Spring

Spring is finally here at Pastures, just in time for summer.  Lilacs are coming to full bloom more than a week after Memorial Day, the mourning doves greet me every morning with their "who-who-who", the grazing is well started with two groups of cattle and two of sows out there.  LeeAnn's father's name appeared for the first time on the list of honored dead read each Memorial Day at Sacred Heart.  And a special joy, we have a high school graduation this spring and all the excitement that goes with it.  Jake is our oldest son/grandchild.  How did we get this far so fast?  Prom and baseball and graduation all came so fast it became a kind of blur.  It is what life is, and if we have any sense, we will figure out a way to be there for it, and to be grateful for the chance.

geothermal

As I wrote last time, we hope to control the sow's behavior in her pen in our new farrowing house by varying the temperature of the floor.  We started by installing plastic pipes on urethane insulation under the concrete.  As you can see in the first two pictures fourteen of these "loops" were installed under what would be the center of the pen, from about four feet inward from the gutter end to eight and one half feet, a total span of about four and one half feet.  This is where we expect the sow to nest up and have her piglets, with the guard rails adjacent and the water cup and dunging area in the four feet next to the gutter end, and the feed bowl and piglet creep area in the three feet at the pen's front.  See the pen pictures in the last post.  Through these fourteen loops of pipe we will pump cool water in summer and warm water in winter.  You can also see in these pipe pictures that we have installed a curving set of four pipes right near the very front of the pen.  These pipes will circulate warm water all year long, to tempt the piglets away from the sow to the warmer parts of the floor.

We have dug a geothermal supply trench west of the barn to a depth of twelve feet(see picture)  This was deep enough so that we got water in the bottom even in the very dry fall of 2012.  This trench was dug out five hundred feet from the barn at twelve feet and then those five supply pipes were folded back and run back toward the barn at a depth of eight feet.  This gives about 1000 feet of total collection area.  Now ground temperature at those depths is going to hover around 45 or 50 degrees winter and summer.  By pumping water through those pipes, we can chill it to that temperature in summer and then pump it through the cooling grid of under floor pipes to bring the sow a cooling effect and make her comfortable enough to want to lay quietly with her piglets.  Then in winter, plans are to run warm water through the same pipes to increase her comfort in that area while we keep the remainder of the building quite cool.  For now plans are to use a gas fired boiler to provide hot water for the floor under the sow in winter and under the piglets year around.  Very soon we plan to tie a good solar thermal panel into that system to minimize the amount of gas needed.

Meanwhile, in winter, we will continue to use the geo thermal trench, but now we will use the temperature which may be at 50 or 55 degrees at start of winter, to preheat the intake ventilation air so that the heating needs in the building will be minimized.  We do not have this part of the system settled in our minds yet and it will be some time before we have it in use.  The final picture is to give an idea of how we have tied the new building into the existing barn, getting a good second use out of the barn for a utilities and prep area, plus bedding and feed storage.   

Farrowing house and pens.

Our new farrowing house is in use.  The reasoning for building it, as any of you who have followed this writing for a while know, is that pasture farrowing simply could not provide the flow of pigs we needed to provide the pork for our customers on a year around basis.  So when we began to plan the building, we resolved to make it mimic the pasture environment as well as we could.  Thus the ceilings are a full eight feet in height, rather than the conventional six and a half.  We have four large windows on the south side and two plus a window in the door on the east end.  During daylight hours the light is wonderful in the building.  The pens are roomy as you can see in the photos.  We were able to reuse some of the steel and plastic planking from purchases made at a shut down hog farm.  Our choice was for the plastic because like wood it is quieter than steel in a hog building, but unlike wood, it stands up well to chewing by the sows and it is easier to clean, always a consideration when livestock are kept inside. The effect is an inviting and quiet environment in which to do our work.  The sows are comfortable as well;  the first group to be moved in settled right down in their pens and soon farrowed their litters without a  hitch.

Note the diagonal guard rails in the front of the pen.  These were made from a farrowing crate with the top taken off and the sides spread out.  The pen is about six feet wide and eleven feet deep.  The sow has her drinking cup toward the back and a grate through which she might see and interact with the sow next to her.  Our hope is that she will establish a dunging and wet area back along that end gate as it has the gutter and cleaner just on the other side.  Then the center and front of the pen would be bedded for her comfort and the guard rails allow the piglets to be next to her without being in much danger of being overlain.  Part of the way in which this is meant to work is that the floor will be temperature controlled by zone which will help control the behavior and movement of the sow.

The floor slopes down one inch each three and one half feet of run toward the far end of the pen.  This is approximately a two percent slope, which is not steep by any means.  Time will tell if we will need to use a bedding board across the pen to retain the straw in the front of the pen, or if the sow will be able to do that herself.  We really will not know until we get the geothermal and heat up and running.  As you can see, the two sows in the picture are lying near the bottom of the pens with their litters.  We hope to discourage that.  More on this in the next post.

