Preparing (again) for the Mother Earth News Fair

As you know, I've had the privilege of sharing my presentation on raising turkeys at the Mother Earth News Fair twice now. This past June I had a great time at the Fair in Puyallup, and was invited to come to the Fair in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, later this month. I will be doing my turkey presentation again, and also a new presentation on raising ducks.

I hope you can make it to the Fair. It runs 3 days, Sept. 21-23, and I hear they are expecting 20,000 people to visit.

It should be a really fun weekend. For anyone trying to find ways to live more sustainably, consume less and experience the satisfaction of moving toward self-sufficiency, the Fair offers a huge selection of workshops, demonstrations, products and books for sale, and the opportunity to connect with the growing number of like-minded people.

One of the keynote speakers this time is Temple Grandin, the well-known animal scientist who has been responsible for many innovations regarding the humane treatment of livestock and other animals. I am looking forward to hearing her talk; what an inspiration.

So come on out if you can! I will be speaking on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy stage, once on Saturday and once Sunday. I hope to see you there!

Tamworth pigs are growing fast

The three Tamworth pigs we brought home about a month ago are doing great and seem to be growing almost before our eyes. David insists that when he feeds them late in the day, they look bigger than they did in the morning. Not to sound like a sentimental parent or anything, but is there anything more adorable than baby pigs? OK, maybe baby ducks...

As usual with Tamworths, they are plowing up their current paddock quite happily and efficiently, so we will be moving them to an adjacent paddock in the next couple of days. We've finally started to get some summer weather (80s for daytime high predicted all week), so we're going to keep re-seeding the pastures until the first fall frosts discourage such behavior.

Our average first frost is around mid-October, although we were surprised one year by a night in the 20s in September. Everyone says we're in for a hard winter, and I hear rumors of another La Nina season. Now that it's been over five years since we moved to the farm, maybe I should start learning something about the weather! I guess I assumed that El Nino and La Nina more or less alternated, but if predictions pan out, this would be two La Nina winters back to back.

What are you doing to prepare for winter? I've had a lot of questions lately about heating and/or insulating chicken coops. Do you do either of these before the cold weather sets in? I'd love to hear your comments and ideas.

Speaking of eggs, a Nankin hatched 10 (ten!) yesterday

New mama Nankin keeping her ten chicks warm. If you look closely, 

you can see the legs and feet of some of the chicks under the hen.

Well, it's happened again: A Nankin bantam hen came marching out of some bushes near the house this morning with ten tiny chicks. We're not really surprised. In the three years we've had Nankins here, usually two or three batches of chicks show up this way. The hens just like to lay their eggs outdoors sometimes, although most of them regularly lay their eggs in the nest boxes. 

As far as I can remember, this is the largest single brood I've seen a Nankin hatch. The Nankins are a very interesting breed, and according to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, they are critically endangered. (We are actually part of a small group of U.S. Nankin breeders. In 2010, the Oregon Zoo in Portland, OR bought some Nankins from us for their wonderful Family Farm.)  Nankins are one of only a handful of chickens that are "true bantams;" unlike most bantams, the Nankin is not a miniature version of a large breed. 

One of the main reasons we were interested in Nankins is their reputation for being extremely broody. Historically, Nankins were used by gamekeepers on large estates to hatch the eggs of game birds such as quail and pheasant. Two years ago, one of our relatively tiny (and quite determined) Nankin hens even incubated and hatched four Midget White turkey eggs.

Nankins are small birds; adults are usually between 16 and 24 ounces. They're about the size of a smallish pigeon. Their eggs are naturally on the petite side, but quite delicious. One of my sisters actually prefers the banty eggs because she's not terribly fond of egg white, and the Nankin eggs have proportionately more yolk than regular chicken eggs. We don't normally sell our banty eggs, and sometimes we use them to make deviled eggs; they're yummy, bite-sized, and terribly cute.

Anyway, here we go again. I wouldn't be surprised if another Nankin hen shows up with chicks soon. We have quite a few of them, and we don't do head counts when we tuck them in for the night. You might wonder what we do with them, if we don't sell the eggs. Well, frankly we just love them. They're adorable, the roosters hardly ever fight with each other, and there's that broody thing. 

We got our first Nankins round about the time we started selling our eggs, so the big picture of our farm life was still evolving. Still is, for that matter. And now the big picture has ten more chicks in it.

Turkeys aren't chickens: Presentation on raising turkeys coming up

 Midget White hen with newly-hatched turks.

This weekend, I'm farm-sitting for my sister in Poulsbo, about an hour's drive from our place. While the change of scene (and routine) is oddly vacation-like, it's definitely a working weekend: I'm making final preparations for a 45-minute presentation on raising turkeys.

Mark your calendars: The Mother Earth News Fair is June 4-5, at the Puyallup Fairgrounds south of Seattle. I will be speaking at the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy's stage on both days of the Fair. If you live around here, or will be in the area that weekend, please try to come. The list of presenters, speakers and exhibitors is truly impressive; check the Mother Earth News web site for topics, schedules and maps.

My presentation will be an overview of raising turkeys, starting with basic questions. For example, I think it's important to ask yourself why you want to raise them. (You'd be surprised how few people think about this before they bring the cute little day-olds home.) If you think you're going to save money on your holiday bird by raising one yourself, frankly, you probably won't. Turkeys also have different nutritional needs than chickens; they are bigger birds, so housing can be an issue; should they be kept in pens or is it best to free-range? How much time and money, realistically, do you have to put into raising turkeys?

These are just a few of the questions that I will be addressing at the Fair. Some we thought of before we got our first turkeys, others we learned through experience that we should have asked questions sooner.

We love our turkeys, and truly enjoy their often quirky behavior and mannerisms. If you're even a little bit interested in raising turkeys, I'd love to see you at the Mother Earth News Fair. It promises to be a weekend of learning opportunities for anyone seeking ways to live more sustainably. Do plan to come if you can!

Article about the White Midget turkey coming soon

Not to harp on turkeys, but the upcoming issue of Backyard Poultry will feature an article about the White Midget turkey. It was written by my friend Jeannette Beranger from the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (www.albc-usa.org), and includes photos she took of turkeys on our farm.

I've seen the advance copy, and it is terrific! In addition to information about the breed, it also includes an interesting anecdote about a culinary school's experiments with cooking and baking with turkey eggs. In general there isn't a great market for the delicious turkey eggs, mainly because turkeys do not lay all year like most chickens and ducks. In fact, most heritage turkeys have a laying/breeding season of only about 4 months (March through June). Guess why turkeys have traditionally been a holiday-season food? Because they are hatching in the spring and maturing about 6 months later, well into the fall.

Our Midget Whites seem to have a longer-than-average laying season, though. Some hens lay for 8 months or more! The year before last, one of the hens hatched a brood of babies on New Year's day; that was certainly a surprise.

This year we may keep more than four breeding hens, as we did last year. We're thinking about trying to market turkey eggs as a seasonal specialty; they are quite delicious! And like duck eggs, they are wonderful for baking. But you can read more about that in Jeannette's article in Backyard Poultry. If you're not a subscriber, you can read the article (after that issue is released) on the BYP web site, www.backyardpoultrymag.com.