Hooray! It's Shearing Day!

After a crazy winter that seemed to stretch well into April, we finally got our sheep, alpacas, llamas, and Angora goat sheared.  I appreciate people who can shear – they make it look easy.

When we only had two sheep, after seeing a shearer at a fair, I thought, “I can do that.”  I ordered hand shears and gave it a try.  After an hour, with little results, I thought I’d better get electric clippers.  So, I ordered them.  I followed directions and tried again.  The sheep was a Merino – they have a lot of fold in their skin and their wool is very dense.  After four days, and my poor sheep looking a mess, I gave up.

The next year I had two sheep and two llamas and hired a shearer.  He pulled into my driveway and pulled out of my driveway 30 minutes later.  My sheep and llamas looked relieved, the fiber was mostly in one piece each, and I had hardly broken a sweat (I did catch the sheep and llamas and bagged the fiber).

Since then, we’ve hired shearers.  We appreciate them.  They do a much better job than I could (at least without a lot of practice). 

Shearing is like giving the animal a haircut.  However, it is tricky.  The goal is to do it with the fiber coming off as one piece.  If the shearer misses some fiber and goes back to get it with another cut, it is called a second cut.  The goal is one cut and one fleece in one piece.  All shearers have some second cuts.  However, the fewer the shearer has the better for the fiber holder.

The fiber is an excellent insulator on sheep as well as on people…you can almost see the llamas and alpacas breathe a sigh of relief as the fiber comes off.  One year we had a particularly hot May and the alpacas and llamas were acting up until the first swipe of the shears.  As the fiber fell away, they held completely still ready for the relief!

So, how did it turn out yesterday?  Here are some before and after pictures of our animals…

Abinadi and Liahona waiting...

Vonnegut wating...

Hosea and Nephi waiting..

 



All of the llamas and alpacas done!

 

So, following are before and after pictures of our sheep and goat...





 

 

You can see pictures of Shiblon, our Angora goat, being sheared and the end
result on our GEE Funny Farm Facebook page.

Sheep skin is very thin and easy to cut.  One more reason to let a professional shear my sheep!

I found a video clip on Youtube that shows a professional sheep shearer.  He makes it look so easy - which is true of most professionals, don't you think?!?

Sheep Shearing Made Simple by David Duke

Enjoy!


Now That Was Eye Opening by guest writer Keegan Taylor

Somebody from church was given a turkey awhile back, and he gave it to us. We've had it in our basement freezer for awhile now, and I thought I should just go ahead and bake it. I've never baked a turkey before, but I brined it and mish-mashed several recipes together to prepare it, and -- voila! -- my final masterpiece.

Here's the thing, though, in the last couple of years, I've read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver as well as Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat (twice) by Hal Herzog. My parents have also recently been sharing some things they learned from Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. National Geographic also recently had a feature article on feeding our hungry planet. I also have a few friends who are vegan or who have moved in that direction. So generally, overall, I've become more informed about what it takes to create all the meat we consume. I get it and I feel concerned about it, though I haven't figured out how my moral feelings will govern my behavior.

But fixing this turkey was just one step more on the road towards cutting back on meat consumption. When you handle a whole turkey, you see how much meat is on this one animal. This was an 11 pound turkey.

I have some familiarity with animals because of my mom's farm. That experience mixed with my most recent major efforts in the kitchen combined to give me a truly hands-on understanding of what's going on here.

In Some We Love by Hal Herzog, he describes the life of the chicken on your plate in the hen house:

"Cheap meat comes at a cost. A broiler chicken's bones cannot keep up with the explosive growth of its body. Unnaturally large breasts torque a chicken's legs, causing lameness, ruptured tendons, and twisted leg syndrome. According to Donald Broome, professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University, severe leg pain in chickens is the world's largest animal welfare problem. Arthritis, heart disease, sudden death syndrome, and a host of metabolic disorders are prevalent among industrial broilers.

"The living conditions of the animals destined to become chicken nuggets are Dante-esque. The chicks will never see sun nor sky. Because they are so top-heavy, broiler chickens spend most of their day lying down, often in litter contaminated with excrement. As a result, many will develop breast blisters, hock burns, and sores on their feet . . ."

So I've read that before and I've felt anxious about our food consumption around here, with five meat-eaters. But when you have a meat-made turkey lying on your cutting board and you're handling that thing, you can see that there is a very high meat-to-bone ratio. My mom has turkeys. They are the sweetest, most contented things. My mom loves them, because they follow her around and live in a little happy troupe. In the summertime, they have the run of the yard and they mostly forage for their own food. With that turkey in my kitchen, I imagined plucking my mom's healthy, wholesome turkeys and I knew that they would not look like this. They are not the same kind of turkey, but that's the point. The kind of turkey we're consuming in massive amounts are not, by design, healthy animals.

