The New Ram Is Here!!

This should really be like front page news! I brought our new ram home the other day. We will be calling him Mozart. We bought him from the same farm that we bought our first Dorper ram from, many years ago, and the first ram's name was Chopin - thus, the new guy is Mozart. He is a purebred Black-Headed Dorper ram. He is a yearling and a lovely size. Still some growing left to do, but he looks great.

This is the new guy. Notice how nice and big and muscly
rounded his front shoulders and back end are.

This is Mozart at the feeder with his first "harem" of girls.
For the next 17 days he will be working with nine ewes.





Another angle of Mozart. I need to get a better shot of his back end,
but you can see how great he is - standing square and big in all the
right areas. Makes me hungry just looking at him!

 So far, Mozart is doing great with the ladies. He's has had some recent experience so he knows what his job is. He's been with his new harem now for 24 hours and has already covered at least three that we know of. The green chalk on his chest is so that we can tell which ewes he has covered - easier to keep track of due dates that way. Colour wears off after a while so all is good.

Anyway, we are all excited here. He is a great addition to the ranch. As I don't have enough ewes to keep him really busy we will probably make him available to a few other select ewes. Call if you are interested.

Purple Potatoes

I love local food! I love the variety, and in some cases, I really love the colour. My latest food fad is purple potatoes. Yes, purple potatoes - I found them locally from Bea Cody at CastleRock Farms. 

Made them for dinner tonight (again!) and wanted to share the goodness.



This is what the potatoes look like raw.
They look more purple in good light.



I am halfway though peeling the potato. Notice that the layer right under the skin seems to be a whiteish layer and then it changes to solid purple.



This is what the inside of the peeled
potato looks like.




These are the potatoes cooking with some broccoli. I love the colour mix of the purple and green - makes for a colourful dinner.




Finished product - Mashed Potatoes! Not a great job mashing,
I was too excited about taking pictures, but I love
the fact that the purple carries through.




And when you done with the potatoes the juice
behind for making gravy is this teal colour! So very cool!!



Chicks and Pigs

The interesting thing about having your hens free ranging is that, well, you don't always find all the eggs. We generally collect eggs a couple times a day and the hens for the most part lay their eggs in areas we have situated for them. Hens prefer to lay eggs in areas that are somewhat protected, which for them means hidden and hard to see. But if you know that you can set up areas where they would like to lay their eggs and generally it works. But if you free range hens that means you are always on the lookout for eggs that are laid in new and bizarre places, and it means you don't always find them. We apparantly have a couple rogue hens that not only stayed hidden with their eggs, but they hatched them out. Hatching eggs outside in mid October is not exactly great conditions for raising chicks, so we are watching the hens to see how they are doing and at the first sign of distress or of them deciding raising chicks in -5 is too much work, we will swoop in and bring them inside. So we have one hen with four chicks in our yard and one hen with a couple chicks in our very nice and patient neighbours yard.

So this is a picture of the hen with her chicks. If you look closely you can see where she has hidden them.

This is a better picture of the chicks. You can see that they are all slightly different in markings. We have a couple different breeds of hens and we have three Buff Orpington roosters (which are a light brown) and a Bard Rock (which is black and white). So we will see what the babies look like when they grow up. The only thing I can say with confidence is that the yellow chick will probably grow up to be light brown. I have no idea about the other three - although I think the more solid dark one of the bunch will be a rooster.

We also brough home three weiner pigs. We have a couple more due to arrive when they are old enough. These piggies are actually a little big for weiners. The producer was kind enough to keep them for an extra week or two while I was busy with consulting work. Their new pen has a couple logs and a big pile of dirt/manure for them to play in, which they wasted no time in getting to know. Something about pigs really makes a ranch feel like a ranch. And between the chickens and the pigs there are no leftovers at our place.

