Introducing Sunny

The newest member of our herd, Dexter X Limousin heifer of Tippi out of the gnarly red Limousin bull next door (one good thing to come from Tippi’s sojourn over the fence!).

So… we were right in our assessment of Tippi being near due, but slightly out in our calculations. We expected Rosie to calve before Tippi, based on when Tippi went away. However, looking back, there was one other occasion, around September, when Hinimoa and Tippi took a reconnaisance tour of the neighbour’s land, courtesy of the farmer’s gate being left open into his property. They stayed away just a day and were back the next day waiting to be let back in. And I must say, Tippi looked a little dishevelled… so it must have been on that visit that she conceived… Which would make the dates right…

We were lucky to catch the birth, as it was quick, very quick. There were no complications and Tippi makes a fine mum to a very fine pixie of a calf.

We had just returned home from picking up Greggie from East Bally Heights (my old oceanside stomping ground before I went pastoral), and were introducing Greggie to the littlest dog, Oscar (seen before inin previous post wearing muscle tee and bling!) and wandering down to check out the herd. Greggie is a critter lover and honorary Uncle to all our animals, but only gts up close and personal when he comes for a farmstay. So Charlene and Greggie had wandered down to say hello to the bovine component of the family, when I heard Charlene yelling out : Tippi’s having her baby!

She had seen a balloon (the membrane sac containing the calf) coming out of Tippi’s vulva, with two little hooves in it! Pretty good indication that Tippi was calving! She didn’t seem visibly distressed and let us get up pretty close to her and the calf during the short birth to ohh and ahh and take photos and marvel at the sight in the sunny light of the afernoon. I’d say she calved in about 15-20 minutes. She lay down only in the last minute or 2, gave one final push and the whole calf gushed out. Immediately Tippi started to clean up the little one, eating the membranes and placenta, licking up blood. Cows eat their afterbirth and so on in order to get the nutrients they need to build up their strength after the birth. They also clean up the calf’s navel, which is a site of infection in many calves. Tippi chewed the cord off right at the body and licked it clean, and looks after it constantly. It’s a gory process but amazing to see the insincts kick in!

Here are a couple of very poor quality photos from my phone…

Sorry, Tippi, very undignified, but for the edification of birth novices, here is is the sac
containing little Sunny. You can see the hooves sticking out.

Sunny, just born, still covered in membranes and slime, being cleaned by Tippi

We were really very taken by surprise by this turn of events. Tippi gave very few outward signs of being imminent. Thereare usually mucus strings coming out of the vulva, which is very swollen, sometimes hanging down. The cow is restless, loses her appetite, paces and so on. She was not even very big, especially compared to Rosie who is very large. Her head looks tiny on her body! Rosie’s calf has dropped right down. In the last months of the pregnancy the calf moves from being up quite high to dropping down low, sometimes sitting noticeably to one side of the belly, so the cow looks very lopsided. Tippi was still high, tight and small.

Little Sunny was up testing out her land legs and having her first drink within the half hour, Tippi grooming her and cleaning her the whole time. At this stage the mum produces colostrum, which is a sticky, thick and yellow milk, full of nutrients which help the baby build strength, fight infection and develop their digestive system. In order to get the benefits of the colostrum, the calf needs to have their first drink within 4 hours of birth, so we were very pleased with this outcome.

We have them both in the home yard now, close by so we can keep an eye on them. The little one will stay with mum while she’s getting all the colostrum and then after a few days, when the milk freshens (normal milk starts to fill the udder after a few days) we will move her into the palatial calf pen we assembled (it’s very fine, I think!) where she can keep warm and dry and clean. This is one way to rear a calf. Other people prefer to let the calf run with the mum and not separate them. We are choosing to keep them seperate so that we can monitor the little calf, keep it in in clean environs to minimise the possibility of the calf contracting scours (we wrote alot about scours in our early posts about Little Girl, who was very sick with it. We weren’t sure she would survive, but there she is, with her budding horns, running around kicking up her heels and butting you in the arse every time you turn around…). The calf can also contract milk scours if they overfeed, so separating them is a good way to monitor their milk intake. We may milk Tippi, and so keeping them seperate is also a way to ensure that there is enough milk for baby and we take what she doesn’t drink. I have no idea how much milk Tippi will produce but she has a very tight udder, and big for a Dexter - "a nice bag" is a fine compliment to receive on your lactating cow!