When my parents bought the farm property they now live on an older couple lived there. They owned a horse, a pony, and a sheep, which my parents inherited with purchase of the property. The three animals had all been excessively grain-fed. The pony suffered severe laminitis and the sheep -- the sheep was a horrid, massive, bulky creature whom we named "Mammoth." There was no hope for him by the time we inherited the property. My mom weaned back his grain consumption but he was too far gone. There came a day when the beast could no longer rise. He was just plain too heavy for his own legs. A neighbor came and put an end to Mammoth, may he rest in peace. Now, I know I've gone from turkeys to chickens to turkeys to sheep, but the point here is I would never have wanted to eat that well-fed enormous sheep, but I do regularly eat equivalent kinds of chickens and turkeys. Unfortunately, when I put that turkey meat in my mouth, no matter the fact that I'd been pondering the unfortunate circumstances of its life, I still felt satisfied and pleased with the taste of the turkey. It would be so much easier to align my beliefs and actions if I didn't like the taste of animals.

I'm not really sure what affect this experience will have on our meat consumption around here. My husband isn't all that fond of turkey anyway. When I told him about my experience with the turkey, I said, "Are you listening? Do you care?"

"Yeah. I heard you," he replied, "But, ya know, cruelty just tastes good."

He said this tongue-in-cheek about the turkey because he doesn't even like turkey. But he (and I) do like beef and pork and chicken. But I'd like to think that we weren't so crass as to feel that cruelty does taste good. I'd like to cut back on our meat consumption because that turkey on my table demonstrated full-on that grocery-store poultry absolutely truly is the result of some cruel experimentation, and I don't particularly want to be a party to it.

Why The Difference??

Spring is coming and bookings are coming in.  Sometimes people wonder why it is cheaper to come to the farm than for us to bring fewer animals to them.  Let’s pretend you have booked us for a birthday party a mere 30 miles away.  We’ll bring 5-7 small animals for 45 minutes to 1.5 hours, depending on the interest of the participants.  Why does that make a difference?  Because when people get bored or distracted is when an accident might happen, so when interest is over, we pack up.

We put each animal into a crate or carrier.  Today we are bringing a bearded dragon in her plastic travel container, two parrots (which count as one animal since we use them to show why it is important to research parrots before you buy one) – each in his own acrylic travel carrier, a rabbit in his plastic travel carrier, a hedgehog in his bonding pouch, a short-tailed opossum his travel pouch,  a goose in her crate, a turkey in her crate, and our mini pig is in crate – that’s a bonus of an extra animal.  Besides the animals in their crates, we need water and water dishes or dispensers for each, a canopy for shade, a tarp, a barrier to keep people and animals separate except under supervision, a table if we bring the egg game and the eggs.  We need to bring antibacterial soap that can be used without water, and water for us (especially if it is hot).  Sometimes we need to provide benches, so we need to pack those.  We figure that it will take us an hour to 1-2 hours to get everyone and everything loaded and secured.

For most 30 mile treks, it takes 45 minutes to an hour one way.  We arrive, you pay us the balance (you’ve already paid a deposit to secure your date and time), and we unpack everyone.  We set up the canopy and the barriers, get the stand out for the parrots, put down the tarp for under the turkey and goose crates (they have wood chips in to absorb droppings, set up the canopy, if needed, and set up the egg game, if we bring it.  We figure that will take about 15 minutes.  So, before we’ve started, we’ve already put in 1.5-2 hours.

Then we do our favorite part – we present the animals and interact with the participants.  People ooh and aah when they touch the goose (she is very soft!).  They touch her feet and we talk about how they get feathers for featherbeds and pillows.  Participants ask questions about the hedgehog who may or may not be ‘soft’ as they touch him.  We talk about the difference in personalities in umbrella cockatoos and African grey parrots and everyone gets to see Asimov, the cockatoo, do some tricks, and then they get to pet him.  If people want a photo opp – it is often with Asimov.  And so on…. (most of the time 1 hour-1.5 hours).

Then, we pack up the truck, clean up the wood shavings that have fallen from the cages, put away the bird stand, the canopy, the barrier, the benches or table, etc.  We figure that takes 15 minutes and then we head home (45 minutes to 1 hour). 

Asimov, the umbrella cockatoo, being pet.

