Are We Really Independant?
September 24th, 2005 by Northern FarmerI’m writing this with a hornet stung hand and it smarts something terrible. The other day we had a neighbor girl over visiting daughter Rachel and that girl got stung four places. Had to really feel sorry for her. She sure was in some kinda pain. But we had some herbal skin cream from the Ozark Mountains that we use for just those times and her pain went away quick. Well, today that cream is borrowed out to my mother and she ain’t home so…. swollen hand time. But, at least I found the hornet’s nest. The revenge will come in a hour or two when their hole in the ground gets a gallon of fuel oil and a match. Them buggers sure are mean and I’m not going there till after dark. Now I hope there ain’t no hornets rights people reading this, but then again it would be fun to debate with a swollen hand and a sore arm. I think I’d win.
Light rain and cloudy today around here and was just doing little jobs, sometimes a person needs that. Following up my last posting about farm animals loosing their resistance to parasites and diseases, I think if it ever gets rough, which it will someday, most farm animals aren’t going to cut the mustard. Not much natural resistance left in most animals and fowl. Take the chicken for example. I don’t know about disease resistance but “most” chickens that farmers and homesteaders raise for food don’t have enough brains to reproduce themselves. This is nothing new of course, it’s been going on for the last fifty years or more. I think we have to be a little careful on what we’re doing out here. It’s OK to raise them from the hatchery and all that, heck we do and it works out really good. Because next year we’ll order more from the hatchery and start all over again. But I’ve always wondered what happens when the hatcheries go under from really hard times, or New World Order thugs only want you to eat their factory garbage and manage to wipe out the hatcheries through some food safety laws. I know this sounds far fetched, but keeping a close eye on agriculture these last few years I’m starting to wonder about it. And I do beleive that anyone that has ever met me would say that I’m not an extremist. Just a good ol boy living a decent life is what I hope is said about me. In the past I’ve been to Central America, namely Honduras, and did alot of close up observations with the regular people living in the rural areas in the mountains. My feeling is that if the economy and everything else goes to heck, them people are way ahead of us in taking care of themselves. Their animals and chickens might not be what we’re used to as agriculture and even alot of homesteading has been taken over by industrial ag. But their animals will reproduce themselves and keep on going, while our broilers and White Rocks, and most of the other breeds of chickens will have a dickens of a time trying to be mothers. “Modern” dairies will be hit hard with their whopping 1.9 lactation lifetime average. Remember when them cows would milk ten or more years? And hogs, it’s hard to find a hog that even tastes good anymore. Let alone live a full life. With beef cattle it’s a little better but the “industry” is trying to destroy them too.
One common thread that I notice on the farming and homesteading blogs and sites is how to farm the Polyface way. And this is all great, I’m doing some of it too, but remember one important thing, mostly with the poultry, it depends on industrial ag. We’re raising in a separate flock, and it’s small, real chickens. As time marches on we’ll put more effort into expanding them than the other chickens. Not to preserve a breed or something like that but to get back to some chickens that can survive and feed the family and more with little interference from modern industrialism. Heck, in Central America, I rather dought they’re preserving breeds, they’re keeping their farms going as always. They’re feeding their families and communities. Believe me they don’t have much choice. And I beleive we won’t someday either.
Did you’all know that even the seeds that we all raise in our gardens are pretty much controled by big ag now. That has happened rather quickly also. That burns my butt! A person thinks that they are getting away from the culture of death and all we’re doing is profiting them from another angle. This is something everyone, be it a farmer, homesteader or city folk can help out with. Get seed or plant stock that can reproduce itself!! This is so important I can’t stress it enough. Save your seeds from non hybrid plants, trade em with like minded folk. There’s very few things more important than doing these little things. If your in the city or suburbs plant a few plants and save some seed, it all adds up.
My worst nightmare is that Christian Agrarian minded folk think they’re getting away from the culture of death and find they’re hooked into it totally.
September 24th, 2005 at 9:21 pm
Great post. You raise some important issues. I had a customer stop by who was interested in broilers. She wanted to buy some chicken. When she found out that they were the turbo chickens, she declined. Very wise lady. She pointed out that she was looking for real chickens bred to do what God intended. She encouraged us to get normal breeds and butcher them smaller. She was very polite in this discussion. I had never thought of it before.
We also had two broilers escape from the pen and join the layers. It saddens my heart to know that they will probably just drop dead one day…cardiac arrest.
My son also asked a few questions about them and got me to thinking. He is seven and asked if we could just let them live and give us eggs. I explained they would most likely die before they could lay eggs. He asked how we got Cornish cross chickens if they couldn’t lay eggs. My husband then shared the tale of how they were cross breds never meant to continue on in the reproduction of themselves. Sad indeed!
