Granted, I could charge a dollar more a pound for what we sell in Charlotte, once you factor in the travel time and gas, it isn’t worth it.  I’d much rather support this small market which allows ONLY local farmers, no re-sellers are allowed!  That’s one of the things I didn’t like about Charlotte where there’s re-sellers galore.

Now, we need to get some more rabbits to process before Saturday.  We’ve still got some Silver Fox that we bought from the man in South Carolina to process, I just need to figure out which ones.

I’m seeing some problems with coccidiosis in some of the rabbits.  I’ve added apple cider vinegar to their water in an attempt to combat that.  I’m going to up their feeding in an attempt to push them closer to fryer-size.  My charts indicate that they won’t be ready to be processed (16 weeks) until the beginning of June.  We may not have much to sell at the Farmer’s Market over the next few weeks.  I scheduled some goats to go to the processor June 11.

I only have a few minutes before I need to go out and get my milking done.  I have to catch some of the older laying hens and put them up so I can take them to be processed tomorrow morning.  I hooked up with an Amish family that is going to process them for me.  I’m going to help so I can learn to process chickens.  As small as we are, we can’t afford to continue to take them to the processor in Marion to have them done.  It cuts too much into our profit, if there is even a profit.  I’m excited about meeting the Amish family.

Until later …

Rabbits are an extremely sustainable meat for small farms and even city dwellers. According to Slow Food USA, “Rabbit can produce six pounds of meat on the same amount of feed and water it takes a cow to produce just one pound.” Rabbits eat forage that is not useful to humans and even other grazing animals. They eat the weeds from your garden and in turn produce extremely beneficial manure to be used for fertilizer for your garden.

At Spellcast Farm, we started raising rabbits, on a very small scale, primarily for their manure. After a few months of feeding these rabbits (which were small breeds) I thought to myself, “Why continue to feed animals for just their manure? If we are going to raise rabbits, why not raise breeds that can be eaten?” We then invested a lot of money into cages and breeding rabbits, this was all before I had even tried rabbit. It was with great trepidation that I processed and cooked my first rabbit. When my partner, Wally took it off the grill and brought it into the house, the two of us stood at the kitchen island and started to eat the rabbit. We ate and ate and ate! I had prepared side dishes to go with the rabbit, but the rabbit was so good, we didn’t even touch them. Needless to say, I was sold on rabbit meat. It was also a great stride to have raised, slaughtered, processed and then ate meat from an animal that was grown on the farm. We’ve raised other animals for consumption, but they’ve always been slaughtered and processed off the farm.

For the same reasons why we do not raise the conventional meat chicken (the so-called Cornish X) we do not raise common white meat rabbit with pink eyes (the New Zealand). White animals, especially those with pink eyes, are boring! Instead, we went with two rare, heritage breeds: the American Chinchilla and Silver Fox. At one time, the American Chinchilla was the meat breed of choice, but like with chickens, the commercial processors started to demand animals with white coats so the New Zealand breed took over. The Silver Fox is a beautiful breed that dresses out at 65 percent of its live weight. Both breeds are considered dual purpose: useful for both for their pelts and their meat. The American Chinchilla is listed as “critical” and the Silver Fox as “threatened” with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

Why work with threatened, heritage breeds? These slower-growing, wrongly colored breeds are threatened due to commercial farming that favors highly specialized breeds that grow out fast in a controlled environment. Many traditional livestock breeds, like the American Chinchilla and Silver Fox are threatened with extinction.

“These traditional breeds are an essential part of the American agricultural inheritance. Not only do they evoke our past, they are also an important resource for our future.” (American Livestock Breeds Conservancy)

What makes the rabbits raised at Spellcast Farm particularly special is that they are raised on pasture. Rabbit meat is toted as one of the healthiest meats available, and it is, but most rabbit breeders keep their rabbits in cages, fed commercially-prepared pellet food (which usually contains undesirable ingredients like soy, corn and is usually from GMO ingredients). Meat from rabbits raised on pasture and forage is much healthier and of course more tasty! At Spellcast Farm, rabbits designated for meat are put out on pasture once they reach six to eight weeks old and stay on pasture until they are processed at between 14 and 16 weeks. Like all animals raised naturally on pasture, they grow slower than their counterparts raised on pellets. We feel that the extra time it takes for them to get to size is worth it. Rabbits are extremely social creatures and are so happy running and playing on the ground.

