• Breeding…part three…

    …and now it gets really interesting…starting in the pre-dawn darkness… and a pasture alive with blinking red lights. It’s the heat detectors…right on schedule at 48 hours. When a cow goes into heat, another mounts it, crushing the chemical patch on its rump. One of Carolyn’s jobs is thawing the semen straws. That’s what that pot next to her arm is for. No time to waste! And the deed is done. But it’s a slow process at the end…finding just the right spot…then pushing the plunger to deposit the semen. It’s a process that’s repeated 29 times over three days…matching cow, heat, and the right bull. Hard work…and cold…but satisfying.…

  • Breeding step two…

    …is very much a family affair. The herd has to be brought in from the pasture and sorted to isolate the target cows. We started in the dark, in a light rain. Grandson Church is really in charge now. He administers a shot of lutalyze which will bring the cow into heat in 48-72 hours. Dad Curt (in background) is the Chief Wrangler, bringing the designated cows into the chute. Mom Carolyn is “manning” the headgate. Gotta grab ‘em just right or it’s back around and try again. How many farms have a gynecological cancer surgeon in their crew? The final step: putting an alarm patch on the rump. When…

  • Not an approaching storm…

    …but an approaching lime truck. Our pH averaged about 5.8 across the farm and we decided to bring it back up over 6.0. We’re adding one to two tons of dolomitic lime per acre…depending on what soil testing revealed. I think this is the best investment you can make in a pasture. It not only kicks up the yield and feeds soil biology, I’m convinced it is one of the reasons Thistle Hill beef and pork just tastes better! IMHO Good timing too…if we can get it all down. Two days of rain coming to soak it in. Incidentally over the years we’ve found some difference among soil tests…with the…

  • Living up to its reputation…

    …our Mule foot pigs are sometimes called “the ham breed” and now we know why. Curt topped the ham with chutney and cloves and the family pronounced the results excellent. In Spain this would be called an Ibérico ham…a great delicacy at $400 or more. There they fatten on acorns and while we can’t claim that, by coincidence there were acorns on the ground in the pasture as these pigs matured. Flavor is, after all, less a function of genetics than feed. But it was this we were aiming for when we selected the Mule foot pig! David

  • Chops…

    Mack serves up the first pork chops from our latest pigs. And Nala is worried. She only counts three chops! In the past we’ve used Tamworth and Gloucester Old Spot pigs…English heritage breeds. This time we’re trying a Spanish pig…the Mule foot. The flavor of these first chops seemed the same though the meat was fatter. The Mule foot is known for its ham though and we have yet to sample that. I’ve noticed that the imported ham is selling in specialty stores for more than $300 a pound! We’ll save ours for the holiday. David

  • Let the fun begin…

    …Church moves the first group of cows into the chute to begin the process of artificial insemination. This will be his first solo effort and he’s set an ambitious schedule…almost 30 heifers and cows to bring into heat. Included in the group is a wonderful English bull whose semen, unfortunately, did not score very high. But we wanted to give it a try. We’re also going to experiment with another breed—-British White—-as a terminal sire to gage its impact on meat yield. Here the cows are receiving hormone shots to trigger cycling. There’s a two-day wait before actual insemination. Church took a course this summer in artificial insemination and got…

  • The bottom of the barrel…

    …the stockpile barrel, that is.If there is a key in cattle raising, it is to avoid feeding hay at $100 a ton for as long possible. Here Church opens one of our last stockpiled pastures and the cows don’t need a second invitation. Video by Church Humphreys Native grasses here for the most part but will satisfy them until AI is scheduled for mid-month. Then we will bring a cover bull in and hope the grass will last until the end of the month. There’s 22 acres of grass left just across the road…tantalizing but Church has decided to feed that to our steers destined for meat. David

  • Parade of bulls…

    …TDA Ransom…a Wooz favorite maybe because his mama was Goldings Snowdrop…selected by her when the “wise old men” of the partnership were favoring others. She called him “Handsome Ransom”…and saw something in him even in his awkward teenage years. He’s come into his own now though Wooz is no longer with us to say I told you so. (That wouldn’t be like her anyway!) We keep eight to ten bulls in the same pasture. Why is it when they reach their prime they invariably stand apart and spend most of the day posing? Ransom’s sire is the great Millennium Falcon. David

  • We don’t pay well…

    …but the fringe benefit for managing Thistle Hill Farm is that you’re required to sample all the meat before it’s released to customers! Church takes that responsibility very seriously. We’re pleased to report that the first of our pork is back from the butchers and Church says the bacon is “very good”…which is a rave coming from him. Here’s his breakfast: We were particularly interested in this first batch. It’s from Mulefoot hogs…a Spanish heritage pig. Until now we’ve used English breeds but had an opportunity to try these. They’re easier to handle and now we know the meat holds its own with the best we’ve produced over the past…