WellsTavernFarm’s Weblog

BOO! A barn cat poses for the camera.

A Buff Orpington hen.

The tom turkeys must be mature. I never thought that we would have this issue, but it seems that we do– the toms (we have three of them) are fighting… a lot! So Myles segregated them yesterday; one will stay with the hens in the pasture, and the other two are individually penned in the barn for the moment. The two that are penned have an entire winter-goat-pen to themelves (each) and will be living for about one more month before Thanksgiving.


The broilers/roaster chicks that came in a week ago are fabulously healthy and growing like weeds.

It is raining here. The chickens are undeterred and still in the pasture foraging and scratching.

Broiler/Roaster Chicks Have Arrived.

Delaware Chickens House

Lilac Turkeys House

Here are a few pictures to catch up with the happenings at the farm.
Five days ago, our one-day-old broiler/roaster cornish hens arrived. They should be available for Christmas gift-giving.
The Delaware Chicken house was moved on skids, across the road a week ago, so that all of the chickens and turkeys could be living on the same side of the road, and have more pasture space.
The turkey house is used only to confine the birds at night. Same for the chickens. There are a lot of predators who would love organically-fed chicken or turkey meat.

I am horrified and disgusted by an article I read this morning in the Washington Post about the farm that falsely labeled their products “certified organic” and knowingly falsified their slaughter records and who attempted to mislead the public in order to make a buck.

While in theory, I wholeheartedly agree with Joel Salatin and his followers that we should try to achieve “…  an exemption from government intrusion in direct farmer-to-consumer food transaction,” there are reasons that this does not work on a large-scale in the real world.  The Double H Farm in Virginia is a great example of WHY trust and relationships and a small-amount of Big-Brother oversight is essential in ensuring that safe, wholesome, local food WORKS OUT to the benefit of both the consumer and farmer.

I am very excited to learn that the USDA has finally decided that grassfed really means grassfed, period. Not grain finished, corn finished, etc, etc… but milk fed as a calf, and then pastured… and that is it. That is very, very exciting  — because that is exactly what we have — beef that is solely fed pasture in season and hay in the winter — hence they are  grassfed. Here is what I found out recently:  USDA standards on the labeling of “grass fed” The gist:grass and/or forage shall be the feed source consumed for the lifetime of the ruminant animal, with the exception of milk consumed prior to weaning. The diet shall be derived solely from forage and animals cannot be fed grain or grain by-products and must have continuous access to pasture during the growing season.

IMPORTANT: this means that animals “finished” on grain will no longer be labeled as grass-fed.

I am shocked to read other blogs that make the following claims:

“USDA Grass Fed” can come from cattle that was confined in a feedlot, drugged and injected, and came from mothers that were grain-fed or were grain-fed themselves, until weaning age. “

I have not met any real-world farmers who would do that to their “grass fed” bovines. Maybe a belief that farmers wouldn’t knowingly mis-label their product in the manner described above is just a small-town USA mentality. I would hope that such a hideous ethical breach would never be an option, for any farmer, grassfed or not.  More information at http://www.ethicurean.com/

Specifically, a domesticated rabbit known as the Lionhead bunny, which came free with my haircut today at the Barbershop. Sounds strange, but it is true. I wandered into Chet’s barbershop, looking for a haircut without an appointment, and not only did I get a great trim, but I brought home a baby bunny. There is nothing quite like walking down the sidewalk during the afternoon drive home, in downtown Greenfield, hugging a bunny. Literally. Hugging the bunny, as I didn’t go to the barbershop with a cardboard box. I thought I was just getting a trim, but I got the rabbibt too.

A real cutie. I think that we’ll call him Killer or Tiger or something menacing that someone would name their guard dog. Any ideas?

Apparently the Lionhead rabbits only grow to about 3.5 pounds when full grown. The wiki entry about the rabbit reads: The Lionhead rabbit is one of the newest breed of domesticated rabbits. It has particularly long hair surrounding the face, reminiscent of the mane of a male lion, hence the name. Other characteristic traits of the lionhead include a rounded head and small size, usually between 2.5 and 3.5 pounds. It also tends to have slightly shorter ears than most breeds.
The Lionhead rabbit originated in Belgium. It is reported to have been produced by breeders trying to breed a long coated dwarf rabbit by crossing a miniature Swiss Fox and a Belgian dwarf. The Lionhead seemed to have been more popular than the long coated dwarf, and so breeders carried on this trend in breeding them intentionally, and so came what we know today as the Lionhead rabbit.
The breed has been recognised by the British Rabbit Council, however as of yet it is not a fully recognised breed in the ARBA.

Rain, rain go away… come again another day.
It has been raining for more than a day here in the hills of western Massachusetts. Personally, I love the rain, but the animals aren’t fans of the rain. The chickens spend time in their pasture scratching and playing and mudbathing, but aren’t as happy as they usually are outside. The goats are a species that originated in Africa — Nubians and Boers. They prefer hot and dry. The cows are cows — they ALWAYS prefer dry. The piggies are happy enough outside. The turkeys are weird. They might be happy in the rain, but I am not sure that I would know it. They are roosted IN the rain tonight ON the fenceline to the cows pasture — I didn’t get them rounded up in time at dusk tonight– so I hope that they make it through the night with all of our preditators stalking them out there.

Myles managed to finish the moving of the house that the Delaware chickens and Cock-a-Doo the Delaware Rooster live in at night. The house didn’t end up where we had planned to drag it on its skids, but it did move. Unfortunately for my herbs, the house is sitting on top of them — it is eerily similar to Dorothy and the Wicked Witch her house smushed. The thyme will probably be okay– and I think that I can move it. The chives and cilantro are smushed. The onions are gonzo, as are the tomatoes that used to live where the truck and house drove and got dragged. That last sentence really stunk, but you know what I meant, I hope. This house is really kind of large… we are not talking a little 4 by 8 chicken abode– this is a McMansion version of house — it is almot nine feet wide, and more than 12 feet long. It has a porch roof overhang and is big enough for calves, sheep, chickens… many, many animals have called this structure home over the years.

Lots of eggs were layed today — and some of the black chickens are laying enormous eggs — they barely fit in the middle of a Large Egg carton. We are very pleased with our ladies. Try some of our fresh, organically-fed pastured chicken eggs today. Or tomorrow. Or the next day.

“I am the eggman
they are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g’ joob …” – the Beatles

It has been a week since I blogged last, and I apologize for that. We have been very busy on the farm this week.
The ladies are laying more than 21 eggs a day, and size and numbers of eggs are increasing everyday. We are meeting new neighbors and great folks, and enjoying every minute of selling eggs directly to the public.

Exciting news: We have 25 broiler day-old chicks scheduled to arrive on Monday. They will be ready for butchering in two months, just in time for Christmas or New years. We will raising them with daytime pasture and organic feed from Vermont. If you want to puchase any of these approximately five pound roasters, contact us sooner, rather than later, because they will go fast!

We have almost completely moved a very large poultry building from one side of property, across the road to the other side. More about that another day.

A Massachusetts State policeman has told us that he will write us a ticket if our chickens are in the road again. Whoops. I guess that is the drawback to living so close to Route 2, a kind of major highway between here and there, ’round these parts. The chickens, were not, by the way, on the major route two, the Mohawk Trail — they were crossing our little road, unfortunately, in front of a cruiser. I guess that would make our poultry “jailbirds” —- sorry

And, with all of these great little pieces of news, we also went on a micro-vacation to Maine! We donned our tourist garb and visited our favorite little agirucltural fair, the Fryeburg Fair. I will post more about the fair experience later this week — including pictures and musings. Stay tuned!