Totally Secure Homestead Design

Found this over at SurvivalBlog. A house made of concrete that can be completely enclosed and only accessible via second story draw bridge. I have found my perfect retreat design!

Sweet!

Designers' website can be found here.

Livestock Castration... A Dirty Job?

As I get more and more intersted in life on the farm, I search deeper and deeper into the "behind the scenes" workings, as it were. I was reading one of my daily favorite blogs called Rural Revolution detailing how Patrice and Don brought home their new Jersey heifer named Polly. In this blog Patrice noted her jealousy of a custom-made "squeeze chute."

Say what? Okay, now I have to research what all a "squeeze chute" can be used to perform. Somewhere between tagging the ears and tattooing, I start thinking of castration. Sure, I've heard of it and know what it means...but I never actually wondered how they actually DO it...until now.

So, like any good college educated dad, I went to youtube :-) First I learned how to castrate a bull calf from Penn State. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the testicles PULLED from the calf's pelvis BY HAND after a small incision allowed them to be exposed through the bottom of the scrotum. Yep. This woman just grabbed ahold of a testicle and pulled it off. She then instructed that you have to search around for the second testicle because it tends to retract after the first one gets pulled. Really? I think I would retract too!

So that's it. Pop! Pop! Rub a little betadine on there and galloping back into the field he goes. I should mention that the video does advocate a numbing agent if the animal is over 30 days old. Pshh. Numbing agent. Who needs that?

Youtube, being the ever suggestive tool that it is, offered me more links to more castrations. A very vocal calf being castrated, a hilarious snippet of the show Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe castrating a horse, and another Dirty Job episode where Mike learns how to castrate sheep...using his teeth (No, I'm not kidding).

All joking aside, its obvious that real life on the farm includes duties such as castration. You can either pay the local Veterinarian to do it or do it yourself. Personally, if my TEETH are involved, I'm calling a Vet.

Using Chicken Tractors to Raise Chickens.

I'm interested in raising chickens in my backyard. I'm sure it is harder than I think it is but I just found another way to, perhaps, make it a bit easier.

I shuddered at the thought of letting the chickens "free range" or roam freely about my lavishly green grassed back yard. Then I read about the chicken tractor and felt a little more at ease.

Why? Because with a chicken tractor, the chickens can free range while still being confined to a mobile chicken coop.

Wikipedia says: "Chicken tractors allow a kind of free ranging along with shelter, allowing chickens fresh forage such as grass, weeds and bugs (although these will quickly be stripped away if the tractor stays put for too long), which widens their diet and lowers their feed needs. Unlike fixed coops, chicken tractors do not have floors so there is no need to clean them out. They echo a natural, symbiotic cycle of foraging through which the birds eat down vegetation, deposit fertilizing manure, then go on to a new area."