Another problem we had was tumors. We had them on grass and all but several of them broke out with sores on their backside. I thought at first it was just picking on each other. But when we butchered the sore seemed to have a core to it. It was the strangest thing.
Perhaps we can spin off this model and raise broilers that are real chickens. Your post motivates me all the more to explore it.
We also had another customer who encouraged us to by real seed for our garden “from ages ago”. Not the genetically modified seed. Daily I praise God for how he is raising some of these issues through our customers and blogs.
Great post!!!
September 24th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
Thanks for the sobering post. It is something indeed to remark upon how animals (and plants) have been engineered to the point that they won’t even be able to reproduce.
I’m glad that before we begin on our agrarian venture we have people like you who are forging the way and starting the battle.
Thanks for the info.
September 25th, 2005 at 12:06 am
hey there, I came here through Peggy’s blog so I hope you don’t mind me commenting and saying howdy. So sorry about the hornet sting, you know the best thing to put on bee and wasp stings is banana skin. Yep it works a treat, brings the swelling down and heals it up in a jiffy.
September 25th, 2005 at 8:40 am
KSMM,
Sounds like we’re both in tune to the same thing. This is a subject that does bother me alot.
This past season we built our first movable chicken tractor but our family decided to put the dual purpose breed, White Rock, in for raising up instead of broilers. I know they’re not as “efficient” as broilers as far as growth time and feed consumption, but our family wanted some real old time taste. And if you read a previous post I wrote you know the huge success we had raising them. To put it bluntly, I’m a little scared raising up the commercial broilers, there’s so many things that go wrong with them as you even pointed out. I remember in my younger days the family would run around the yard catching loose chickens to butcher, although if a person didn’t want all that fun and excitement we’d just lock em up at night or catch them in the machine shed rafters after dark. Them were good tasting chickens alright and this summer’s white rocks were the first time in years that we had that old fashion chicken taste.The regular coop chickens are darn good, but the chicken tractor ones were definetly a notch above. Now with the chickens we have we’re going to find any mothering instincts left and work from there, encouraging setting. We saved some dandy roosters to help get it all started so this coming spring any hens that seriously set will be givin a long lifespan around here.And I’m not really worried about mogrelizing them, heck they can cross with the banties too for all I care. So what if production or growth is not quite up to par with the hybred chickens. Plus it does make life more interesting when a person is visiting other like minded folk and there’s some chicken trading going one during the visit. Trading chickens, other livestock, and plants and plant seeds, well, it’s a dream come true for a person like me. And I do plan on planting mostly the “old” seeds this next year from the different seed outfits on my blogs sidebar, might join Seed Savers too.
Gwen,
The encouragement you and people like you give means so much. This taking a good size farm and ever so slowly bringing it around to what it’s becoming was a little lonely and fustrating in times past. But like minded folk are starting to communicate and it’s great. One of these days I’ll have to put together all I have with people in our area so we can form a tighter network. There’s getting to be more than a handful from our state that are in contact with this blog. We’ll have to put something together in the near future. Thanks again!
Amy,
Oops, we don’t have any bananas on hand! I do know that it works and thanks for the reminder!They say tobacco works wonders too, so I’ll take some of my Bowie Chewing Tobacco out of my fron pocket and set er on there for awhile.
I think you have the award for farthest away visitor to my humble blog. New Zealand, WOW!! I’ve always wanted to go there and hope to someday. Daughter Rachel has always said she’ld like to go there as an agriculture exchange student. We’ll be visiting your blog often! Thanks so much for dropping in!
September 25th, 2005 at 7:50 pm
Hi there:
Can you tell me how long did you range your white rocks? Was there a huge size difference? I talked to Brian about doing and experiment and running a few dual purpose breeds together and seeing what would happen. He was just concerned they would be to small and we couldn’t sell them. I would love no more than to do real chickens. Thanks so much for bringing this up.
September 25th, 2005 at 7:50 pm
Hi there:
Can you tell me how long did you range your white rocks? Was there a huge size difference? I talked to Brian about doing and experiment and running a few dual purpose breeds together and seeing what would happen. He was just concerned they would be to small and we couldn’t sell them. I would love no more than to do real chickens. Thanks so much for bringing this up.
September 26th, 2005 at 4:42 am
We had them 3 weeks in the brooder starting in the end of May and were able to butcher some of the front runners in the end of July/early Aug.These first ones were a little smaller than the rest, but not by much.There were a hundred in the pen so it sure did releive the crowding when the first ones were taken out.After the first ones the rest grew at a rapid pace and we had to butcher fairly quick. Remember, they’ll never keep up with broilers, but being these were mostly for ourselves it was our choice. Also one will run across customers that prefer chickens of this type. We even have a customer that prefers the colored egg laying breeds, and will pay for them extra. Lastly, last week we butchered the last 9 White Rocks that were outside. They kinda got forgotten for a few weeks because of harvest and the like. They sure got big! I was scared they’d be tough, but low and behold, they were great!!
