About Robert Plamondon

Tractor Stuck in the Mud

My tractor is stuck in the mud. Now what? (To skip ahead to how I got it free, read this follow-up posting).

How did I get stuck? Well, I lost some hens to predators. I figured that the thing to do was to fire up the tractor, mow next to the fence while keeping an eye out for game trails through the grass, and then move the fence slightly. It’s just a couple of strands of aluminum fence wire on step-in fence posts, so moving it is easy.

That would deal with the grass that’s shorting out the fence and perform a reconnaissance that might reveal where the predators were coming from. On the tractor, I sit up high enough that I get a better view than if I’m on foot.

Well, keeping my eyes peeled for predator sign meant I wasn’t watching where I was going, and I bogged down in some very soft ground. Now what? When a vehicle is stuck, I pull it free with the tractor. If the tractor is stuck, I got nothin’!

One of my neighbors came by, asking if he could borrow the tractor to pull out his pickup, which is stuck on his own field. He thinks he can borrow a pal’s 4WD tractor and pull out both vehicles. Let’s hope.

As it turns out, the predators were getting through because the feeder wire for the electric fence had burned through. If I’d checked that first, none of this would have happened!

The Grass is as High as an Extremely Short Elephant’s Eye

It must be spring. The grass is getting way out of hand, but it’s too wet to mow. This happens every year.

Chickens on free range like short grass. Back in the Golden Age of scientific poultrykeeping (roughly 1910-1960), this sort of thing was researched. Chickens did best on grass that was 2″ high. Once it reached 6″ it became a barrier to foraging. If it gets even taller, the chickens are confined to a few paths through the tall grass.

Tall grass also shorts out electric fence and can conceal predators. A field that is kept short has a lot of succulent, green regrowth, and bright green grass is the only kind that provides any nutrition for chickens. This nutrtion, by the way, consists of more vitamins than you can shake a stick at, some protein, but no calories.

Rain, rain, go away!

Feeding Random Stuff to Chickens

Okay, so someone has given you some exotic ingredient you’ve never heard of, like okra tofu, or banana seeds, or worm legs. Should you feed it to the chickens, and, if so, how?

The general rule for feeding miscellaneous stuff to chickens is to feed it in a separate feeder, while continuing to give them all the ordinary chicken feed they want. The chickens are pretty bored with the same old chicken feed and are sure to take an interest in anything new. They’ll eat as much as they want.

The trick is to avoid trying to make them eat more. Chickens are quite good at figuring out whether feed is good or bad, and how much is good for them. In fact, they’re better than you. So never starve them in order to make them finish off their yummy dish of politician’s hearts. Just take away what they don’t eat.

Try to feed them only what they’ll clean up in a short time — 20 minutes is traditional. In particular, don’t let things that are capable of spoiling sit out to grow bacteria and mold, or attract flies and rats. The refrigerator is your friend. Use it to store the excess, rather than setting out too much.

You can also do it the hard way by looking up the foodstuff in question in a poultry nutrition reference. My favorite is Feeding Poultry by F. G. Heuser, which is one of the old poultry books that I brought back into print. It doesn’t have an entry for politician’s hearts, but it does list some pretty bizarre stuff, like whale meal (page 170) or silkworm chrysalis flour (page 173). The mind boggles. But you’ll still want to use the “try it and see” technique with a new ingredient.

Tires for Rural Use

My 1993 VW Eurovan needs new tires. We had a flat, and while we were changing the tire we took a good look at the ratings printed on the sidewall, and realized that the tires that were on the vehicle when we bought it (a couple of years ago) are inadequate to the load.

We live two miles up a gravel road, and this is hard on our tires. We get a lot more tire damage than we did when living in the city. Whenever possible, we use six-ply commercial tires on our vehicles. And we do this the other way around, too, preferring vehicles for which six-ply commercial tires are available. I ordered a set of appropriate German-made tires, which of course no one has in stock and won’t arrive for a few days. They cost over $200 each. Ouch! This is the penalty I pay for choosing an obscure imported van. Commercial tires for more popular vehicles are cheaper.

We frequently load our vehicles to capacity with feed, so it’s good to have a vehicle with a commercial chassis. We used to have a Ford Taurus station wagon, which went through a surprising number of tie rods and shocks because it’s not designed for that kind of service. Our Isuzu Trooper and VW Eurovan don’t have this problem. Having a commercial chassis doesn’t force you to have a stark, utilitarian commercial vehicle (though that’s not a bad idea). Our Eurovan (designed originally as a commercial van) came in a a seven-passenger semi-RV configuration, with a fold-up table and fold-down bed. It’s great for family outings. Just don’t expect a sedan, minivan, or even an SUV built on a non-commercial chassis to last like the real deal.

We learned the hard way that conventional wisdom is wrong in one area: never overload a pickup truck! Not if you want to end the trip with the same number of wheels that you started with, anyway. A lot of people told us that you can overload a full-sized half-ton pickup to a full ton with no problems, and this quickly chewed up the rear bearings and spat out a rear wheel. Not fun! (Why would anybody make a full-sized half-ton pickup, anyway?)

If It Were Any Fresher, You’d Have to Slap It

Karen butchers chickens the day before the farmers’ market, meaning that the broilers you buy from us have been on ice for no more than a day. Compare this to supermarket chicken, where sell-by dates are about ten days out from the date of butchering.

Also, our broilers are lovingly handled and kept on ice the whole time. No middlemen, no half-trained help. That’s what small businesses and buying locally are all about.

And it doesn’t hurt that they’re the best-tasting broilers in the world, or that we raise them with respect.

Thought you’d like to know.