The Greenhorns

Just came across this group. If you're a greenhorn young or young at heart, perhaps you should sign up. At least at first glance, or until you get to the ad at the bottom of the national map, it seems a good thing that there's such organization.

Egg Count 4

The egg count for March stands at 259 dozen, or 3,106 eggs. That's an average of 8.35 dozen per day. Feed consumption remained the same, but because of the sheer increase in numbers, the pounds of feed per dozen dropped from 7.18 in February to 6.18 in March, or .515 per egg.

I also wanted to say, in reference to the previous post, that the grain issue is not just confined to poultry. People eat grain too, of course. As far as I'm aware, there is only one farm in the state of Tennessee that is growing local, certified organic, GMO-free grain, which is Windy Acres Farm in Orlinda, TN. I've been up there and talked with those nice folks extensively, and it would be great if we could begin to get their feed. They're going to offer roasted (rather than emulsified) soybeans as well, which provides a marked increase in nutritional quality. But if/when we do, it will take the cost of a dozen eggs to somewhere around $3.00 a dozen! (That's a huge increase, by the way.)

The same goes for organic grain we could have shipped to us. The only place that I'm aware of in the mid-South is Countryside Natural Products in Virginia. If farmers are advertising (certified) organic eggs or meat, then this is pretty much the only place from which they could be getting it. We could get it by the pallet, shipped in by tractor-trailer and shared around the ridge with other farmers, but again, it's a matter of cost. These organic grains, at the ration for laying hens, runs .48 cents per pound. Regular chicken feed - even the worst Co-Op stuff full of byproducts and antibiotics, runs just around .20 cents a pound.

Alternatively, we could get local corn but it's grown using industrial techniques, i.e., synthetic fertilizers and insecticides, and is planted with genetically modified seed. A family-owned mill in Pleasant View grows and can mill this corn, with soybeans (another problem entirely) from elsewhere. But they are entirely uninterested in modifying their cultivation practices to meet this so-called growing local demand.

So not only is it a matter of infrastructure, but of local agrarian sentiment and habit as well.

Locavore Ecology

Here's an article from a recent edition of the NYT on the lack of infrastructure - and specifically small-scale processors - to support the growing local food movement. Indeed, there are no such processors for poultry in Tennessee at all, with the closest being in Bowling Green, Kentucky. And while that's only a few hours drive for us, I do know people that drive 6 and more hours to get their birds federally inspected! Every turn of the tire makes these products less local, and therefore less sustainable, and I'd bet there's evidence to show that in many cases, although pasture-raised poultry is no doubt raised more humanely, it's carbon footprint is much larger than the typical Tyson meat-blobs.

There is also another gigantic hole in this whole system: local - let alone organic - grain. For the month of March, for example, each dozen eggs the Ecotone hens produced took roughly six pounds of grain/feed, which after being driven from Iowa or Nebraska to Edward's Feed in Lebanon, TN, takes another 100 miles round trip of driving for me to retrieve and ensconce in the feed building.

Farm Fresh Eggs

Pastured Eggs from Ecotone Farm!

Raised with integrity and care, the hens of Ecotone provide naturally healthy, delicious eggs, with deep orange yolks that stand up tall in the pan, and a smooth, rich taste you'll remember. Living outside, eating bugs and grass and grain in the sunshine and the rain, these are happy hens, rotated to fresh pasture every few days, and fed an all-natural, custom-mixed ration free of antibiotics or hormones. Committed to agricultural biodiversity, all of the Ecotone hens are heritage or standard breeds (i.e., not industrial varieties), producing a wide variety of egg colors from white and brown to pink and green. Eggs are collected and washed by hand daily, ensuring the freshest and highest quality product.

Why are these eggs so good?

* 100% Pasture-Raised

* Custom-mixed, all-natural diet

* No antibiotics

* All standard or "heritage" breed hens

* Local: Joelton, TN

Start an account and get our Endless Egg Basket!

Deliveries to Nashville on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Individual dozens are $4 each. Commercial accounts welcome.

Contact C.J. for more information, or to start an account.

Comings and Goings

About a month ago, we had a very tumultuous week here at Ecotone. After a farm visit by one of our good friends, Cody Hopkins of Falling Sky Farm, we decided that if it did feel chaotic around the farm - and it did - then it was chaotic at the farm. Deciding to scale-back and focus our energies on laying hens and pigs, we found new homes for the 25 guineas, the 5 turkeys, the 3 geese, and of course, Billy. We put all these critters on Craigslist, and within a week they were all re-homed. Billy found a wonderful new home with the folks below, and is destined to be a 4H show goat for the young man below.

The turkeys went to a young family that recently moved from California to Tennessee due to the water situation there. The geese went to a couple in Cookeville, and the guineas went with a pair of sisters to Hendersonville.

Also during this week, we received the first of two shipments of this year's laying chicks. Unfortunately, the first box all arrived dead due to the cold. The next box, however, all arrived alive and well, as did the replacement shipment for the first. With this year's layers, we add five heritage or standard breeds that will produce several new colors of eggs. Jen and I have been spending a lot of time with them in the brooder, as there's nothing cuter than baby chicks! Below is a video of them in the brooder.

In what was perhaps the most difficult movement of life that week, Cloe was hit by a car on Harper Road late Friday night. The folks that hit her stopped by to tell us, as they live near by and had seen Cloe and Cletus playing the pasture. They had clearly been going very fast, as she was a good 10 feet from the road, as well as drinking. But our fences, ultimately, were the problem, and Jen and I spent the next few weekends learning how to put up barbed-wire fence and fixing the fences. Cloe was a wonderful companion, and a rascal of the highest order. She will be missed for a long time.

