A note from Farmer Jason on "molting"....

“Brenham, we have a problem.” 

Due to chickens being chickens and in their natural environment, exhibiting all of their chicken-ness, we are extremely low on eggs right now.  This time of year is a rather difficult time for egg producers- not the chickens.  They continue to do the chicken things that chickens do each and every day but their conversion of feed and sunlight are going through different phases.  Let me explain.

This time of year, chickens tend to reset their bodies.  The most evident is in their displaying of new feathers.  This amazing feat performed by the chickens is called “molting.”  Throughout the year, they lose their feathers in different sections, putting new feathers on as they go.  This keeps them from losing all the feathers at once for this would cause serious protection problems for the chickens.  Then, about this time of year (late October – November) they do the big molt.  New quills start sprouting from all over and these amazing new feathers begin to form. 

Once it starts, there is drastic growth each day.  It is rather amazing how these animals are made.  However, because during the molting process all of their energy is going to putting this new plumage on, their egg production virtually becomes non-existent until they are done.  Not all of our flock is molting right now. I would say about 60% of them are.  These are the main contributors to our lack of eggs. 

This leaves the remaining 40%. When fall comes, we begin having shorter days.  Right now we have about 11 hrs of sunlight.  Chickens are very finicky animals and feel they need 14 hrs of sunlight to ovulate at optimum production levels. The chickens that are laying currently aren’t laying an egg a day like they normally do.  I hoping that they are laying at least every other day, but there is no way to tell with a flock as large as ours.

So, what to do?  This is what we are asking ourselves.  We can’t do anything about the molting.  This is a natural occurrence that chickens go through.  I don’t believe in forced molting that is performed in commercial industrial models.  The chickens are starved from food and water for several days until the process stops. They start back up laying eggs once food is introduced again.  These chickens look terrible with extreme loss of feathers, which I guess they feel they don’t need since they are packed inside buildings in tiny little cages. 

For right now and for the sake of keeping things “natural” around here, we will just live with the molting part of chicken-ness.  The shorter days can be remedied.  It would be easy to put lights in the house and plug it into the wall for a couple hours a day after the sun goes down but their house moves everyday since they are out on pasture, so that just won’t work.   This is where solar lights will come in handy.  We are currently figuring out a way to run some lights off solar polar.  I feel this will greatly improve production from the non-molting chickens.  We’ll see.

All of this is to say, “Please bare with us”.  We try to allow our animals to live in the most natural environment possible, which leads a lot of time to natural processes out of our control.  We have 400 new layers that should start laying in a few weeks. Our hope is that they will greatly fill in the gaps.

Thank you so much for your support of our farm.  Honoring God and His perfect creation, being caretakers of it everyday, and producing healthy food for families is our passion and we are so thankful for families and individuals that allows us to do this everyday.

Buying from a face....

I, Lynsey, recently wrote a post for a friend's blog about the issue of consumerism. I thought I'd post it here as well. Here is that article below:

Baby steps are good.....real good.

Its hard to live out all of your food convictions initially off the bat once you begin the journey of eating well and eating locally. Things can quickly become overwhelming. Especially if you are use to driving to your local supermarket for everything that you consume.

I'm still working through it all and trying to find ways to improve for our family. It takes lots of digging and looking into things.....mainly because our government and the food industry have become real good at hiding things and dumbing us down as a culture. We are a society of convenience.

What I have learned the most on this journey so far is that buying from a person takes a little more effort (and money) than running to your local Walmart for your one stop shop. Our family buys produce from a sweet family (we are working on growing our own), coffee down the road, honey from a farm in Montgomery, our dairy, butter, and cheese from a local dairy, wheat from a farm up north, and have meat and eggs from our farm. These are the basics of our diet.

For the rest of the small things, I do have to go to HEB for and will buy organic/local (GO Texan) and Fair Trade if possible, but the majority of our stuff is purchased from people and farmers. I usually buy things in bulk to prevent having to run around too many times.

As long as I'm in the right frame of mind, the effort all of this takes is overshadowed by the notion that my products have faces.

Being in the farming world has opened my eyes a million times over. I realize I'm very blessed to live this life, but also no longer can claim to be naive or ignorant about the food system knowing what I know.

Farmers who sell direct market to their customers have much much higher standards than the USDA or FDA. Our farm believes strongly in accountability and our customers holding us accountable for the way in which we raise our animals.

We get a lot of questions on the safety of our meat and eggs along with the dairy we purchase from. A lot of people want to know is the food we produce "safe" since we aren't technically overseen by a government official (our meat does have to butchered at a USDA inspected facility).

It's just a sad fact that we need fancy labels, catchy phrases that the government is buying up (they purchased the term "Free Range" so small farms can no longer use this unless they pay big bucks), and institutions to tell us things are safe instead of trusting a small farm and the farmer who has put their blood, sweat, tears, passions, and resources into their products. A lot of times, their livelihood depends on the quality and safety of their products so its a big deal to them and something they take seriously.