Once we are home we have to unpack everything and put the animals back into their habitats.  That takes about an hour.  So, at the end of the day, we’ve put in at least 5 hours to bring the entertainment to you and if you add large animals, it is at least 7 hours of work since we have to pack more, hook up a trailer, set-up a corral, take down the corral, clean up after larger animals (we put down a large tarp with the corral around it), etc.

If you come to the farm, we do have to set up our canopy (the county makes us take it down every day), so we have to set up benches and tables and gather the animals (7-10 animals big and small).  It takes us about 2 hours.  The presentation takes about 45 minutes-1.5 hours and then we have a hayride around the property if you’d like.  If you stay to have cake and party stuff, using our tables, we put animals away, so when you leave, all that is left is putting away benches and tables and taking down the canopy.  It takes us about an hour – so if you have partied for an hour, we have 4 hours invested and part of that was a break after putting away animals.  So, you can see why it is cheaper to come to the GEE Funny Farm!  Make an appointment today!!

Our canopy on the farm AND the screened tent for the birds and flying squirrel.  You can also see the edge of the corral where the larger animals are hanging out waiting to be presented.

Emu Essentials

So far this year we, at GEE Funny Farm have found seven emu eggs; one had cracked because it froze before we found it.  The others have been put into an incubator.  Temperature and humidity have to be monitored and the eggs need to be turned at least three times a day. 

Here the emu eggs are in our incubator.  You can see the heating element on top, the fan to circulate the air, the six eggs (the chalk mark is the date they were found), the container I add water to so the eggs don't dry out, and the thermometer/humidity monitor.

Emus are the largest bird native to Australia.  Males and females look alike but make very different sounds.  An adult emu can weigh between 90-150 pounds and stand between five and half feet to six feet tall.  They can run up to 45 miles per hour in short bursts, run in a zigzag pattern, and have a stride of up to nine feet!  And emus can swim!  Our emus like to lounge in a horse trough, kid's swimming pool, or mud (things we have available).  They will also come to be sprayed with the hose or play in the sprinkler.

Emu (I found it on the Internet) on the run!  Ours run, but I've never gotten such a good shot!

Our emu, Eunice, chasing the mini donkey -- or at least running in his direction!

  

Our emus play in a kid's pool.

Emus are ratites, related to ostriches (Africa), cassowaries (New Guinea and North-Eastern Australia), rheas (South America), and kiwis (New Zealand). The only bird larger than the emu is the ostrich. 
 

Ostrich -- notice it's big (relative to the emu) wings.

Eunice, our emu.

A cassowary -- beautiful colors, and the third largest bird.  Also known to be very territorial.

 

A rhea.  I guess it could be called the South American ostrich...

A brown kiwi.  You can only see kiwis in New Zealand since they are not allowed to be exported.

Ratite means 'flat breast-bone with no keel,' therefore these birds do not have any flesh in the breast area and this is one of the reasons that they cannot fly.  While ostriches have big wings, emu wings are only about eight inches long.  Also, ratite feathers are not aerodynamic and ratites have solid bones instead of the hollow bones that most birds have.

Here is a close up picture of an emu wing that I found on the Internet.  Eunice will let me show hers, so I need to get a picture of that!

 While ostriches have two toes, emus have three.  They can use their big strong feet for defense, but emus are usually calm and docile.

Emu feet.

 Interestingly, several sites say that emus mate and lay eggs in May and June -- if only that OUR experience!!  Other sites say that breeding and laying season starts as early as September and runs through March -- THAT is closer to our experience!  Our emu has laid eggs beginning in December, though this year it was almost the end of January before we found our first egg.  Emus can lay 20-50 eggs in a season.  Luckily ours has never laid more than about 15.  We usually find about 10-12 eggs through the season.  In the past, we tried different ways to save the eggs until it warmed up enough for the male to sit on the clutch (the group of eggs), but it is too long a wait in Wisconsin and none of the eggs have hatched, though our male has sat them diligently for about eight weeks, taking no food or water.  The male emu uses the body fat he has stored during the eight weeks and only drinks what he can reach (the sites say 'dew' but we try to keep water near him).  He only stands to turn the eggs and it is the male that raises the chicks once they hatch.

This gives you an idea of the sizes of ratite eggs, compared to a chicken egg.  Actually, the kiwi , which is small compared to other ratites, claims the 3rd largest egg, though in this picture it looks like the rhea's is larger.

 

A variety of emu eggs.  Ours are always the dark green color found in the upper left-hand side of this photo.  It would be fun to have this variety!

Emus are sometimes referred to as 'the most useable bird' because they are known for their unique oil (found in the pad on their back - that they use to regulate body temperature), their iron-packed meat (that tastes more like very lean beef than chicken), their fine leather, unusual feathers, their toenails, and their green eggs -- the last three items are used for decorative purposes.

