppose to have a productive farm without rain? 

Instead of sitting and worrying we have devised a plan to keep our animals well fed by irrigating our pastures and gardens with our pond water. That will keep us producing grass and vegetables. We also will supplement animal feed by buying truck loads of bread from our local bread store, cut down trees for the cows and pigs to eat the leaves, keep gathering weeds for the pigs, and let the cows into our front yard to eat the grass. We will also be mowing the grass between our fence and the road in order to rake it up to feed to the farm animals. 

We will sell our extra piglets and calves to raise money for feed. We will also be scouring the local area for alternative feed for the farm animals.

May you find affordable ways to feed your farm animals and keep your garden growing.