Childs - The Joy of Keeping Farm Animals: Raising Chickens, Goats, Pigs, Sheep, and Cows

Copyright 2010, 2015 by Laura Childs

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The information in this book is true and complete to the best of the authors knowledge. This book is not intended to be a substitute for veterinary care, and all the recipes and instructions for food preparation are to be used at your own risk. The author and publisher make all recommendations without guarantee, and disclaim any liability arising in connection with this information.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Childs, Laura, 1963

The joy of keeping farm animals : Raising Chickens, Goats, Pigs, Sheep, and Cows / Laura Childs.

p. cm.

Includes index.

(pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Livestock farms. 2. Domestic animals. 3. Animal products. 4. Food animals. I. Title.

SF65.2.C45 2010

636dc22

2009034217

Cover design by LeAnna Weller Smith

Cover photos from Shutterstock.com

Print ISBN: 978-1-63220-468-4

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-125-5

Printed in China

Goodbye my Kizzy. I miss you already.

contents

preface

Wide open spaces and sunny front porches. A little garden, a little barn, and a few animals scattering the landscape.

Therein lies the romanticism of a life in the country.

This was the life I yearned to provide for my daughter. The opportunity to grow up on the basics, away from chaos and unreasonable schedules.

A place to ponder, to find purpose and meaning. To better understand our Earth and her inhabitants. To recognize our reliance on things that cant be plugged into a wall socket.

I had lived for years in the center of a large metropolis. While I had loved every minute of it, I knew that I would have neither means nor time enough to connect my daughter to the world around us.

After two wide right turns from the highway and a few minutes of travel along a dirt road, we came to the end of a long overgrown driveway; there our journey began.

I was a single mother with no idea how to grow a zucchini, much less nurture the tender spirit of a three-year-old child.

For the first few months I felt like Eva Gabors character in the late 1960s sitcom Green Acres . I connected so deeply to her that I even started a website called Good Bye City Life with plans to chronicle our upcoming misadventures. Those high-end boots and designer labels just werent built for barn chores.

The local folk watched us arrive, learned that we had no nearby relatives, and made secret bets on how soon the old place would be back up for sale.

Seventeen years passed.

A child was raised and raised well. Together, we grew most of our own food. Through love and toil and occasional sadness we learned the invaluable power of self-reliance.

In full disclosure, we were never completely alone. As trite as the earlier bets had seemed, many watched over and prayed for us. We were lucky to possess the two most revered traits in a rural communitypure grit and humble spirit.

Of the two, humilityor lack of pretentiousnesswas the true key to survival. To ask for and accept advice, assistance, and trustwithout posturing or flaunting past city life accomplishmentsserves new homesteaders well. When you have nothing to prove, country folk welcome and accept you with open arms.

In her sixteenth year, Veronica and I conferred over this books approach. Keeping farm animals, weve decided, is a balancing act of joy and morality. The ethics of animal husbandry, the environmental impact of every step, and eating well will be discoveries that depend on your personal comfort zone.

This book does contain information on keeping farm animals with the intent of feeding your family. The alternative (aside from being a vegetarian) is to purchase pristine white packages of meat from the grocery storethe meat of animals that quite likely had a miserable life, or at the very least a miserable end. The mainstream media has effectively shattered our trust in commercially harvested food.

Country wisdom overrides sentimentality within the remain-der of these pages but it must be said that sentencing an animal to the dinner table is a certainly a somber act. My advice is to do so with the utmost appreciation and gratitude, and with all the dignity your animals deservethis will be your redemption as you provide for your family.

Raise what you can as best you can. Keep your humble spirit about you. Count every step of good stewardship as a joy and you will be richly rewarded.

acknowledgments

The credit for content herein goes to my daughter Veronica. She carried me to this land and worked at my side to explore the joys, hard work, and wonders of raising farm animals and growing our own food. To think it all began with a tiny pack of carrot seeds and some really cute gardening gloves! Lets do it together, Mom.

Although I have been the fingers at the keyboard, not one word of this book would have been possible without the cocreation and collaboration of ideals and understanding from a long list of supportive friends, old-time farmers, and personal resources. Special thanks to Don and Shelley Douglas, Erin Neese, Jennifer and Curtis Foster, David and Lucille Burke, David and Diane Peck, Richard and Julie Koster, Linda Ann Hart and Drew Freymond, my budding list of photographers, and the thousands of subscribers who have e-mailed accounts of their own adventures in farm life for the past ten years via GoodByeCityLife.com

To Ann Treistman, who repeatedly challenged and graciously assisted me in the personal adventure of writing a book for print publication. Thanks also to the rest of the team at Skyhorse Publishing: Tony Lyons, Bill Wolfsthal, Abigail Gehring, Cat Kovach, Ashley Albert, and last but not least, designer LeAnna Weller Smith.

A very special thanks to my candid husband of the last six years, Eric Kleinoder. Without him I would have brought every animal into the house when temperatures dipped below freezing and spent my life savings on raising pigs, chickens, goats, and sheep well past their point of value. Pugnaciousness aside and without judgment, today hell gently smile while he trips over the orphaned calf spending a few nights in our laundry room and the broody hen nesting in the basement. One important lesson Ive learned from Eric, one which every new and tenderhearted farmer needs to at least partially understand, is: These animals may be intelligent, may show appreciation and acceptance of their keeper, but it is a mistake to put every human emotion on an animal.