Categories
Urban Farming

Free Backyard Chickens Webinar

Backyard chicken

Courtesy Stock.XCHNG

Learn about backyard chicken biosecurity in “The Word on Healthy Birds” webinar.

This week, Nov. 1 to 7, 2010, the USDA’s Biosecurity for Birds campaign will celebrate Bird Health Awareness Week to promote awareness about the diseases that threaten poultry health and the ways to prevent the spread of infectious poultry diseases.

Highlighting the week’s events, the USDA will host a free webinar, “The Word on Healthy Birds,” on Friday, Nov. 5, 2010, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. EST. The webinar will feature radio personality Andy Schneider (aka the Chicken Whisperer) and Martin Smeltzer, DVM a USDA poultry veterinarian, who will discuss issues facing chicken owners, including:

  • The biggest threats to backyard chicken health and safety
  • Symptoms of chicken illness
  • How to get started raising chicken

Raising backyard poultry is growing more popular as many Americans seek a direct connection to their food.  As the number of backyard chickens increases, so does the need for owners to learn about keeping their flocks healthy.

Schneider has become a leading expert in the fast-growing backyard-poultry movement and is a spokesman for the Biosecurity for Birds campaign. Based in Atlanta, Ga., he’s helped countless people start their own backyard flocks. He’s the founder of the Atlanta Backyard Poultry Meetup group, which boasts nearly 900 members. 

Smeltzer is with the USDA Veterinary Service offices in Georgia.  He’s worked in the poultry industry since 1984 in multiple positions, from a poultry breeder to a diagnostician with a state poultry diagnostic system and as a USDA regional poultry epidemiologist.  

Space at the webinar is limited, so reserve your spot as soon as possible. After registering, participants will receive a confirmation email containing information about the webinar.

In addition to this week’s webinar, the USDA’s Biosecurity for Birds program offers tips to owners on its website about how to keep chickens healthy and free of disease.

Categories
Animals

Hey, Hay!

Sheep and hay feeder
Photo by Sue Weaver
Louie the sheep nibbles hay from the feeder attached to the baby rams’ fence.

Dad gets mad when we goats and sheep pull hay out of conventional feeders, then fling it around, dropping most of it on the ground. Once feed hits the ground, it’s automatically dirty, and we won’t eat it—yuck! Sometimes Mom picks it up and puts it back in the feeder, but we aren’t fooled. Goats and sheep are smart! Then she rakes it up while muttering about “expensive, perfectly clean hay,” and she gives it to the horses, who scarf it down. Horses aren’t gourmets, I guess.

So, Dad invented a cheap, easy-to-make hay feeder that works for all kinds of livestock—even goats—as long as your fences are made of woven wire or cattle panels. Here’s how to make one if you want to.

  1. Find or buy a piece of cattle panel with openings, then decide how big your feeder should be. Dad made one two whole panels long across the front of the Boer goats’ paddock but used bolt cutters to snip the third panel into pieces for smaller groups.
  2. Then he used carabiner clips to fasten the panel to the outside of the fence. (If you put it on the inside, horned animals could get stuck in the open end.) He placed carabiners at the top, middle, and bottom of each side and one (or more if the panel is really long) at the bottom. He started with cheap aluminum carabiners from the dollar store, but they wear out too fast, so as they break, he’s replacing them with heavy-duty carabiners.
  3. Finally, Dad pulled the panel just far enough away from the fence to stuff it full of hay one flake thick. The panel holds the hay firmly in place, so we can’t fling it around and wastes it. The animals in the pen eat through the fence and anybody on the outside can eat through the piece of panel.

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Categories
Urban Farming

The First Omelet

Hens

Photo by Audrey Pavia

My happy chickens that give me healthy eggs for omelets.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but the first time I was faced with eating eggs from my own backyard chickens, I felt squeamish. Like most city people, I was used to my eggs coming from a carton bought at a grocery store. Suddenly, the thought of eating an egg that came out of a bird that was running around my backyard was creepy.