It takes a lot more work and management to keep rabbits on pasture so our prices reflect this. We recognize that seven dollars a pound is pricey, but think of it as an occasional (or maybe more often) splurge. Cook rabbit for a special meal: I am sure you will remember this meal with great fondness. Please also remember that the rabbits, like all of the animals at Spellcast Farm, were raised with the utmost respect for their natural habits and diet.

We greatly appreciate your patronage and support.

Michelle and Wally
Spellcast Farm

Where did March and April go? I neglected to send out newsletters for both months. It’s hard to remember what we’ve been doing so I have to go back and read through my on-line journal to see exactly what it was we’ve been doing.

The rabbits are all doing reasonably well. We’ve now got a total of four rabbit tractors (bottomless pens on the ground that get moved around several times a day so the rabbits can graze) going and all of the fryers have been grown out completely on pasture. Our back “yard” is going to be so lush and green with all the fertilizer that’s been put on it. I’ve lost a few of the young rabbits to bloat and diarrhea, but that seems to be part of the process. Our latest tractor is a four by four-foot model which is what we will start to make more of. The plan is to install a doe with her litter in these pens so I can keep track of which lines do better on pasture and keep those rabbits in my breeding program. Soon I’ll have a line of rabbits that thrive on pasture.

I made the difficult decision to sell my young Arabian, Sudi. He went to live with a man interested in getting into endurance. I believe he and Sudi will do well together. Ace, our old rescue horse, still lives here and probably will remain: he’s become a yard horse. I rarely have time to ride, but there’s always hope.

We added two Jersey cows to our herd: one was a bull that we sold as a two month old calf last summer. He got a bit too rowdy and was scaring the man that bought him so he asked if we’d buy him back. He is a rowdy boy, but he’s since been re-introduced to the School of Gel and now has better manners, at least when Gel is around. The second was a six month old steer who grew a little too big for his tiny pasture. I dried Gwen off the beginning of April and they are all out in the pasture doing the cow-thing. Gwen is due to calf the beginning of September and I can’t wait for her sweet, creamy milk.

We raised 12 Cornish X chicks to slaughter size. That was an experience that we will not be repeating! The “Cornish X” is the type of chicken that is grown on factory farms, the type of chicken you buy in grocery stores. They grow fast, too fast really. I am glad I was given the opportunity to experience raising these mutant chickens. Wally and I vowed we’d never do it again. I felt so bad for those chickens! They had very little chicken-ness about them. We grew them well though, all on my homemade chicken grain mixture. At 13 weeks old, they dressed out between four and five pounds each. Our next batch of meat birds will be from heritage, dual-purpose breeds. We purchased 10 Delaware hens that just started laying, 11 White Rock pullets, three Dark Cornish hens and a Dark Cornish rooster. In addition, we purchased an incubator and we have 30 Dark Cornish and 12 eggs from our resident hens in it with an anticipated hatch date of May 17. Fingers and toes crossed! The hope is that those birds, in addition to the dual purpose breeds that I already have on the farm will reproduce and grow sufficiently to be used as meat birds (the roosters) and laying hens. The ultimate goal is for Spellcast Farm to be as sustainable as possible and buying meat breed and laying breed chicks every year is not sustainable!

We brought the chickens to a processor up in the mountains and that was an interesting experience. I stayed with the chickens as they were brought in, one by one to first be stunned with a stun knife and then bled out. I had tears in my eyes as I helped to send them on their way and I thanked them for giving us their lives. When I sold them at the farmer’s market, tears came to my eyes as I described to the customer how they were raised. While they were frustrating creatures, we raised them with great care.

The goat herd has gone through some substantial changes. I sold two of the Oberhasli does to a woman in South Carolina starting up a small dairy and purchased three Saanen does and a Saanen buck. The goal is to keep goats that have soft, easy-to-milk udders and the Saanens fit that bill. Also, as a general rule, the Saanens produce more milk than the other breeds and their kids are larger. This year we will be using the buck kids for meat and a larger-size in a dairy goat kid makes for better meat. Unfortunately, the Saanens are almost always solid white, which is kind of boring, but I guess you’ve got to take the good with the bad. Most days, I milk 11 goats in the morning and five every night so we are getting lots of milk to feed the chickens, dogs and cats and I am making a lot of cheese. We considered getting a Jersey bottle calf, but that’s proving difficult so it’s a good thing we got the other two Jerseys to be used for meat this fall and next year.