September 26th, 2005 at 10:01 am
NF,
You say the Polyface way of raising poultry is dependent on industrial ag. In what way? Is it by not having a perpetual stock that, instead, has to be replenished with industrial ag chicks?
The little I know about farming in general, and sustainable farming in particular is “book learned”. I am an aspiring agrarianist who is trying a few little things at home - in suburbia. I wanted to raise a few chickens but the rules where I live prohibit it. Still, my vision is that free range poultry will be one of our primary activities and I’ve seen Salatin’s method in person and read about it. They seem to work great.
Any clarifications are appreciated.
It is despicable what these Corporate entities are doing/have done to food production. Everything is now so precarious and beholden to them for perpetuity be it livestock or seed.
Thanks.
September 26th, 2005 at 10:59 am
That is what I meant WJG, just stating that the whole system has to be running for that meathod to succeed and keep going. What I’m referring to is if there would be a huge collapse in the present system. It would be good to have some sustainable chickens. I do a variant of the Polyface way myself and like it alot. I don’t want this post to be taken as against the Polyface system, not at all.Thanks for bringing it up,
Tom
September 27th, 2005 at 6:41 am
I don’t know about your area, but around here people will definitely buy smaller broilers in order to get “real chickens”. My husband and I drive 25 miles each weekend to go to a Farmer’s Market that has grass fed beef, organic produce, farm eggs, fresh caught fish and such. We also hit a farm that sells raw milk, cheese, and lamb products that is in the same area.
Most of our friends also go to the same places, and we all tend to have a lot of kids. So that’s several big families that I know personally. The field parking lot is always hopping.
It’s pretty yuppie here in CT, I admit, but I think lots of people are looking for real food, not what passes for food these days.
I can’t encourage you to continue your efforts by buying your products, but I bet there are people just like me in your area that will.
September 27th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
Thanks for another great post.
I’m just starting the agrarian direction — currently have my first batch of broilers (Cornish cross) — and I am already wondering the same questions. I talked to several other PPGs (pastured poultry growers) and learned that it was very unlikely that I could keep out a few hens and a rooster and get any increase. So I expect I will be getting some White Rocks by next spring with the goal of “sustainable” in mind.
Again, thank you for your very helpful thoughts. I love the ABC (Agrarian Blogging Community).
JFC
September 27th, 2005 at 6:16 pm
Mothersong,
It’s encouraging just having you stop by this blog. Welcome!
JFC,
I don’t know how White Rocks would do as far as sustainability but you never know. They sure are some super chickens to raise in the old chicken tractor though. I do beleive they’re some sort of hybrid also but they aren’t as far down the line as the Cornish crosses. Near the end of the book Pasture Poultry Profits, Joel writes about how it’s getting more and more difficult raising the Cornish because they are bred for one reason only and that’s to be loaded with antibiotics and hormones and placed in a factory barn.There all they do is eat and drink without hardly moving around at all. Their researchers are continually breeding for them to live in that enviroment period. One thing that’s as sure as the sun coming up in the east is that when enough farmers are raising them to be noticed by Industrial Poultry it will quickly become like GMO seed. Farmers will still be able to purchase day olds but there will be a “Genetic Royalty” to pay to whomever owns the patent on the Cornish Crosses. Sounds wild doesn’t it. It’ll be here before you know it. Soon Monsanto or one of the other huge Industrial Ag companies will make a guarenteed profit on every chicken that a person raises, even the ones that died. Plus once a person is stuck in that senerio the contract might state that a person has to by medication from Big Brother or feed or the like.The only hope would be for some smaller outfit to breed a strain of Cornish Crosses for sale to farmers but having observed Big Ag for some time now, one can pretty well bet they’d be bought out in a jiffy if successful.Thus the importance of trying to develope a sustainable flock to feed our families and more. One would never be able to raise 10000 like in some pasture systems now. But by then I’d say it’ll be more important to take care of your own family and neighbors.
October 6th, 2005 at 6:08 pm
I sympathize with you pain in the hand. Yesterday I too got a yellow jacket hornet stink smack dab in the middle of my right palm when I went to use the stick shift on the bucket loader that a hornet was using for a resting place. Hurts like heck. But, please reconsider revenge. They are just defending themselves in the only way they know how when they sting. More importantly the hornets have an important role in the scheme of life - they hunt down and kill pests who would otherwise eat our crops. If their nest is not in your direct common space it would be better to let it just be. Be thank for for all the pests they’ll eliminate each year.
October 7th, 2005 at 7:10 pm
Walter,
First, thanks for stopping by this blog.As far as the yellow jackets, that was the problem, they were in a spot we use and it was my responsibility to get rid of them, more because of the kids being stung and having reactions than myself. Yellow jackets anywhere else are safe from me.
Tom