The absurdity of this notion wasn’t lost on me. Where did I think supermarket eggs came from? Were they produced by some machine that plopped them down fully formed into Styrofoam cartons? Intellectually, I knew they came from chickens—unhappy ones kept in filthy cages and forced to live out their lives confined and unnaturally—but somehow my brain never really made the association between an actual chicken and the egg I was eating. It was easy to block it out because I never actually had to see the chickens.

So when Randy first scrambled up a bunch of eggs from our hens a couple of years ago, I was almost afraid to eat them. I had visions of my hens squeezing out these eggs in the nest box in the coop, and then thought about what would have happened had I not taken the eggs away. In 21 days, little baby chicks would have come out of those eggs. So how could I possibly sit down and eat this stuff without feeling weird?

It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally gotten over this silliness—completely. I realized this on Sunday morning when I decided to make myself an omelet. I hadn’t made an omelets for years, certainly not since we had our own chickens. 

As I cracked open eight of the tiny bantam eggs I had stored in the refrigerator, I didn’t think about how they would have turned into baby birds if I hadn’t taken them away from the hens. I didn’t feel strange seeing the bright yellow yokes, so different in color from the eggs I’d buy in the grocery store. And I didn’t feel funny as I stirred the yolks together to make a batter that would go into the warming butter-laden frying pan.

But the real test of my urban-farmer maturity came at the moment of eating the omelets. I’d put soft, creamy cheese inside and sliced up an avocado as garnish. As I took that first bite, instead of feeling creeped out at the idea of my hens having laid these eggs, I thought about all the good stuff that went into creating this amazing item of food: organic poultry feed, organic fruit, flax seed—all healthy things my hens dine on as they happily roam about the yard, scratching for food, taking luxurious dust baths and comingling with the roosters who dutifully care for them.

Needless to say, by the time I had finished my meal, I realized I had just eaten the best omelets I’d ever had.

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Categories
News

Western Milling Recalls Some Turkey Feed

Turkey
Courtesy Stock.XCHNG
Western Milling is recalling certain store brand turkey feeds after learning that the feed may contain monensin.

Western Milling LLC of Goshen, Calif., issued a voluntary recall on certain types of store-brand noncommercial turkey feed.

The recall was prompted after the company learned that the feed, sold under the Universal and Kruse Perfection Brands, may contain monensin. Monensin is used to help in digestion, which improves feed efficiency and growth, according to the company.

Western Milling does supply feed that contains monensin and is labeled as such. However, the feed subject to this particular recall was not labeled as medicated and was not formulated to contain monensin.

Western Milling is still investigating how the medication ended up in the recalled feed, according to a company spokesman. Tests did not find the recalled products to be at a higher dose than the labeled medicated products, but this, too, is under investigation, he says.

The products were sold in 50-pound paper bags and distributed in May and June 2010 to 57 retail animal-feed stores located in California as well as eight feed stores in Arizona and one each in Nevada and Hawaii. All retail stores have been notified of the recall.

The specific lots involved in the recall were sold under the following tags:

  • Universal Turkey/Gamebird Grower Crumble, Lot 175 (PC K52105)
  • K Gamebird Turkey Grow Crumbles, Lots 126, 127 and 175 (PC K52105)
  • U Turkey/Gamebird Starter Krumble, Lots 126 and 175 (PC U332095)

Excessive consumption of monensin by turkeys could cause injury or death, according to the company. However, the spokesman said that there’s no concrete evidence that any turkeys have been harmed by the recalled products.

“One customer claimed that 20 5-year-old turkeys that were fed the feed subject to the recall died,” the spokesman says. “We have no necropsy results and no evidence that the feed was the source of the problem. We have received no other complaints despite the fact that this feed was produced some six months ago, which would mean, practically, that much of it has been consumed.”

Western Milling is advising the public that the recalled products not be fed to poultry or other animals. Consumers who have purchased and still have any of these products with these lot codes are urged to return it to the place of purchase for a full refund.

“The company is committed to producing safe and nutritious feed products as a responsible member of the agricultural community,” the spokesman said. “The company is constantly reviewing our internal controls to ensure the highest quality and safety of all its products.”

Feed stores and consumers with questions may contact the company at 559-302-1000 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PDT, Monday through Friday.