The Art of Blogging

I was talking with a few friends and we were reminiscing about our past blogging efforts. It seemed that in the early days we really struggled with what to say. A lot of people felt that they had to make what they wrote meaningful and found that really, we weren't that deep after all. My first effort at blogging was about one of our farm animals, Danny. Danny was a llama that we ended up hand raising. He is unfortunately no longer with us, but he was a great boy and a good lesson for me in early blogging. I've attached that early effort here for comparison purposes.

http://everythingdanny.blogspot.com/

What I realized early on is that I was far more comfortable talking about the ranch and what we do, than about my thought for the day or even about my other consulting work. For the most part this hasn't changed, I'm still more comfortable talking about ranch work, but I am going to try to also explain some of the why behind what we do.

We'll see how it goes.

Getting the list done

We had a productive few days on the ranch. The pighouse is done, just in time for the weiner pigs to arrive this weekend. The big barn has been cleaned out and the tool shed and the animal equipment shed has been sorted and reorganized. We are making fine progress for winter. Nothing like the fear of cold snap to put a little oomph in your step.

While the family continues to work on the ranch I am in 100 Mile House at the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Tourism Association. As part of my consulting work I am working on an agriculture project and working on that takes me everywhere in our region. I am having some great conversations about local food production and looking for more ways for local producers to get their products to market. Working in agriculture both on and off the ranch - this is great!

October Crazies

I love the month of October on a ranch. Even though there is never a dull moment to start with, in October everything seems amplified. For us, this is especially true as we moved the ranch over the summer. We love, love, love our new place, but getting everything organized from the move on top of all the usual fall activity has everyone busy.

Our "to-do list" for the month includes building a new pig house for the piglets that are arriving in a week. The pen is almost done, just a few finishing touches and the pighouse and we'll be ready for them. We're also getting firewood for the winter (wood heat only for the house!), we need to expand the henhouse for the winter and the chicken yard needs some repair work, the two barns need cleaning and one of them will be designated as the maternity pen, so we will need to do some work to get that ready. Thankfully we are not expecting any babies until December, but it pays to be prepared. We also have three new breeding ewes arriving next weekend and another six in a months time. Oh, and fencing - always fencing. We are going to fence a new section to use for winter feeding. So lots to do this month.

The hens (and a couple roosters) are having a blast free ranging. We'll be fixing their yard up for them for the winter, but for the summer they've been making themselves at home everywhere. Makes collecting eggs interesting and I am sure we are missing some spots, but still, we get 4-5 dozen a day so I'm not complaining too much.

I love taking snacks out for the chickens and calling them and having them come running from wherever they are to see what treat we have for them. It always makes me feel like a scene from a movie - all these chickens running over and then happily checking the ground for whatever treats have been spread out for them.

Eggs are one of those great farm products - we could have twice as many as we do and still sell all of them. During the summer we sell the eggs at the farmers market, and during the winter we organize weekly deliveries/pick ups.  

Back on the Blog!

The great thing about blogging is that you get to pick the most exciting thing about what you do and tell others about it - and hope that they find it exciting as well.

Coyote Acres Ranch is a family run ranch and without the family it doesn't get done. When people ask me what I do, I tell them I feed people. The next question is what is the difference between a farmer and a rancher. Here's what I have come up with. I am a rancher because I don't grow any plant based crop. I am strictly a meat producer. I have found that most people who say they are farmers also grow a plant based crop - hay, grain, market gardens. Farmers can also raise livestock, but you won't find many ranchers who grow commercial crops. I am sure that now I have stated this I will find many examples otherwise, and some people will argue that the size of the operation also helps to define farm vs. ranch; but for me, the distinction between what is grown works well.

As meat producers we focus on the five food groups - beef, pork, lamb, chicken and llama. We focus on producing a quality product and we are more interested in getting it right than in producing the most that we can. This means that sometimes when our customers want something, they have to wait a bit until it's ready. As a meat producer I have a duty to make sure I've done the best I can for our animals.

Our animals are wonderful and being a rancher is a great way of life. Through this blog we hope to share some of our daily experiences of life with animals and how we are making it work on the ranch. Thanks for joining us!