Tippi seems much less aggro since she calved. Prior to calving and after her sojourn next door, she was very resistant to being touched or stroked, didn’t seem to care for human company much, but she’s much more placid now, and lets us stroke her and her calf, standing close by to make sure the calf is safe. She let charlene touch her udder yesterday and squirt some milk from her, so she may prove to be a good milker. We just have to be persistent, get her used to the process of milking.

Anyway, for the moment all is quiet and calm, and we hope it stays that way.  

Here are a few more pictures of the sweet little pixie calf called Sunny 

Tippi cleaning her little baby 

Peeping out, still not walking

Beautiful!

Time to go feed the animals…

Updates as they come to hand! Peace from the bigbackyard…

DairyMa’am V x

 Ok…this post is especially for my mum.

Introducing Oscar… in these photos he is wearing one of the shirts Julie brought back from South Korea for him.

 Jimmy Jack sitting in the grass under the big blue sky…

And last but not least Me with my V and my new haircut…. sorry about the hat. Anyway its short (and looks awesome - note from V )

Love Always

Charlene

So the Likely Dairylad and i were moving our little herd this morning over to some new pasture, just taking in the sunshine, ambling along, hanging in the paddock with them, filling their water, scratching under their chins (they love that), when I hear Charlene yell out : babe! Tippi is bagging up!

What? Already? Rosie is not even noticeably bagging up yet…

Well, we knew that Tippi was running with the bull next door (the gnarly Limousin mentioned in the previous post)  and that she was probably pregnant, but she’s been home for some weeks now and we were just waiting it out, not really imagining that we would know anything one way or another for some time yet. Dexters are small cows, with small udders. You usually can’t even *see* their udders, so to see our little heifer bagging up was quite exciting. It means she’s not far off, maybe as close as Rosie. We both felt her udder and yes, it was quite tight and full. She’s been a bit bolshie since she ran away to joing the circus, and isn’t having much to do with humans. She’ll turn around and have a go at you with her non existent horns (maybe she still has phantom horns?) so it was hard to get a look at her vagina, which would be swollen if she’s nearing her cavling date.

So we have one heifer, Tippi (she will remain a heifer until her second calf, at which time she becomes a cow), and one cow, Rosie. Both of these animals are also springers! A springer is a heifer or a cow that is about a month off calving. So we say they are springing as they are preparing to calf.

Tippi had a sister, long gone now, who was from the same bull, called Pania, so we know what Tippi’s little one might look like. Pania (Little Pania of the Rocks no less) was brown, a lovely caramel brown, and the Dexters are black, straight up. Pania now graces the living room floor, so her short dignified life provided food and warmth for the family here before we arrived and still now.

There is alot of excitement about our first farm births, and some trepidation. I’m not so concerned about problems that might arise during calving, since I have seen quite a few calves being born in my time, and especially recently at Charlene’s work, and they just seem to get on with the business. Brian said they have very few problem births, and i don’t think they’ve had one this season. My trepidation is mostly around handling the calf rearing aspect, the milking and then the management of ALL THAT MILK! Cheese time! It will be a bit hectic, and we may need another calf or 2 to feed from the lactating cows, but it’s hard to say how much milk Tippi will produce. She’s a dairy/beef breed, meaning they do well for both, but will not produce anywhere near the amount of milk that Rosie, being a Jersey, will produce.

Naturally there will be a photo essay of the whole process! 