I guess more big news is that I no longer have my job doing the sales and marketing for the farm that now remains nameless. While it could have been a perfect job, the stress level was too much to deal with. I very much enjoyed going to the farmer’s market and that was something that I would have missed. I could have continued to go to the Charlotte market, but I elected instead to pursue a local farmers market that only allows local farmers to participate. At many farmers’ markets, Charlotte included, there are a lot of resellers. Listening to those people hawk their goods was frustrating. They really had no clue how the vegetables were grown or the animals that produced the meat and eggs were raised. So this Saturday will be our first market. We don’t have much to sell, but I’ll go and education and hopefully get lots of people interested in rabbit and heritage breed chickens. It is all about the education and helping people to understand that what they get in the grocery stores and even at some farmer’s markets is not real food.

Luckily, I’m still eligible for unemployment (a piddily $100/week) but it’s better than nothing. Donations will not be refused.

This newsletter is starting to get too long, but it’s nice to be able to share what Wally and I have been doing. I personally feel like a Phoenix rising up from the ashes. I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs in my job situation. The amount of stress that has been lifted from my shoulders from the former job is tremendous. I know I was short-tempered and ugly at times and if you were at the receiving end of that nastiness, I apologize.

Thank you for your continued patronage and support! We appreciate it more than you know.

Until later …

Michelle and Wally
Spellcast Farm

It’s okay.   I know for sure that if something appears to be too good to be true, then it is.  That job was too good to be true.  After all, what small, local farm can afford to pay someone to sell their products, write their newsletter or update their FB page?  I know of none.  Really, it was quite quite perverse in a way.

What I was most upset about was missing the Farmer’s Market.  I talked to Wally about it and we kind of decided that we didn’t have enough product available to justify going to the Farmer’s Market on a weekly basis.  I put some feelers out to see about selling product for another farmer (just to have something to sell, not for a salary), but really, most farmers want to sell their own product.  It is something they grew, they had their hands on from day one until the day it was ready to be slaughtered or harvested and it was there’s to sell.  I understand that.  I wouldn’t want someone else to sell my products.

So, I put a call into the Charlotte Farmer’s Market.  That’s where the money is, but quite frankly, I felt perverse selling meat for such ridiculously high prices just because I could.  So I decided to call the Hickory Farmer’s Market.  No room at the inn there.  The manager suggested that I call the manager of the Conover Farmer’s Market so I did.  I’m so glad I did!  This is a 100 percent local Market.  No resellers allowed.  Charlotte has resellers up the yahoo and Hickory has them too.  I didn’t like the resellers at Charlotte.  In fact, in order to be approved to go to the Conover Market, the manager has to come to the farm.  I think that’s spectacular!  She’s coming this afternoon.  I’m so excited!

I don’t have much to sell, yet!  I have a few rabbits I can process this week and about 25 rabbits who will be ready to process in about three weeks.  I still have a few chickens to sell.  I am supposed to go to Morganton to pick up some Dark Cornish, White Rock and Red Ranger chicks Thursday evening.  If all goes well, I’ll have as many as 30 Dark Cornish chicks hatch in the incubator.  If I could get my butt in gear, I’d have vegetables to sell.

I still need a job and there’s some hope on that front.  I need to find a part-time office job that will pay me a decent salary.  We’ll see …

I just put my second attempt at sourdough bread in the oven.  The first time, I forgot to put salt in the recipe when I kneaded the dough so it didn’t rise correctly.  This time, it rose like it should.

It’s raining as I write this and the house is a disaster area.  I need to get my butt in gear and get it straightened out.  Employees are on their way to pick up the property that I have here.  Once it’s gone, I need to run through the house with a smudge stick to clear all bad energy.

Until later …

Here are some images I took today.  I think he looks a lot better, but maybe not.  I’m just glad he’s here because he’s a good boy.

Until later …

Recently, I was offered a deal I could not refuse: a proven Saanen buck from a high-end local (certified) dairy.  I am going to cross this goat with my Saanen, half-Saanen and Oberhasli does.  We are getting back an Alpine buck that I bred late summer and I’ll cross him with the Alpine does.  We decided to use a Saanen for most of the goats because the kids will be larger and grow off a bit faster than the other breeds.  If we are going to use the buck kids for meat, it would be better if they were as big as possible.  Unfortunately, most of the kids will be white, but they’ll be big.  I’m crossing him with the Oberhasli does because I am trying to breed towards softer udders.  The Oberhaslis seem to have tough udders, they require more hand strength to milk out.  The Saanens have very soft, easy to milk udders.  This buck, crossed with my new Saanen does ought to produce some really nice kids.

