Cooler Weather Brings Turkey Feathers

Farm Update!

Summer turned me into an emotionally desiccated husk with its 42 days of 100f weather! Its relentless heated grasp with triple-digit claws burned their way into the depths of my soul as fire leapt from my mouth and eye sockets! Okay, it wasn’t that bad I guess, I just got tuckered out. I also guess I can’t blame all of it on the summer season either, there was just a lot happening with all the poultry processing, marketing, staying super busy with the day job, and life handing out some lemons here and there.

One citrusy poke in the eye has been the inability to secure liability insurance covering the land for people visiting the farm. I enjoy teaching people new to the ways of regenerative farming exactly what that looks like for us; along with the highs and lows that come from farming in this manner. I also enjoy engaging with the community and providing healthy food options for people who are seeking better food than what the stores can provide. I do have people sign waivers before touring the farm, but even with the liability waivers in hand there is a small voice in the back of my mind who whispers “If something happens to them on the land then you are liable for the injury”. The voice has a point, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. In an attempt to assuage the voice of caution I reached out to local insurance companies who used their connections to look for someone who would cover us. No one was interested in picking us up! It was a blow to my hopes in expanding tours and becoming a vendor on some charter school lists. As someone who is business-minded it made no sense to me why they wouldn’t approve it, especially because the likelihood of something happening is slim to none, but I guess their algorithm told them otherwise.

During my search for insurance options I discovered something that had me audibly utter a gasp of surprise: there is actually a real politician who introduced a bill to try and help with this aspect of agritourism. Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil proposed CA SB1479 which says that as long as clear signage was posted about the location being an active farm it would act as a form of waiver that would protect the farmer if someone were to become injured on the farm during a tour. I don’t know anything else about the senator, but if this bill were to pass it would be very helpful for farmers like myself and hopefully would encourage more small farms to source alternative forms of income that they might be ignoring right now.

While we are on the fun topic of politicians and bills, I want to raise awareness that the RFID ear tag law has been amended and approved. The law essentially says that dairy cows and bison need ear tags that can be electronically read before crossing state lines. The official reason is that it will assist with tracking the animals across state lines and hunting down bovine disease sources which in turn will help to eradicate them. One should note that if the USDA and Secretary of Agriculture were concerned about diseases, they would reduce or remove CAFOs nationwide because the vast majority of diseases that affect the cattle are spread by close-quarter contact and shared bodily fluids. There is also verbiage in the bill that allows vertically integrated locations to count any number of cattle as “one unit” if certain parameters are met, parameters that smaller ranchers can not hope to meet.  The law primarily focuses on dairy cattle because of the disease transmission capacity of milk from the same cow(s) shared between calves, but once again it is the same issue as mentioned above in that the way in which we raise animals is beneficial to diseases and profit margins, not the animals or the consumer.

As we grow our herd of dairy cattle I am looking forward to not abiding by this law as we will only be selling milking cows to Californians who are interested in pursuing their own food freedom. It is not the business of the federal government what I do with my cattle, despite what they may think, and as our nation continues to descend further into a self-dug pit of lost freedoms, we will at least be an option for our fellow Californian homesteaders.

Speaking of freedoms, we are still graciously allowed by our overlords to raise poultry in the great state of California, and boy are we raising em! The turkeys we have are both Broad White Breasted and Broad Bronze Breasted and they have growth charts found online that denote feed demand per week, weight gains expected, and expected processing date. The thing I didn’t consider with the chart was that it was for birds grown in a typical modern facility where they don’t move around and are fed a soy/corn diet of feed. My turkeys have an electric fenced in area that they get to roam within that is plush full of grasses, clover, and bugs. They are also fed a diet of non-corn and non-soy feed that doesn’t seem to pack on the pounds as much as what feed containing those two items do. Basically what has happened is we have blown past our expected processing date of mid September and are now looking to a date closer to mid November. We did end up processing 11 turkeys that were in the right size category for what some of our customers wanted, and in doing so were able to try out a new piece of equipment: The Temp Controlled Scalder! 

The Beast

The Beauty

The new scalder is awesome. The past two years we used a 55gal barrel cut in half which sat atop a propane burner that had to be manually regulated to maintain a temp between 140-150 degrees for easy plucking. It was challenging to manage the scald water temp, depth, and scald time while focusing on 15 other aspects of processing; however, if that 55gal contraption was a beast, then the new scalder is surely the beauty! Forty gallons worth of 316 stainless steel with an automated temperature gauge that regulates the propane burner automatically is a marvel in of itself, but we also opted to have a spring loaded dunking arm included because it only takes a few times scalding ones hands in 150 degree water to know that there has to be something better.

We are also slowly making progress on preparing the lower corral area for a cement pour and future dairy area plus poultry processing area. We have historically stored wood down in that area to dry out and had close to six tall trees worth of dried wood that we needed to move out of the way before working down there. Anyone who has ever chucked wood into the back of a trailer by hand knows how time consuming that can be, and I also had to add some soil to low spots around the pad and property, so I ended up renting a skid steer. We used it over the weekend and it was instrumental in helping us get around 5 yards of mulch spread out, move the six trees worth of wood, and knock some uprooted stumps out of the way and into the back part of the pasture.

The next step is going to be pouring the concrete and ordering some sea containers to act as our dairy parlor and processing station, while also leaving us with a large enough area between the two to store hay and whatever else is needed for the homestead. I know I won’t have any of that up in time before Cozy pops out her calf sometime later this month, so my Poultry Pal Zach is lending me a steel hoop house to throw a tarp over  and create a space for momma to have her calf. Our first calf in February taught me two things: make the cow have the calf somewhere that is accessible, flat, and dry; and also load the momma cow up with enough calcium that her bones grow bones.

Falling off the writing horse for two months has left this post a little droll as I get back into the swing of things. I hope to be posting soon with information on how we have been integrating certain insects and practices into the homestead that will naturally improve all the soil and composting efforts.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my subscribers and customers. Every year brings new challenges, but I am forever grateful to have the opportuning to raise animals and live a life much closer to nature and all that we have been given.