I think an update on little Luka is in order. She’s doing well! The Galloway are a hardy breed, and it seems she has not only pulled through but is making progress in leaps and bounds. We treated her for parasites and she now gobbles down 2 meals a day (with livamol which is a gorgeous mineral supplement, apple cider vinegar and garlic! ) and cries (quietly) for more. she seems to like being out with the big cows, and manages to avoid being stomped on or steamrollered. I hope she develops a loving relationship with one of the other cows, because she is still very much a loner. We have seen her trot, which was an exciting moment and she walks swiftly to her meal bucket but she is yet to present the full calf gambol that seems intrinsic to calf nature.

All is well with the herd!

In previous posts I have mentioned Nourished magazine and Joanne Hay, who is the superhero editor of the magazine, and is involved in all things sustainable and most especially passionate about the raw milk movement and the herd share. We made a lovely connection through this blog, and I hope to write for her magazine in the future. We invited Joanne and family out to the farm for lunch and chat and it was lovely! Joanne and her partner Wes and their 3 glowing children are a delight! Interesting, quirky, energetic, productive, and ever so slightly wild! We ate things we’d grown ourselves, and Joanne bought out an incredible raw cheesecake that I must get the recipe for… They live in a couple of yurts in Byron, managing businesses and family and still have time and energy for the sustainable projects they are involved in. We loved them and everything they do. Check out Joanne’s site Nourished Magazine for edification and enlightenment!

Well, it has been a year of change and inclement weather! All this has left me feeling a bit discombobulated, a wee bit out of sorts and … well … lacklustre. I’m one of those who are seasonally affected, mood-wise, and not enough sunshine is a recipe for a not so shiny me… So much great stuff has happened this year, and most of it chronicled in this blog. I feel quite content with the trajectory this small family seems to be taking, more than happy that my hardworking dairylad has found a passion and a livelihood that engrosses and inspires her, enjoying the small communal living situation we currently have here at Matiatia, especially loving the animals and how that is shaping up. There are also some very very exciting things that might be happening that I can’t talk about here yet which go even further towards making dreams come true. So why a lacklustre me? And what am I planning to do about it? Perhaps others can relate… With the lads out working all day I guess I’m missing company and project partners, farmboys to fix fences with and gardening enthusisats to shovel shit and compost with. I seem to have moved inside (the house, that is…) and have become a bit of a farmhouse wife, with tasks focussed around household management and domestic duty, rather than the getting grubby, hands in the dirt kind of activities which energise nurture, inspire and keep me sane! Lists. I think lists are the answer. And enforced family farm activities in worker’s downtime. If there’s anyone out there who’s up for a bit of farm exposure as an antidote to the urban, let me know, we’ll organise a working bee… Oh yes, and yoga. Of course, always the yoga. I’ve been re-establishing my acquaintance with yoga, and do a good hour and a half practise every day, and sometimes with a buddy and i remember that yoga is the one constant in my life. hari om!

I tend not to personalise this blog, but i think my experience of isolation and lack of motivation, and the perils of identity crisis (i’m just a farmer’s wife!) that we fall into when we are used to more complexity coming from the city is an experience that others who have done the sea/tree change might identify with.

Fundamentally I’m loving the simplicity of this life and the direct connection with the earth, my food, animals that provide and I’m really looking forward to taking on the dairygrrl challenge again (oh yes, still on the hunt for a butter churn and cream separator - old not new), but thought the slight malaise was worth a mention…

So I have more to write, but I shall put it in a separate post, since it’s not at all vegan or vegetarian friendly, and I’d like to flag that here first. Self sufficiency can be gory!

See you shortly 

Vx 

Ok, if you are vegan or vegetarian please don’t read this post.

As you all know, we have a little menagerie here on the farm. We have our herd of cattle. We have a goat. We have chooks and we have ducks of various breeds.

These animals all range freely around the farm, fed on what nature provides, supplemented by our vege scraps and grains.

