Yesterday, my husband helped me with my farm chores. He is very helpful, but I feel guilty with his help, because I know it is taking away time and energy from his own to-do list. He has been welding gates, fixing air conditioners, making doors, and fixing fences. He is about to start a big project of expanding the pond next week. We need the pond to be bigger because we are going to do some cross fencing to rotate our cows through different pastures and while in each pasture, the cows will need access to the pond water to drink.
Anyhow, with his help we made a big dent in the daily 30 minutes of weeding. We gathered all of those weeds to feed the pigs. We didn't plant any crops yesterday, but we did harvest some beets! We didn't water the pasture because we got .10 inch of rain the previous night. We will water tomorrow if we don't get anymore rain. We might get some rain from the tropical disturbance coming up from the Texas Gulf Coast. We probably won't get any rain until my husband rents the excavator next week to dig out the pond. When he gets the excavator it will rain everyday. That's how our luck generally goes, rain when you don't need it and no rain when you are desperate for it.
We moved our pigs around a bit yesterday. We moved the boar with our brown sow, so maybe she could have another litter of piglets in the fall. We moved our replacement boar to the pen the boar was previously. We moved the replacement boar, so as to free up one side of the cattle pen for the feeding of the cows.
Speaking of feeding the cows, we purchased a truck load of feed bread from our local bakery outlet. A truck load of feed consists of 25 large plastic trash bags of loaves of bread. We paid $45 for the truck load, which averages out to $1.80 per trash bag of bread.
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| Truck Load of Feed Bread |
We bought the bread to help feed our farm animals. Remember one of my goals is to have a productive farm where my family can eat for free or almost free the meat and crops our farm produces. To help with this goal we are trying out different cost effective and nutritive feeds for the farm animals.
All of our farm animals are free range except for the large pigs. Our cows, goats, sheep, chickens, and piglets are free to forage for their own feed daily, which they do. We gather weeds, acorns, leaves, and other naturally growing crops for our large pigs. We also feed the pigs garden and kitchen scraps. We do not let them free range due to their large size and the damage they can do to the pastures if left to their own rooting devices. So what we feed to all the farm animals daily is supplemental feed to add to their diet to keep them active, healthy, and growing.
Feeding the farm animals feed bread is a little bit more labor intensive because you have to open each loaf of bread and dump it into a wheelbarrow. I cannot open each loaf of bread and immediately toss it over to the animals, because it takes time to open each loaf. If I do that the only animals that will be eating will be the alpha males. So in order to ensure all animals eat, I fill up the wheelbarrow with open bread and cart it over to the animal feeding area. I then strategically toss it over to feed the animals. I throw more bread to certain animals that require more, such as my dairy cow or to a pregnant animal.
I feed all of the farm animals using the feed bread. I feed 3 bags daily, which will make the truck load of bread last about 8 days. We got our name placed on the feed bread list at our local bakery store last week to get a call twice a month to pick up feed bread. Our hope is that this will help cut the high rising costs of farm animal feed and keep our animals healthy while providing a variety in their diet. They are loving the bread!
On July 4th veterans will receive an extra 15% off on their purchases at Tractor Supply! We plan to stock up on protein pellets and salt blocks for the farm animals. If you are a veteran, you may want to check out the sale.
May we continue to find alternative feed for our farm animals that keep them healthy and are economical!
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