Categories
Urban Farming

Community Gardens Boom in New Jersey

tomatoes
Susy Morris/Flickr

In the summer of 2009, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Public Health Initiatives funded a research study of community gardens in Camden, N.J., measuring the amount of food produced and the ways in which the produce is distributed to people in the community.

Over the past two years, Camden residents have expanded community gardening at a rate that outpaces most, perhaps all, U.S. cities, according to the Harvest Report. By visiting a varied sampling of 44 gardens, interviewing 100 gardeners and weighing the crops the gardens produced, the University of Pennsylvania researchers estimated that crops harvested in these Camden gardens during the summer of 2009 yielded nearly 139,000 servings of fresh vegetables for these gardeners.

“Undoubtedly, food production in Camden gardens is expanding the options, availability and interest in fresh, healthy, local vegetables” in this urban community, the study concluded. “Children and new adult gardeners … are learning to grow their own [vegetables] and appreciate how carrots taste when pulled straight from the ground.”

The research aims to help clarify the relationship between community gardening and community food security in Camden. This report is part of a three-city, multi-year study that also included Philadelphia and Trenton, N.J., to measure vegetable production and trace food distribution and other impacts of community gardens and urban farms.

The research for “Harvest Report: Summer 2009” was conducted in partnership with the Camden City Garden Club, Inc. and its subsidiary, the Camden Children’s Garden, which coordinate Camden’s Community Gardening Program and maintain more than 80 food-producing gardens. In 2010 alone, 15 new gardens (four of which measure 1/3 to 1/2 acre) have been created to help meet the food needs of a community that has been deemed a “food desert.” Several of the new plots are substantially larger than most of the 31 gardens created in 2009.

In the Harvest Report, community gardens in Camden help illustrate how people living in a small, very poor city employ gardening in diverse ways to address issues of hunger, health, youth, aging, and other social, ecological and economic challenges. In Camden, community gardening’s emphasis on food production is a viable strategy to address food security.

Below are some of the study’s key findings:

  • Camden consistently ranks among the poorest and most violent cities in the United States, a stark example of urban decline, social and political economic crisis, and consequently, food insecurity. Both because of this and despite this, it’s also a leading center of community gardening.
  • Many gardeners and Garden Club leaders explain community-garden growth in terms of Camden residents’ sensitivity to recent upswings in food prices and to longer-term issues of public health and hunger.
  • For most Camden gardeners, community gardening is one strategy among many to improve health and food access for themselves, their families and their neighbors.
  • The City Public Works Department’s Adopt-a-Lot program and the Camden City Garden Club are two of the relatively few public and citywide nonprofit organizations that people seem to agree work well and consistently improve people’s quality of life.
  • Camden has roughly 12,000 abandoned lots, about 4,000 of which are city-owned, according to Deborah Hirsch’s “Caring residents transform vacant lots into urban oases,” Courier Post (Oct. 5, 2008).
  • Almost 95 percent of Camden’s community gardens are located in census tracts where the average household lives 200 percent below the federal poverty line.
Categories
Urban Farming

Mystery of the Unripe Grapes

Unripe grapes

Photo by Rick Gush

The majority of my grapes this year look like this—unripe—and I can’t figure out why.

I’m throwing in the towel: My grapes are not going to ripen this year. The vine is loaded, and there were hundreds of bunches hanging in the sunshine, but only about 5 percent or less of the bunches are ripe. I’ve trimmed away a lot of the foliage now, and there are large masses of clusters hanging all over the big vine. It looks like a great crop, but in fact, as I’m finally admitting, it’s all fodder for the compost pile.

The grape vine is a Concord type, and the value comes in the wonderful dusky sweetness that developes in the ripe grapes. The unripe grapes aren’t really tart—they just have no flavor. We’ve tried to eat the unripened grapes, but they aren’t enjoyable. Phooey! We will get a few bunches of ripe grapes here and there, but I think that 5 percent is really too generous an estimate.

Ripe grapes

Photo by Rick Gush

I wish more of my grapes were ripe like this bunch.