We live based loosely around a permaculture ideology, and strive towards self sufficiency. We constantly have to take stock and rationalise. Are we putting more (energetically, financially) into our endeavours than we are getting back? Are we making the most of our resources? How can we do things more efficiently and not be out of pocket?

In addition to these practical questions come questions of ideology and ethics around the way I/we would like to live, the notions we would like to embrace more than theoretically. Self sufficiency is a huge umbrella, and means more than getting a few salad greens out of the garden. It can embrace everything from producing your own energy to killing your own meat and stuffing your own pillows with duck down from your poultry flock. All of this done ethically, and outside of a system of factory farming, mass consumerism and capitalism. I’ve mentioned in earlier posts my own upbringing on a farm, which provided for most of our needs. Mum is an awesome gardener and Dad is a passionate farmer.

For about 15 years before i came to live up here I was a vegetarian/sometime vegan. Not sure what changed, but being able to buy local produce, freerange, organic, not factory farmed probably had alot to do with it. The local butcher knows his meat, literally. It’s Monday’s chook, comes from Bill and Ben’s down the road…

Anyway, all this is a preamble to saying that, since I eat meat I believe I should probably kill my own. And we have poultry. And that poultry can provide food and feathers. In addition, during the happy life of the duck, it provides us with organic liquid manure from its bathwater (and ours).

We are in a position at the moment where cash flow is a concept we have only a nodding acquaintance with. Grain costs us quite alot. The ducks aren’t laying. A smaller flock would be more manageable and productive. The duck is currently more useful as a meal than a drain on our precious resources.

I have participated in kills before, mostly assisting, or helping to pluck. I have personally killed a chicken once, and I wasn’t really very skilled at it, shall we say, and it put me off trying again.

Yesterday Deb sad she would help me out, since it was crunch time, the ducks had to be either given away (to someone else who would slaughter them, most likely), or bite the bullet and make self sufficiency more than a concept.

It was very brave of Deb, I thought, and i welcomed her sure aim, which would ensure a clean kill and a painless and swift death for the duck.

I know when I was looking online and in all the books hereabouts for information on the *best* way to kill, pluck and so on, i found it hard to get a clear picture of how to go about the process… so many different approaches. So here is a step by step guide to how we did it, augmented by bits of information offered by those who know and by lessons i learned along the way.

How to Kill, Pluck and Dress a Duck (Deb and V  version)

You will need:

Sharp cleaver or axe
Chopping block
Bucket/s
Rope
Hose
2 large cauldrons (one with very hot water and detergent and one with cold water)
Newspaper, lots of it
Sharp knives for dressing the duck

Don’t let your animals near feed for about 6 hours or more before the kill. Water, of course, they should always have plenty of water on hand.

First, put all dogs away…

Catch your duck. I can’t tell you how to do that. I just try to do it with the least amount of thrashing about, just quietly stalk them I guess.

Hold the duck firmly, calm it down by talking quietly or stroking the duck.

[We decided the most humane method of killing the duck was one swift cut with a sharp cleaver. We had 2 people for the next part, which made it easier…]

Place the duck on the chopping block, with neck stretched out, underside of the bill along the block, eyes on top. If you hold the duck’s body up in the air by the feet (so it’s like a J shape) this will assist in lengthening out the neck along the block, and may help keep the duck still. I held the feet and Deb made the cut. She placed her hands lightly over the duck’s head and eyes and one sure fall of the cleaver made a clean cut.

Immediately hold the duck neck down, feet up in the air over a bucket to bleed the duck. There will be quite a bit of movement from the duck at this point, so be prepared for this as it can be disturbing.

[This next part I’m not entirely sold on, there seem to be a number of different ways to go. I’ll tell you how we did it and then i’ll tell you how others go about it.]

Tie the duck upside down and hang it by its feet to bleed it. We were racing against the clock, so didn’t hang the ducks for long. Michael says 4 hours. We hung them over buckets to lessen the chances of the dogs going crazy for blood if they just bled onto the ground.