Some products made from emu oil.

 

Emu meat.

Yep, a Harley Davidson cap made from emu leather!

An emu feather -- notice 2 feathers in one quill!

A fan made from emu feathers.

A beaded necklace with emu feather accents.

A necklace with an emu toenail accent.

An emu egg being etched.

A carved emu egg.

A painted emu egg with combed emu feathers.

Pendant lamps made from emu shells.

 The emu is curious and docile, as mentioned before.  Our emus have followed us around, taking our caps, our tools, my gloves and then running off a ways.  We can always retrieve the stolen items.

Eunice, our emu, checking our the new 'toy' for the goats.

Chicks are about ten inches tall at birth with black and white stripes on a brown background.  When they are about three months old, the chicks turn nearly black.  Then, as adults, their feathers change again into a tan, brown, and black mixture.  Chicks grow very quickly, up to two pounds a week, and are fully grown in twelve to fourteen months.  In the wild, they stay with their family group for about another six months before they split up to breed in their second season.

These chicks hatched about three weeks apart -- you can see the difference in size!

Here are the two chicks on their first day outside.  You can see that the larger one is close to three months.  The stripes are gone and the feathers are coming in black.

Emus are hardy and can survive in extreme temperatures, which is good thing in Wisconsin!  We like them very much, though our favorite is Eunice, our female who hasn't bonded with any male.  We loved having the experience of having chicks last year and hope that we end up with at least a couple this year!  We hope that you get the experience of seeing our emus and at least one chick.  They are wondrous birds!

Things I Learned in 2013

Here it is -- February 2014 -- and I'm just getting around to a year in review.  I decided what I'd write about is what I learned over the past year.  I'll try to keep the list short...

1.  For my birthday, I had spinning lessons and was able to purchase a spinning wheel.  Yep, I started to learn to spin.  This is the third time I'd taken a beginning spinning class, but this class was on the wheel I purchased and over two days, instead of trying a bunch of different spinning wheels during a one day class.  My efforts produced my best yarn so far, but mostly what I learned is that it takes practice, practice, practice to get proficient at it.  Since I've only spun twice since being on my own, my goal this year is to take another class (I am better at meeting other people's expectations than working on my own) and then look into a spinning guild that meets once a month so I will keep working at it!

It's a beaut!  I purchased an additional flywheel so I can practice spinning fine to heavy fiber -- now I need to practice, practice, practice!!

 2.  I learned about hatching emu eggs.  After having emus for several years and trying to let them hatch their eggs with no luck in spite of trying different ways to keep the eggs viable until Wisconsin had decent weather (emus lay eggs from the end of October to March since they are from the Southern Hemisphere and it would be summer there -- their biological clocks do not change to accommodate Wisconsin winters).  It was no easy thing to keep the temperature and humidity just right.  We also had to remember to turn the eggs at least three times a day. Being the father figure for the emu eggs was no easy task, though we did not stop eating and drinking for the eight weeks it took - and it took longer than the normal eight weeks since the first egg hatched in February and the last one the end of April -- we put the egg in the incubator as we found it (you can see the difference in size in one of the pictures!).  We also loved watching the eggs hatch and the emu chicks grow!  We hope to have this experience this year, too.

3.  We learned how important it is to have the right 'tools' for the job!  Though we have had a website and business cards for a couple of years, this was the first year we hooked up with Gigsalad and Partypop. What a difference THAT has made.  These party planning sites make it a lot easier for people to find us and we are grateful for that!

4.  I learned about BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds).  My goats didn't shed out like they should have last year and I was worried about them.  I did research and found that I should give them BOSS.  They loved it, they shed out, they were shiny and healthy looking.  I am grateful for people who know more than I do and add their knowledge to the Internet!

The next two things my cousin shared with me!

5.  I learned that avian respiratory systems are completely different than mammal respiratory systems.  Learning about this explains why many things that don't affect us (at least not immediately) can kill our avian friends!

6.  I learned that there are no blue feathers!  Who'd a thunk?!?  Those blue feathers of blue birds and blue jays are made to look blue from tiny air pockets in the barbs of the feathers that scatter incoming light. 

My cousin holding Asimov, the umbrella cockatoo -- hmm, need to get a bird with blue feathers, David?!?

There are many other things I learned in 2013 as I've purchased new animals, met with a lot of different groups and talked to new people.  And I've learned skills that I need to practice!  I can't wait to see what I learn and start perfecting in 2014.  I hope you are here so I can share what I learn, and I can learn from you!