These guys make taking the fleece off of a sheep with hand powered shears seem so effortless.  From blade preparation to proper positioning of the feet we covered a lot in a pretty short time.  We had plenty of hands-on experience, luckily.  While shearing our sheep, Kevin and Emily made their rounds correcting our positioning and giving us tips. This was priceless!  Kevin Ford published a very detailed instructional book on blade shearing.  Shearing Day is a wonderful guide covering blade preparation and proper postioning, and can be ordered online.  For more info on Emily Chamelin visit her website.

The trip was well worth it just for that experience, but I am glad I made it to the rest of the festival the next day.  I was pleasantly surprised at how big a deal this thing is.  I spent hours wandering around the festival.  There was booth after booth of beautiful fleeces, yarn and fiber art and barn after barn of almost every breed of sheep out there. Lamb burgers, kebabs, gyros and pit-roasted lamb were on the menu in great quantity.  It’s very encouraging to see so many people doing so many interesting things with sheep.

I managed to finally meet my fellow Texan, Gulf Coast sheep owner,  Cindy Telisak.  We have been in touch via email and facebook for some time.  She owns Jacob’s Reward Farm, a fiber CSA near Dallas.  Her farm is home not only to Gulf Coast Sheep, but also Jacob’s Sheep and Alpacas.  There are some hens running around there too, I believe.  She offers spinning and a wide variety of fiber arts classes as well.

I’m still a little sore, and still a little tired, but I can’t wait until this Saturday to put my sharpened skills to work shearing my own sheep.

-Shaun

Photo – Sunning Tufted Titmouse © Kathy Vespaziani, Avianatic.com

I’ve seen this often with my chickens as well, especially the young birds as they emerge onto pasture from the brooder. Artificial light will keep a bird alive and some might say healthy too, but there is no substitute for the real thing. We humans have a great distaste for window-less buildings and would only agree to live in a home without windows in very extreme circumstances. So why is it that window-less warehouses are acceptable for sun loving chickens? In my opinion, it’s not.  That’s why I’d like to go over some welfare related labels that might be found on egg cartons. I think we can all agree that food labeling has become confusing and frustrating at times, but it’s still very important. That being said, the best choice will always be to find someone who raises chickens in an ethical way and buy from them directly. Or, do it yourself! Many neighborhoods are becoming more and more accepting of chickens in the backyard. A good friend of mine just started her own personal backyard flock.

Photo - Candice Baird

If those are not options for you and you must buy eggs at the grocery store, please take a moment to understand the various label claims and what they mean. There are good, humane eggs to be found with a little research.

Cage Free: Regulated by the USDA. Chickens were kept out of cages and had continuous access to food and water, but did not necessarily have access to the outdoors for longer than five minutes a day. There is no verification process for this claim.

Free Range: Regulated by the USDA. In addition to meeting cage-free standards, free-range birds must have continuous access to the outdoors, unless there’s a health risk present. There are no standards, though, for that outdoor area. There is no verification process for this claim.

Pasture-raised: There is no regulation or verification of this term, which implies that hens got at least part of their food from foraging on greens and bugs. Adherents claim that studies have shown pasture-raised eggs have more nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin A, vitamin E and beta carotene, and less saturated fat and cholesterol.

Fertile: The term is unregulated but implies that the eggs were likely to have been fertilized because the hens were uncaged and raised near a rooster. Fertile eggs are stored at temperatures too cold for chicks to develop.

ANIMAL CARE LABELS

Animal Welfare Approved:This label, widely regarded as the gold standard for humane treatment, is a program of the Animal Welfare Institute and is given only to independent family farmers. Flocks can have no more than 500 birds, and chickens over 4 weeks old must be able to spend all their time outside on pesticide-free pasture with a variety of vegetation. They must have access to dust baths and cannot have their beaks trimmed or be fed animal byproducts.

Certified humane raised and handled: Hens marked by this label are kept cage free, though not necessarily outdoors.  “Certified humane raised and handled” is administered by Humane Farm Animal Care, the only animal welfare program audited each year for reliability by the USDA. It is endorsed by many animal welfare organizations. It has requirements for, among other things, ventilation, density and the number of perches and nesting boxes that must be provided. It requires that each hen have at least 1.5 square feet of space (324 square inches).

American humane certified: Created by the American Humane Association, this label allows for both cage-confinement and cage free (but not necessarily outdoors). Hens confined in these “furnished cages” have about the space of a legal-sized sheet of paper. Its standards prohibit forced molting (reducing feed to increase egg production) and require that hens have at least 1.25 square feet of space (225 square inches).

United Egg Producers Certified: This label, presented by the United Egg Producers, is America’s leading trade association for egg farmers, and has standards for caged and cage-free layers. Many animal welfare advocates say those standards are too low. The standards permit hens to have as little as 67 square inches of space, less than a letter-size sheet of paper, which is 93.5 square inches.