[Some people don’t mention hanging the duck at all, they say to begin plucking the duck immediately, while the duck is still warm. Begin by dry plucking the large wing feathers, since they are the hardest to pluck.] 

I dug a deep hole in the veg garden and buried heads and blood while the ducks were hanging and while we were boiling the water for the pluck.

Plucking is the messiest part, and the most difficult if you don’t get it right. 

Set up for plucking outside is best, otherwise you’ll have a house full of feathers and a wet feather smell which is not pleasant.

Place sheets of newspaper all around, just on the ground is fine, quite thick. This stops the feathers blowing away. You place the wet feathers on the newspaper and they stick. Wet feathers also stick to fingers. Use gloves if you want, but might get a cleaner pluck without gloves.

Place 2 large cauldrons of water by the plucking area. One full of very hot water (what temperature is best? some people say 140 degrees is optimal, dunked for 30 seconds. Others say boiling, and you dunk them for just a second.) and one full of cold water.

We used very hot water and dunked for about 30 seconds. Then straight into the cold water to stop the bird from cooking.

Start plucking! Pull the large wing feathers first, and tail feathers, tho some people say not to bother about the tail featehrs, just cut the end of the tail off when you are dressing the bird. Pull in the direction of growth. You’ll find that some of the down will just rub off. 

Information just to hand says that ducks are the hardest poultry to pluck (I’d have to agree) because their feathers are oily, waterproof. Brian (C’s boss) gave us this tip. Hang the bird upside down. Using a strong hose, spray the bird while pulling the feathers firmly down against the direction of growth. This helps the water penetrate the feathers. Then dunk.

After the pluck comes the dress (butchering the bird) 

A cleaver and a very sharp pointy knife are useful here. Don’t use blunt knives. You’ll end up with a travesty.  

Take off the feet. cut around the knee joint with the point of a knife. Wriggle and bend. It should come away easily. 

Take off the neck, which you can use to make stock from or feed to your dogs with their dinner (very good for them). If the duck has recently eaten you will find its most recent meal in a pouch near the neck. Take this out first with one hand in one move. I think a swift cleaver blow would work best for this.

I then chopped off the lower joint of the wing, which is not meaty and just burns in cooking. Again, a cleaver works for this.

The next part is to eviscerate the duck, which is not as hard as it sounds. turn the bird overso it’s breastbone is facing up. Take your very sharp pointy knife and make a slit fron just below the breastbone to the top of the vent (asshole) just slicing through the skin and the fatty layer and the membrane beneath. Be careful not to pierce anything inside, any organs and especially not the intestines… Cut AROUND the vent and it’s tube. Don’t pierce it. Take your hand and work it up inside the duck, grabbing all the organs and viscera in one hand and pull it all out in one go throug the slit you have made.. This worked for me first go. Just take your time. Feel around inside and take out any remaining organs. The lungs are apparently attacked to the backbone. You may have to detach them in a second go.

Run water through the duck to clean out any bits that are left.

That’s it! Your duck is dressed. Cook in any manner you please. I am a novice at duck cooking, which I believe really takes some expertise. I think duck is a hard meat to cook well.

We killed and dressed 2 ducks yesterday. Cooked one. It was a biggish job. We are novices, however, and I’m sure it could have been done more efficiently. But I’m pleased to have taken it on.

Thanks Deb! 

OK, I really wanted to make that post, cos it’s the truth of how we live. I have mostly vegetarian friends, so it’s a bit exposing to write about killing animals, but I believe in the dignity of animals lives and in producing food on a small scale and in self sufficiency. I don’t think it’s ok to buy your meat vacuum sealed from a supermarket, so that it has nothing to do with you, so that it’s disconnected from any cycle of production that is ethical.

I’m off. Things to do. See you here again soon. The sun is out. It’s pleasant in the backyard.

Vx