I hear a lot about the economy and it being so terrible as to instill fear in the lives of many people. The sad thing is that one of the areas that people cut back on first are their food choices. I understand this on one hand....it can be expensive. There is no denying that fact. On the other hand, food is a big deal and major part of your life. What we put into our bodies directly effects us on many levels- spiritually, mentally, and physically.

When you purchase goods and food from people and small farms, you are supporting something with a face and (if locally) fueling money directly back into your local economy which then in turns has a positive result on helping the economy around you. Scaling back and buying processed foods, canned goods, and meat from Walmart made and grown in other countries does not have this effect nor are these things usually good for us to eat. 

There are changes we could all make. I do think people need to know that we have options all around us. We just need to find them since its out of the box.  

To find local farmers all around you visit these sites:

Eat Wild

Local Harvest

Eat Well Guide

Rendering Pork Lard

For steps on how to render your own lard, visit our family blog HERE (www.yonderwayfarm.blogspot.com).

When people hear the word "lard", they mostly think bad things- fattening, unhealthy, bad for you, etc. Lard has developed a bad connotation over the years and has been replaced by things like crisco, margarine, vegetable oil, and canola oil.

I recently told someone that I was going to try and render my own lard for cooking. To that they replied,"I thought you ate healthy. Lard does not sound healthy."

So, this is attempt to dispell the myths that all fats are bad for you. All fats are not created equal.

"Today heart disease causes at least 40% of all US deaths. If, as we have been told, heart disease results from the consumption of saturated fats, one would expect to find a corresponding increase in animal fat in the American diet. Actually, the reverse is true. During the sixty-year period from 1910 to 1970, the proportion of traditional animal fat in the American diet declined from 83% to 62%, and butter consumption plummeted from eighteen pounds per person per year to four. During the past eighty years, dietary cholesterol intake has increased only 1%. During the same period the percentage of dietary vegetable oils in the form of margarine, shortening and refined oils increased about 400% while the consumption of sugar and processed foods increased about 60%. " (The Skinny on Fats, Weston A. Price Foundation, see full article below)

Not too long ago, our grandmothers and their mothers all cooked and baked with pork lard and butter. In recent years, these two foods have been deemed "bad" fats and we've been dumbed down to thing that baking with margarine (which is one molecule away from plastic) and vegetable oil is better for us in some way.

As a matter of fact, when you hear the words "vegetable oil" one would think good things because of the word "vegetable". And "canola" certainly doesn't sound that harmful either.

Vegetable oil is made up largely of genetically modified (GMO) soy and corn. It is even used in paints, hydraulic fluid, and has various other industrial uses. Canola oil is made from a seed called the rapeseed. Sounds freaky, right? The name "canola oil" was given to make the oil more marketable. Rapeseed has high toxic amounts of erucic acid that is dangerous for human consumption. However, the hydrogenation of the rapeseed deems it safe for human consumption because it only has trace amounts of the erucic acid in it- yet its still in the oil. Canola oil is also an industrial oil that does not belong in the human body.

Here is a direct quote from an article "The Oiling of America" listed below to sort of sum this up for us.

"Most animal fats-like butter, lard and tallow-have a large proportion of saturated fatty acids. Saturated fats are straight chains of carbon and hydrogen that pack together easily so that they are relatively solid at room temperature. Oils from seeds are composed mostly of polyunsaturated fatty acids. These molecules have kinks in them at the point of the unsaturated double bonds. They do not pack together easily and therefore tend to be liquid at room temperature. Judging from both food data and turn-of-the-century cookbooks, the American diet in 1900 was a rich one-with at least 35 to 40 percent of calories coming from fats, mostly dairy fats in the form of butter, cream, whole milk and eggs. Salad dressing recipes usually called for egg yolks or cream; only occasionally for olive oil. Lard or tallow served for frying; rich dishes like head cheese and scrapple contributed additional saturated fats during an era when cancer and heart disease were rare. Butter substitutes made up only a small portion of the American diet, and these margarines were blended from coconut oil, animal tallow and lard, all rich in natural saturates."

To sum this up even further for us- our bodies know how to process naturally saturated animal fats and fats like lard, butter, coconut oil, and tallow. Foreign and ancient diets high in natural saturated fats have low risks of heart disease, high cholesterol, and cancers. Seed oils our bodies don't really know what to do with because of all of the extensive porcessing and hydrogenation to achieve the seed oils.

"The relative good health of the Japanese, who have the longest life span of any nation in the world, is generally attributed to a lowfat diet. Although the Japanese eat few dairy fats, the notion that their diet is low in fat is a myth; rather, it contains moderate amounts of animal fats from eggs, pork, chicken, beef, seafood and organ meats. With their fondness for shellfish and fish broth, eaten on a daily basis, the Japanese probably consume more cholesterol than most Americans. What they do not consume is a lot of vegetable oil, white flour or processed food (although they do eat white rice.) The life span of the Japanese has increased since World War II with an increase in animal fat and protein in the diet." (Skinny on Fats, Weston A. Price Foundation. See below.)

After seeking alternatives to the modern use of crisco, vegetable oil, canola oil, and margarine I discovered the unique benefits of cooking with pork lard and raw grass-fed butter.

