Organic

About six months ago we decided for the health and well being of our family we are going to be as self sufficient on the farm as possible. With all the chemicals, hormones and who knows what else they put in commercial food now-a-days we want to eat what I call "whole, raw" foods. To me this means getting our food as close to the source as possible.

Not long ago I never really worried about it or cared. In fact, I kind of thought "organic" or "granola" people were crazy. Not anymore. I'm on board! Right there with them!

I'm not one to try to convince someone to change their opinion or beliefs. But, here are some of my reasoning's behind making the switch:

Milk

I don't know how animals are treated, what they are fed, what the condition of the land is, etc. on a commercial dairy. It is my opinion, I have not done extensive research, that the cows are injected with hormones so they will continue to produce milk. One of these hormones is estrogen. "Estrogens are used as part of some oral contraceptives, in estrogen replacement therapy for postmenopausal women, and in hormone replacement therapy for trans women (Wikipedia)." Whatever the cows ingest goes into the milk they produce. How can increased estrogen levels be good for boys/men? Who knows what kind of pesticides are put on the land around the cows that they may ingest through breathing or grazing. Again, this all comes out in the milk. I could go on and on with my "conspiracy theories" until the cows come home ;) This is why we decided to get dairy goats. Being new to the milking process we decided to start with goats rather than a cow. Here are our goats, Blue Thunder and Pepper. They are purebred, registered Lamancha does.

 Blue Thunder is due to kid any day now and we can finally have our fresh, raw milk!

Pepper will kid towards the end of the month or early March.

I take comfort in knowing EXACTLY what is going into the goats and what will be coming out in the milk :)

We also have a Nubian doe that we will breed sometime this Spring/Summer. She's only a year old and a little pain in the butt. We love her anyways and she's SUPER cute! Here she is, standing in the hay manger, bad girl!

Hay

We made the switch to organic hay when we bought the goats. I have had TERRIBLE hay allergies ever since we started our farm. I have to wear long sleeves and gloves to throw hay to the animals, protective eye wear and usually have to close my eyes when it's windy. Not to mention hold my breath. If I don't, I break out in hives, get red, itchy, watery eyes and sneeze the rest of the day. Since switching to organic hay I haven't had any problems! I couldn't find my gloves the other day and was worried about feeding the goats. I haven't had any problems with hives, sneezing or itchy eyes! Yay!

Beef 

A few years ago we bought some black angus steer from Horseshoe Angus Ranch in Connell (http://horseshoeangusranch.com). It was the best beef we have ever had! With beef prices in the stores rising constantly we decided to buy our own registered black angus breeding stock from the same place. After doing the math, we spent more on ground beef alone in a year than we will on hay for the cattle. Right now we have two heifers that we will take to be bred this Summer for late Spring calves in 2015. If we have a bull calf we will castrate him, raise him and then butcher him. Heifer calves will be sold to cover the costs of raising the animals for the year. Just like the goats, we will know EXACTLY what is going into our beef. 

Here is 236 "Madison" and 318 "Belle"

Plans for this spring: Chickens, pigs and a garden!