Happy New Year!!!

So, another year comes to a close here on the farm.  This was another fun packed super busy year!  We are starting to see the benefits of all the hard work and planning though.  

To end the year on a positive note my wife scheduled a little family getaway for our last weekend in 2012.  We went just out of state to a Holiday Inn Express with a pool in Newell West Virginia.  My wife and I got a stress free night without having to worry about me getting called in to work snow or some other emergency and without her getting bothered from work or having to cook or clean.  They kids got to play in a pool with a bunch of other kids who's families were having a reunion the same weekend!  Then before we left Saturday morning we took them down for another swim while watching it snow out the windows.   As I said in my last post, this was the first time in 10 years I haven't been plowing when it snowed.  I just found out my wife had a video of us all playing so I wanted to post it.

Next up is a little change to the pig barn.  We have had some losses of piglets in the past due to piglets getting stepped on or laid on.  We lost two of Lady's first litter to this same problem because of the piglets trying to crawl under her belly to stay warm in this cold weather.  We have talked about a heat box but couldn't decide how to do it.  We finally had a breakthrough with the introduction of the gates to devide the pens allowing for extra room for each sow and allowing us to use a portion of one of the pens for a heat box.  I didn't know if it would work at first but it came together really nice!

Heat lamp box for baby piglets.

The piglets were a little leary at first but after adding the second light and putting the cover on it was hard to get them to come back out!

Tamworth boar x Berkshire sow piglets.

They quickly piled up under the light after eating and went to sleep.   We are going to open up holes in both sides of the box to the adjoining pens to allow for babies in those two pens to access the heat lamps without having to go around the end of the pen or have more than one mother in a birthing pen.  I also built new built in troughs for feeding the sows.  I will try to get pictures today in the daylight. 

Tamworth boar x Berkshire sow piglets

Our herd check went very well.  Everyone is healthy, vaccinated, de-wormed, and pregnancy checked.  Out of eleven breeding age females we have 9 confirmed pregnancies.  Most of which will all be born between march and may.  The open ones are Frosty and Kwanzan, Frosty had her first calf this year and is a little light in weight, I think this is why she hasn't bred back yet.  I may need to force wean her calf to get her to breed back.  We had the same problem with Candy Apple last year and she was bred shortly after the herd check and rebred just fine this year.  As for Kwanzan I believe she just isn't quite big enough yet.  She is old enough just not big enough to be settle yet.  I will recheck them in early spring.  If they haven't settled by then we will have to decide what to do at that time. 

Looking back on 2012 there are a lot of positive changes that have happened here on the farm and I see us headed in the right direction.

We upgraded our round baler to a much more efficient and newer model allowing me to take on more custom work for baling hay.  The bales made with the new one are much tighter and the baler is made to handle the wetter crops that I have been baling for the neighbors. 

We downsized the pig herd and decided to focus specifically on fair pigs and our own feeder pigs.  When Steven and I started we were going to sell feeder piglets as part of the business.  However, after I started tracking numbers I quickly realized that this was not profitable at all for our operation.  We moved to a Berkshire x Tamworth cross breed for our babies with the exception of Daisy Pig.  We kept her because she has awesome babies and she if from a show pig litter so it allows us to have some really nice fair pigs if someone doesn't like the others!

I finally have a feed bin and found a way to have the mill make our pig feed that they all eat when there is nothing to get off the pasture.  I am getting close to the perfect blend of alfalfa and grains to get the most out of every bite they eat.  They are much more fit as they still have to go to the creek to drink so they are constantly active and growing muscle instead of fat!

I have a majority of the supplies we need to build the cow shed and the site is mostly set up as far as grading.  As soon as spring arrives and the budget covers it we will be building the new cow shed and adding a feeding area for the pig shed.  This will allow me to move the cow feeder area under roof and contain the manure from both the pigs and cattle more efficiently so I can put it on the fields where it is needed the most!  Also, with the growing herd size I am out of room to get all the cattle in the shed for herd checks and such.  The new cow shed will allow me space to handle between 50-60 cattle and will have a building loading and unloading chute that will be connected to a headlock for catching and checking cattle and for vaccinations.  The feeding area for the pig shed will allow me to move all the feeder pigs out of the birthing pens so each of the four sows can have their own pen.  I will also be able to put a bigger feeder out there to handle 8-10 pigs at a time instead of 4 reducing fighting when they are eating. 


There are many times throughout the year where I lose track of how far we have come.  Since starting the farm I seem to always find myself in the barn on new years eve giving everyone a treat and just thinking back to where I was the year before.  I am always humbled as I leave the barn and realize how much more progress we have made and how quickly we are turning the corner.  I can see where we are headed and I cannot wait to get to the next level.  It is always a surprise how much the way things turn out and the way to expected them to be can differ.  We started the farm simply to have our own meat in the freezer.  We have now evolved into a farming business that brings income to the household and teaches our children and many others about hard work, planning, and that knowing where your food comes from is still important. 


The main thing that keeps me going is those few times throughout the year when I get to spend a little while out in the pasture or in the barn and clear my mind and just relax and watch the cows eat or the calves or pigs play.  Or the times when the family and I go for a walk in the woods looking for mushrooms or picking berries.

I hope everyone has something they learned and can grow from in 2012 and I look forward to the challenges and rewards coming in 2013!!  It is always sad to see a year go by and a blessing to see another one to start over fresh with!

Happy New Year everyone!

The Merrick Family