Is Garlic Our Savior

As fans of Supernatural, salt and garlic are important items in our household--you never know when you'll need to protect yourself from a demon or rogue supernatural monster.  I've heard rumor even Jesus loved garlic.  I'm fairly certain it's known as one of those super foods.  Honestly, I love garlic so we usually do have a good supply around the house in most readily available forms, like: garlic powder, garlic bulbs, garlic cloves, garlic salt, pickled garlic, minced garlic, and probably some garlic oil.  Victoria has even started a garlic bulb in a planter in the house as a gardening experiment, she's been getting geared up for planting the garden and I'm pretty sure wants to plant a garlic bed.  Theresa grew up near the "Garlic Capital of the World," or so Gilroy, California is nicknamed because they grow lots of garlic and are known for their annual garlic festival.  Interestingly enough it's near Castroville, California; which is known as "The Artichoke Capital of the World."  Another of my favorite foods, but I'm getting off subject here.

So, this whole garlic post actually started this past weekend when I saw a short news story on TV that reported garlic as being used in cattle feed to reduce methane gas.  Apparently it reduces the population of methane producing microbes in the cow's digestive tract by 50%, which is substantial.  The problem with using garlic in feed is the taste actually passes to the milk, so adoption of adding garlic to feed hasn't caught on that quickly.  The research though is leading to alternatives that don't bring the garlic taste along with the milk.  I found the story interesting so I decided to do a little research of my own.  In the process of searching and reading a few articles on the subject I also discovered garlic is being used in cattle diet for another purpose.  Apparently, it helps reduce fly populations.  I'm assuming garlic "flavored" manure isn't that attractive to flies...  I'm not sure our chickens will appreciate that because they enjoy scratching through cow patties to chow on all the bugs.  Hum, maybe there will be a side effect in the chicken's diet that would reduce the likelihood of mites?  Okay, I hope that thought doesn't stick in your head, my apologies.

I haven't completed my research, there's a bit more to learn and some unanswered questions for me.  I'm not sure how much garlic it takes in a cow's diet to make a difference, and what are the other impacts.  I do like the idea better than the specialized backpack-tanks designed to capture methane from the cows for energy use. It's definitely something I'd like to learn a bit more about and maybe we'll experiment a little with our own cows, at least it gives us a reason to get that garden bed of elephant garlic going...



References -

• How Garlic May Save the World, Rupp, National Geographic, Apr 2014
• Ranchers uses garlic to keep flies at bay, Arnason, The Western Producer, Aug 2012 
• Garlic, Wikipedia
• Gilroy Garlic Festival

Happy Hens, Happy Farm

It only stands to reason that if a happy wife leads to a happy life, then happy hens lead to a happy farm.  Those simple truths are what makes farm life so special.

Our first brood of hens started laying eggs a few weeks ago, and we're now collecting about a dozen a day. Since our hens are free-rangers collecting eggs is more like an Easter egg hunt every time.  Fortunately, about half the girls use the nest boxes in the coop while the others have found some interesting places in the barn and shop to lay.  It keeps us on our toes.

Hens typically start out laying smaller than normal eggs before they become full sized, so the first several dozen we handed out as gifts.  Now we're selling all our excess for $3 a dozen, so let us know if you'd like some eggs and we'll work you into the Egg Train.

Actual Eggs from our Chickens

So about the quality of our eggs…first, we’re not in the egg production business rather just a small homestead and are really selling eggs because we have an excess and happen to love raising chickens.  If you’ve seen any of the pics we've shared then you might suspect we love chickens too much…   We’re not organic certified and we do feed our hens cracked corn (some people are completely against feeding chickens corn and soy, but corn is actually really important for chickens for the carbs to stay warm over winter).  We buy our feed from a local family owned feed store in Springfield, McKenzie Feed, or at the Wilco Farm Coop.  We don’t always buy GMO free labeled feed, only when on sale.  Typically we buy Scratch and Peck Feeds or Purina Organic, or CHS Payback layer crumble.  Our chickens are only given free choice for oyster shell and grit.  The oyster shell is important for the calcium they use creating those shells.  Grains are only fed in small quantities twice a day, once in the morning when chickens are turned out to free range and once in evening when secured in coop for their protection from predators at night.  About 80% of our chicken’s diet is from free-ranging, they forage on their own.   That means our eggs are smaller, you won’t see XL eggs in our cartons…just won’t happen.  We also don't wash our eggs and we have roosters in our flock -- All Nat-ur-al.

Sign Posted in Work Lunch Room

So I noticed on top of a carton of organic certified eggs that someone shared with me, they (the brand) brag about their free range chickens having 21.8 square feet of outdoor space to free range in…wow, a full whopping 2’ x 10.5’ chicken run!  Honestly, that’s not free range and those chickens are getting their food entirely from pellets.  By comparison our hens have 46,000 sq ft of free range space per hen, but they actually don’t range further than about 5,100 sq ft/per hen, of space.  I’m also building a mobile coop now so we can move the girls between pastures so they don’t focus on the bugs in just one area.  It's part of our pasture management plan.

Organic Certified with 21.8 sq ft of Outside Open Space

We have another brooder full of French Black Copper Maran chicks, which will lay a nice dark chocolate egg about the color of the dark brown in the picture above, let's hope for lots of hens from this hatch!

Happy Chickens!