The weather hasn’t been particularly odd in the past few months. August was hot, September was also mostly hot, and we’ve had a few rainstorms in October. I can’t think of any particular cultural events that might explain it. This grape gets minimal care, mostly just a good pruning each winter.  There have been no visible pests to note and no noticeable leaf damage or other signs.  I’ve looked around at other people’s grape crops this year and haven’t noticed anyone else having a similar problem.

I’ve been a horticultural consultant for a fair amount of time, but I’ve never seen this happen to a grape crop before. If there’s anyone out there with a similar story or an educated guess, I’d love to hear it. Actually, this is one of the things I love about growing plants. A garden is always full of surprises, even for someone who has been working in that garden for many years. As I get older and the breadth of my horticultural experience increases, the less certain I become. 

It’s a real tragedy to throw all this fruit away. I was thinking of making some verjus, which is the classic unripe-grape juice, but actually, I’m not crazy for that beverage. I do think the grapes might have still made acceptable raisins, but I just don’t have the time this year to do all that cleaning and drying and turning. Too bad. I could have made 50 pounds of raisins with all those grapes.

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Categories
Crops & Gardening

Garlic Experiments

Garlic scapes
Photo by Jessica Walliser
I planted this year’s garlic by the “dark of the moon.” We’ll find out at harvest time what difference it makes.

Garlic! I’m strangely excited by the idea introduced to me by a gardening friend: He says to plant your garlic bulbs “under the dark of the moon.” 

I first thought that meant I had to go out in the middle of the night to plant it but then, but then he explained it to me. It means you should plant the bulbs during the dark (or new) moon in the month of October. I’m not sure what difference it will make, but I gave it a try. 

He also told me that no matter how deep you plant each garlic clove (2 inches, 4 inches or 6 inches), if you plant it during the dark moon, come summer when you dig them all up, each and every bulb will be exactly 4 inches deep. Needless to say, I’m a sucker for an experiment so I tried it. As I was planting, I set some garlic bulbs shallow and some deep. I’ve never gardened with a ruler in my hand, but, by golly I’m gonna have one come July when the garlic is ripe for the diggin’! I’m so curious about it.

I found a local garlic farm (Enon Valley Garlic Farm) at our town farmers’ market and bought some varieties I haven’t tried yet. I split each head with my Mom so we could both experiment (though I didn’t share the “dark of the moon” tip with her lest she think I’ve officially gone garden batty). I bought Spanish Roja, Symphony, Bogatyr and Silver Rose.  The garlic varieties range from mild to spicy (though I don’t remember which is which). I thought it would be fun to try the different flavors in different recipes and find out more about the diversity of garlic. I have always grown Music, which I love and will always grow, but I’m looking forward to adding new favorites to my list. 

Oh, and Happy Halloween everyone! I guess I won’t have to worry about those pesky vampires this year—that’s always good news.     

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Categories
News

Equine Identification Technology Unveiled

eyeD premiered at the World Equestrian Games a new to identify horses
According to eyeD’s manufacturer, users will benefit from the efficiency of iris scanning and the security of electronic records storage.

Recent attendees to the World Equestrian Games, in Lexington, Ky., were introduced to a new method of equine identification that uses iris-scan technology to identify horses.

Although the iris-scan technology, called eyeD, won’t be commercially available until June 2011, its manufacturer seized the opportunity to unveil its innovation in front of members of the equine community from around the world.

“We want horse owners to understand and become familiar with the differences between noninvasive equine identification and more traditional equine identification methods,” says David Knupp, marketing manager for Global Animal Management, the company that created the technology.

According to its manufacturers, eyeD technology works because no two animals—including cloned animals—have the same iris pattern. To capture the image of iris patterns, the eyeD operator uses a special camera to take a picture of each of the horse’s eyes. The camera converts the iris images into what are called eyePrints, which are then linked to a unique 15-digit identification number. 

The identification number, “eyePrint and other information about your horse can be stored in the eyeD processor for retrieval at any time,” Knupp says.

The GAM presentation at WEG touted eyeD for its noninvasiveness. While methods like micro-chipping, ear-tagging and branding require alterations to the horse’s body, eyeD photos are taken with infrared illumination and can be captured without restraining the horse.