Finally, because Cletus was noticeably down during the weeks after Cloe's death, after we fixed the fence I began looking for a new companion for him. Thus, I'm pleased to introduce Daisy, who when we got her on March 15th was 7 weeks old. Like Cletus, she's a Great Pyrenees, and unlike Cloe, she's got a badger mask. Within a few days, Cletus was back to his old self, rolling in the grass with his new friend and acting like a puppy all over again. She's really a spunky pup, biting Ozark and Cletus' legs and making them have some fun in the spring sun!

Egg Count 3

I just wanted to give an update on the current egg count, as well as some cumulative data I've begun to gather. As a reminder, these numbers refer to 143 chickens (139 hens and 4 roosters).

As of last week, the average daily egg count is 8.5 dozen. Just a month ago, it was 6.5 a day.

The total egg count for January was 1,909, or 159 dozen. Eating an average of 51.6 pounds of feed per day, or .36 pounds per hen, it took roughly 9.96 pounds of grain per dozen, or .83 pounds per egg. Each hen ate 11.16 pounds of feed over the course of the month, and laid an average of 13.25 eggs. This is so high, of course, because there was so little forage in the pasture to supplement their diet. After all, quite a bit of the last two months looked like this:

But even though we had the coldest February since 1979, with the creeping daylight the average daily collection steadily rose, and the total egg count for the month was 2,275, or 190 dozen. Eating an average of 50 pounds per day, this increase in eggs brought the grain per dozen down to 7.38 pounds, or .62 pounds per egg. So as the average monthly total per hen rose to 16.37 eggs, their individual feed consumption dropped to 9.79 pounds each.

Starvation and Abundance

Here are two articles I recently came across concerning the global food system: "Why Big Ag Won't Feed the World" in The Atlantic, and "Feast and Famine" in Origins.

Radical Agrarianism 2

By way of responding to AD's comments on my agrarianism essay, I thought I'd post some relevant passages from Wendell Berry's The Way of Ignorance that my friend Brian Miller of Winged Elm Farm in Philadelphia, TN recently sent me.

The major fault of I'll Take My Stand, Berry says, is that the "agrarianism of most of the essays, like the regionalism of most of them, is abstract, too purely mental. The book is not impractical - none of its principles, I believe, is in conflict with practicality - but it is too often remote from the issues of practice. The legitimate aim (because it is the professed aim) of agrarianism is not some version of culture but good farming, though a culture complete enough may be implied in that aim....As a regional book, I'll Take My Stand mostly ignores the difficulty and discipline of locality."

"The most insistent and formidable concern of agriculture, wherever it is taken seriously, is the distinct individuality of every farm, every field on every farm, every farm family, and every creature on every farm. Farming becomes a high art when farmers know and respect in their work the distinct individuality of their place and the neighborhood of creatures that lives there."

"Having settled even in so marginal a place as this, undertaking to live in it even by such marginal farming as I have done, one is abruptly and forcibly removed from easy access to the abstractions of regionalism, politics, economics, and the academic life. To farm is to be placed absolutely. To do the actual work of an actual farm one must shed the cliches that constitute "The South" or "My Old Kentucky Home" and come to the ground."

"One may begin as an agrarian, as some of us to our good fortune have done, but for a farmer agrarianism is not enough. Southern agrarianism is not enough, and neither is Kentucky agrarianism or Henry County agrarianism. None of those can be local enough or particular enough. To live as a farmer, one has to come into the local watershed and the local ecosystem and deal well or poorly with them. One must enounter directly and feelingly the topography and the soils of one's particular farm, and treat them well or poorly. If one wishes to farm well, and agrarianism inclines to that wish above all, then one must submit to the unending effort to change one's mind and ways to fit one's farm."

Notes Toward a Radical Agrarianism

Recently, I had an essay published in Ameriquests (vol. 7, no. 1), an online journal dedicated to "real and metaphorical quests towards 'America'". This essay came out of several years of discussions with the Food Politics Group at the Robert Penn Warren Center, a summer fellowship in Guatemala and Cuba with the Center for the Americas, a panel at the 2008 Radical Philosophy Association conference, and innumerable conversations with many of you. These ideas, of course, are still in motion, and so your comments are encouraged.

David Bradley Tractor

After 8 months at Ecotone with a weedeater as our only petro-powered farm tool, the David Bradley tractor has arrived! Two weekends ago, C.J. and Ozark drove to Van Buren, AR to visit family and pick-up this hand-tractor from Liz and Dale Balls, a member of his mother's church whose father first bought it and used it on their family farm. Not having run in years and needing some attention, the super-neighbor father-son Smith duo helped C.J. get it running, and hopefully taught him a thing or two about engines. After a couple of days of work, and some magical tinkering by Mr. Smith, it now runs like a top!

Built between 1951 and 1953, by Sears and Roebuck Company, this David Bradley tractor (Model # 917.57561, Series 301) was built with a 3 horsepower Continental engine, instead of the regular Briggs and Stratton. It has lots of different attachments, and in addition to the trailer (modeled below), we also have an adjustable foot plow and a cultivator.



















The idea is that this will pull the chicken coops across the pasture instead of us. We'll keep you posted. In the meantime, it can haul all the water we're carrying to the animals while everything's frozen!