As I write this, Wally is out weed whacking.  I’m sure he’d love to be able to spray Round-up so he doesn’t have to do as much weed whacking, but we are a pesticide and herbicide-free farm.

We need rain, bad!  There was a 50 percent chance of rain yesterday, but we got only a few drops. It looks like rain today, but I don’t think it is supposed to.  At least it’s cooled off some.

Until later …

Earlier this morning, I was feel pretty sorry for myself.  You may have read the post I put up yesterday morning entitled Stress where I spoke of the stress I’ve been experiencing due to my job.  I had a long talk with my employer and I thought things were on the right track so I deleted the post (just in case he’s reading this journal).  This morning, I logged into Facebook and discovered I had been removed as administrator of their page.  Of course, he’s not returning my e-mails, texts or voice-mails asking why.  Quite typical of him.

Well, whatever.  I’ll do what I can do for him, to the best of my ability and continue doing as much as I can here to make us more self-sufficient.  There are some things I’m doing really well, other things that I’m terribly bad at, like the garden.  I even turned off the computer and took a little bit of a nap, but turned it back on, logged onto Facebook to see if maybe my administrator privileges have been re-instated (they have not).  Then I read this post.  Damn, for all my stress, worries, aggravations, fear of impending doom, etc. my life is pretty darned good because, as far as I know, I have my health.  I don’t know this woman, I can’t recall even reading many of her posts, but I read this one and realized, screw my employer.  I’m not going to worry about him any more.  When he wants me to do something, he can ask for me to do so and I’ll do it, to the best of my ability, with a smile.  Until then, I’m going to keep working on this farm and cherish each and every moment of it.  I am pretty darned lucky for what I have here.

Until later …

But, I know, in my gut that feeding corn and soy to my critters is not the best for them.  If I could source affordable non-GMO corn, I might feed some to the chickens, especially in the winter, but right now, 50 pounds of organic, non-GMO corn is more expensive than 50 pounds of organic, non-GMO alfalfa.  I choose to feed alfalfa over corn.

So, I only have a little bit of time here, then I need to go out to milk because we’ve gone from winter to summer, yet again.  It’s going to be in the mid-eighties to low-nineties this week with little chance for rain.  I’m trying to get as much as I can done early in the AM before it gets too hot.  I have to go to Hickory this morning to do a few errands, then I plan to come back and try to get more things done outside, if I can tolerate it.  I’ve got tomato and basil plants to get in the garden as well as green bean seeds.  Hopefully, the frost danger is now past.  It sure as heck ought to be.

Yesterday, I rendered three pounds of lard, worked in the garden until the gnats drove me out, did my usual chores, ran down and caught six escaped rabbits, harvested grass and weeds for the rabbits, worked on my work stuff, used my sourdough starter to make a sponge, which is bubbling away, I’ll finish the loaf when I get home from Hickory, hoping that it will turn out.  I have some beef short ribs in the crock pot with some barbeque sauce cooking away, made a large batch of potato salad yesterday and started a batch of tuna and egg pasta salad.  Pretty stupid to turn the oven on to make bread, but I want to see how it comes out.  Making bread is something that I really want to master.

I love my job, I really, really do, but it’s stressing me to the max.  I cannot get the owner of the farm to give me the tools I need to do my job.  I’m loosing sleep over it.  Hopefully something will break soon.

Well, I guess I had better get out and get it done.

Until later …

Gel has the patience of a saint.  He will bite on command, but if I am patient (which I rarely am), he can move elephants.

Last night, he was holding the gate while I milked.  Two of the three Saanens decided they were going to come out.  I asked Gel to put them back up.  The two of them put their heads down and gave him the evil eye.  Gel held his ground and stared them down with his Border Collie Eye.

Wally, who has the patience of a saint (he has to, he puts up with me) told me to tell him to bite them.  I told him that no, that would only make them fight more and we’d end up with a blood fest because they wouldn’t back down.  I told him to wait and let Gel do his job.  It only took a few more minutes, but Gel did do his job: he backed both of them back into the pasture.  Literally, he backed them in, they never turned and walked in.

I’ve been told that was a very good trait: that Gel has enough power and presence to stand head to head with livestock without gripping (biting) and that he was able to back them into the pasture was one little victory for him.  It’s going to take a lot more of this before these goats finally respect him and once they kid next year, the same thing will likely happen, but it’s so much better to let the dog do his job without using teeth.

We are very lucky to have such a fantastic dog.

Until later …

Until later …