EyeD is also more secure than many other horse identification methods that are linked to hard copies.

“The system is completely secure, and information cannot be lost or stolen, unlike traditional paperwork,” Knupp says.

While eyeD promises to be especially useful for equine industry professionals and horse-show managers, it may also benefit small-scale farmers or hobby farmers who have access to the technology through their veterinarians or local animal-control agencies.

Equine identification isn’t on the minds of many small farmers—even though it should be, says Ann Swinker, extension horse specialist at Penn State University.

As part of Penn State’s Equine Identification Project, Swinker and her research team surveyed horse owners on their knowledge of and attitudes about animal identification. Most of the survey’s respondents identified themselves as farmers who owned horses for pleasure rather than business.

Swinker says the survey revealed that many farmers don’t expect the unexpected. Of the 2,783 horse owners surveyed, 75 percent admitted they didn’t have a plan in place for confronting horse theft, and 55.5 percent said they did not have an emergency preparedness plan for their farm.

Equine identification technologies can also be used to manage horses’ health. When eyeD goes on the market in summer 2011, horse owners will be able to link their horses’ veterinary records to their identification numbers and store this data on the eyeD processor.

Swinker says that in addition to enabling better storage of individual horse records, equine identification technology can help track disease outbreaks. This is vital because even small-scale farmers’ horses don’t always stay close to home, and thus are exposed to other horses and the diseases they may be carrying while trail riding or at horse shows. According to the Penn State survey, 48.1 percent of horse owners say their animals leave the premises of their farm at least once per year, while 25 percent reported their horses left the premises at least once per month.

“Even hobbyists move [their] horses around,” says Swinker.

People interested in eyeD will be able to visit the product website when it goes live on Oct. 29, 2010.

 

Categories
Homesteading

Jelly Day!

Jellies
Photo by Cherie Langlois
Making herbal jellies was the perfect way to spend a dreary, drizzly day.

I woke up to gloom and drizzle this morning, a sight that would usually make me feel like ducking back underneath the covers to hibernate. (I can’t, of course, because the animals will be demanding their breakfast.) But today is different because a gloomy, drizzly day is perfect for staying indoors to make herbal jellies, and that’s exactly what I have planned: a long-overdue jelly day with my sunny friend and jelly buddy, Linda.

This has been our kids-are-back-to-school tradition for about four years now—gathering handfuls of fragrant herbs from my garden before they wither away and turning them into jewel-like jellies to share with family and friends, plus savor ourselves as sweet reminders of summer past. Linda, my jelly mentor, taught me the basics of water-bath canning, and I’m always a little in awe of her because she’s fiendishly creative, especially when it comes to jellies. While I’m apt to go tamely with our tried and true recipes using only a few ingredients—red wine and rosemary, for instance, or mint-apple—she’ll throw just about anything into a batch of jelly but the kitchen sink. 

Making herbal jelly
Photo by Cherie Langlois
My friend, Linda, is my jelly mentor.

Consider one of today’s concoctions, which Linda names Sangria Jelly: It contains orange, lemon and grapefruit juices; lemon balm and ginger; then, at the last minute, she tosses in a little red wine. There might be something else in the mix, too, but I can’t remember and, unfortunately, Linda and I are terribly lax about recording the ingredients we use when inventing a new jelly.

With a friend to help and provide laughs and inspiration, what could easily be slow jelly-making drudgery transforms into a speedily passing day of creative fun and camaraderie. (Linda’s joke of the day: “We both have degrees from University of Washington, which means we don’t make a lot of money.  But, hey, we make a lot of jellies!”) Before we know it, we’re sitting down to sample a record seven delicious jellies on slices of baguette, from my beloved Chianti-Rosemary to Linda’s new Mint with Lemon Pepper and Allspice. I know—sounds kind of strange, but it’s good!

If you grow herbs but have never made jelly before, why not try it?  I wrote a story on herbal jelly-making in the July/August 2010 Hobby Farm Home, called “Summer in a Jar,” and you’ll find jelly recipes and great canning advice in that canner’s bible, the Ball Blue Book of Preserving.

~ Cherie  

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