Here is a chart of of the best sources of obtaining good fats in your diet (taken from "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon)

- Fresh Butter and Cream from pastured animals; preferrably raw
- Lard
- Beef, Lamb, Goose, and Duck fat from pastured animals
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Unrefined Flax Seed Oil in small amounts
- Coconut and Palm Oil

Second to Cod Liver, pork lard is among the top foods in obtaining Vitamin D in our diets. The key to benefitting from vitamin D in pork lard, is by rendering lard from pigs raised in natural sun light.

Commercially raised pigs never see the light of day. So, their lard would be low in Vitamin D, not to mention that animals store their toxins in their fat therefore making the diet of the pig extremely important during its life.

Lard is a stable fat that is largely used in baking and cooking. We have our butcherer save our pork fat (we sell this as well) so that we are able to render our own lard from our pigs raised on pasture and fed 100% USDA certified organic grains.

I've barely even scratched the surface here. The subject of fats in our diet is highly complex and somewhat scientific.

As with anything, you will run into information on both ends of the spectrum. Always consider your sources. If you are interested in looking into digging deeper into this subject, I encourage you to do so and not just take my word for it.

I've compiled a list of articles from the Weston A. Price Foundation- a nonprofit, tax-exempt charity founded in 1999 to disseminate the research of nutrition pioneer Dr. Weston Price, whose studies of isolated nonindustrialized peoples established the parameters of human health and determined the optimum characteristics of human diets.

The Skinny on Fats

The Oiling of America

The Great Con-Ola

Hamburger Meat: The Hot Dog of Beef

(Feed lot in California)

There was an article in The Houston Chronicle today about commercially raised beef. The article focuses in on the slaughterhouse practices in factory farming. Butcherers of large meat producing plants grind up various undesirable parts of the cow (instead of whole cuts) and can use multiple cows from different slaughterhouses to make up their hamburger meat.

This particular article spotlights a young woman who thought she was purchasing top quality meat labled "American Chef's Selection Angus Beef Patties" and paid a premium price for the meat only to be sticken with E. coli and paralized from this deadly food-borne illness.

The article gives insight into the awful practices of the commerical meat industry and how the USDA is doing virtually nothing to combat the problem of the spread of E. coli throughout the commercial meat industry. This quote is taken directly from the article.

"In August 2008, the USDA issued a draft guideline again urging, but not ordering, processors to test ingredients before grinding. Dr. Kenneth Petersen, an assistant administrator with the department's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said the department could mandate testing, but that it needed to consider the impact on companies as well as consumers.

“I have to look at the entire industry, not just what is best for public health,” Petersen said.

(Feed lot....where is the grass?)

The article makes a case to buy from local farms without even directly stating it. By simply stating facts, its obvious that consuming factory farmed and slaughterhouse butchered meat is not in our best interest.

Our farm is very particular in who we use to butcher our meats. We have established a wonderful relationship with a local small butcherer to ensure that we receive only our cows. Our cows are never held in a slaughterhouse. They go straight from our pasture and are slaughtered right when they arrive at the butcherer.

On the days our cows are butchered, we go to great lengths to make sure that our cows are butchered first before any other meats. The hamburger meat that we sell contains none of the "junk meat" that you would receive from commercial hamburget meat.

If the USDA won't look out for our best interest, then we have to take it upon ourselves to do so. Factory farming is not the answer.

You can read the article from the Houston Chronicle HERE.

 (Factory Farm meat processing plant)

When it comes to food and farming......

This is our heart's cry. I recently discovered a movie that came out in June. Unfortunately, there isn't anywhere near us playing this movie. You will have to travel to either Austin or DFW to view it - of course!

However, I would love to purchase this when it comes out on DVD and have a viewing party on the farm. How cool would that be to watch this movie with cows "mooing", chickens "clucking", and pigs "rooting" in the background? I can smell the organic non-GMO popcorn popping right this minute.

I encourage everyone to watch this trailer and browse around the website. And if you happen to be fortunate enough to live nearby a movie theater showing this movie, go see it!

Something pretty precious occurred as Kaylyn and I were watching the trailer for the first time. Towards the end, the trailer shows images of "good farming practices" in which you see animals all on pasture- the way that it should be.

KK (our 5 year old) said outloud as they were showing these farms,"Hey, momma. That's our farm." This proud momma beemed with delight! Of course I'm pretty sure it was Joel Salatin's farm (since he was the one doing the talking), but still she recognized what our farm, a real farm, looks like.

The movie is call Food, Inc. They have an incredible website with a wonderful blog filled with lots of good information. The more awareness we can bring around eating locally and supporting farmers around us, the better off our economy will be. I fully believe that. On top of boosting our locally economies, there is no comparison to eating meats raised solely on pasture when it comes to health benefits and humane issues. One thing we, as the consumer, must understand is this. Here is a quote from the movie. "When we run an item past the super market scanner, we're voting. For local or not; organic or not." This is the movie we've been waiting for. I can't wait to see it! Here is a trailer of the movie.