Organic: This label means that the eggs meet the standards of the agriculture department’s National Organic Program. Among the requirements: birds must be kept cage free with outdoor access (time and the type of access are not defined), they cannot be given antibiotics and their food must be free from animal byproducts and made from crops grown without chemical pesticides, fertilizers, irradiation, genetic engineering or sewage sludge. If organic eggs do not have the program’s emblem, they may be part of an independent or state-run program, and it may take some research to determine the program’s standards.

Vegetarian Feed: For eggs with the USDA grade shield, “vegetarian-fed” indicates that the eggs came from hens raised on all-vegetarian feed. It should be noted that hens are not naturally vegetarian. They naturally feed on grubs, bugs and worms. There isn’t a substantial nutritional difference between these eggs and conventional eggs—the appeal of vegetarian eggs is mostly for those who are – understandably – concerned about byproducts that can be included in conventional chicken feed such as feather meal, chicken litter, pork and cattle byproducts and “spent hen meal” (ground up dead hens).

Excerpt from Ecocentric Blog   http://www.ecocentricblog.org/2012/04/06/not-all-eggs-are-created-equal/

As you can see, there are many loosely defined and unverified labels out there. Make sure you choose one with a verification process like Animal Welfare Approved, and again, there is no true substitute for knowing your farmer and seeing the chickens outside, foraging on grass and enjoying the sunlight.

Lavaca county is home to many large chicken operations so trucks like the one below often rumble by our farm.

photo - Flickr by b3nscott

My heart breaks for a number of reasons, but the main one is the thought that this is the first time in their whole life that these birds are seeing and feeling the sunshine. People often give me a hard time about naming our animals, dismissing it as childish or even distasteful, but for as long as we can, we will keep naming our animals to ensure that we remember the importance and value of their lives each day as we care for them, tending not just to their needs but to their desires as well.

first flight - a+s

browsing for bugs - a+s

a+s

-Amy

for more information go here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/398453873503225/

or here:
http://www.gulfcoastlamb.com/

Tour the farm, Enjoy a lamb burger, Bring some delicious lamb chops home with you!
Visit www.facebook.com/events/398453873503225/ for more info.

Join us March 24, 2012 for our Second Annual Spring Celebration, celebrating all of our new lambs!

Follow us on Facebook for more details.

-a+s

This is lambing season and it is a time of year when I get to take as much time watching the sheep as I would like.  I look for subtle changes in their behavior that hint at an eminent birth.  This time of the year also means I don’t go very far or very long from the farm.  Although I can spot a ewe in labor most of the time, some of them are pretty good at hiding it.  We tend to have most of our lambs about fourteen to twenty-one days into lambing season we tend to have a few early birds.  The early birds tend to be first time moms so we have to keep an eye on them to make sure they get through okay.

Pay attention to our facebook page for photos of the new lambs.

-Shaun

They’ve had their eye on it for six months now.  Every time they passed by, they looked longingly at the abundant native pasture and sheltering woods.  Deep down, instinctively, they know it is their home.  At least is should be.  After all, their ancestors came from land like that.

Our flock of Gulf Coast ewes were ready to cross the river and finally graze the only part of our property they’ve never been to.  The South-West corner of our property, some six acres is cut off by shallow Lavaca River.  Because of the ravine it rests in it is nearly impossible to reach it with equipment.  Any ambitions of improving this area by previous owners of this land would have been extinguished by this fact.  The result is a native savannah and woods.  It’s about as close as we can get on our property to the piney woods forest the Gulf Coast sheep were supported by for so many years.

Gulf Coast Sheep were free-grazed in the piney woods of the Gulf Coast for centuries.  They fended for themselves with little human intervention.  That is the Culture that has been lost, nearly taking this breed of sheep with it.  It has been been our goal to recreate as many of the components of that as we could on our limited land.  We move the sheep daily.  We let them graze native pastures, trees, weedy patches to ensure we don’t breed out the ability they have to forage and thrive in less than ideal pastures.  Our biggest dream is to create a savannah over the rest of our property.  This will take time, but it’s a goal worth pursuing.

Until then, our sheep will be limited to their “vacations” in the woods.

Cool season grasses survive frosts, so our sheep always have something green to eat.

We do grow a lot of food for sheep.  Most of it is very freeze resistant this time of year, however we do see some transformations from living forage to “stock-piled” forage.  Even though a frost may knock back some grasses, the leaves dry and remain for future grazing.

Warm season grasses begin to slumber for the winter, their dried leaves will provide sustenance for our flock through the winter.

Life is present even in dead or dormant plants.  Life is present in the frost that halts the over growth of certain weeds, and life is definitely present in the coolness that alerts winter plants to grow.  We are constantly amazed at all the miracles of farming.

-a+s