 

climate

Spring this year is frustrating for the grazier, and all other farmers, I think, because it is so slow to warm up.  Our hay runs out in about a week and a half and it is simply too expensive to buy in more.  The grass is just starting up and needs a succession of seventy degree days to initiate growth.

Even the birds seem confused.  We have an embarrassment of riches in bird life just now, from wrens and sparrows to robins flocking like blackbirds in number and orioles, warblers, cardinals, jays, geese and ducks and all manner of birds of prey, including the tiny prairie falcon, the common red tail hawk in abundance and several bald eagles that have not yet moved down to the river.  It is said by some that the cold spring makes them reluctant to continue on to the north.

Predictably voices are heard questioning all that "global warming" talk.  Some scientists, who generally speak more quietly, are heard to say that our cold spring may be due to a weather pattern of arctic highs being held in place by the large melt of the polar cap last summer loosening very cold waters to flow south into the oceans. 

What I know is that last summer was so hot we worried about losing cattle in the pastures and had trouble getting the sows to breed.  And this spring is too cold.  It may be time for all of us to pay a little more attention to the quieter voices among us.  They may be quieter simply because they are the voice of reason rather than the understandable human tendency to believe what is easiest and most convenient.   

genetics

Temple Grandin is an associate professor of animal science at Colorado State University. She is also autistic. A published author, her latest book is called "Animals in Translation". Perhaps most importantly Temple Grandin is a woman who thinks we can be more productive and more humane with our livestock animals if we pay them close attention, listening and observing. In this way, we can discern much of what they are trying to tell us. She speculates that the behavior and management problems that come with the new ultra lean breeding in pigs may come from the lack of fat on the carcass. Lack of myelin, a fat sheath surrounding the nerve bundles, may cause the pig to lose the ability to calm itself down and rest, leading to destructive mob behavior where the animals kill a designated victim simply because they cannot quit picking on it. These ultra lean pigs are also difficult to breed. The boars have greatly reduced sexual appetite and the sows often do not display strong signs of being in season. Breeding percentages (number of pregnancies per sow serviced either naturally or artificially) are trending down. The drive for species survival seems to be blunted by the carcass characteristics we have insisted upon breeding in. And the animals are getting savage and unmanageable. Here at Pastures A Plenty, we have noticed for some time that the same characteristics that make for excellent taste in pork also make for an easy to manage animal on the farm. It is one of those very rare win-win situations. However, staying away from ultra lean breeding, which produces pork that tastes like a long weak drink of vinegar, is difficult because the industry is so enamored of it. Look at the pictures to get an idea of the difference between these different genotypes. Note that the red sow on the top has a nice smooth top line from front to back and she shows a generous covering of fat throughout. This is necessary for health. This red sow is of moderate length, size, and thickness, well proportioned in her muscling. She looks and is durable. This is how we want the sow herd to look. The close up of the back of the black sow, the picture on the bottom, shows prominent muscle grouping and you can even see the knobs of her spine in a line from the bottom of the picture. This sow shows ultra lean genetics, and should we try to breed her, would farrow pigs that would be fast growing, edgy and quarrelsome, and then none too tasty when slaughtered. She does not have enough fat on her carcass for her own good, much less the well being of our farm or our eating enjoyment

Winter

It is difficult to remember as we go through a more traditional winter complete with snow and cold that a mere six months ago we were working pretty hard trying to keep pastured cattle alive in the heat and get sows to breed in that same heat, in August, when they are physiologically not very inclined toward pregnancy anyhow. The cold snaps here at Pastures mean extra hay set out for the cattle and the half frozen fingers that go with trying to get the twine off those bales to a seemingly endless need for extra bedding in the hog quarters. We are approaching another turn in the seasons now as we get into February. The winter has shown us weaknesses in our winter operations just as the heat did for summer a few months ago. The challenge is to set things up so that the livestock is comfortable in a wide range of temperatures and conditions without requiring a great amount of heroic effort on our part. That is part of what farm management really is, and for those of us in alternative agriculture, we must find our own way since we have left behind the turnkey systems that conventional agriculture offers. Jim

snow covered

Once again this winter, the fields are snow covered. Our first snow fall was seventeen inches before Christmas, followed by several more 2-3 inch events. The pheasants are coming close to the buildings again to find spilled feed, as the crusted snow cover makes foraging difficult for them. Snowy winters are not necessarily easy for us either, as the stuff must be moved before any of the necessary machine work can be done. Since the alternative to snow cover is often blowing dirt out here on the over tilled prairie though, we make the best of it, appreciating the white beauty and its invitation to restfulness. As I write this, the natural year, which started toward summer on December 21st is beginning to exert itself, with several extra minutes of sunshine every day. We hope your Christmas celebration was every thing you wanted it to be, and wish you well for the remainder of the winter. Stay warm. Jim