Pits, Puppies and Potatoes

One of the biggest issues with owning a livestock operation is manure and having a plan in place to effectively manage it. With the added complexity of a milking facility, an eventual cheesemaking room and the liquid waste water generated by all, having a method of collection and removal determines pretty much everything regarding how Catesby Farms is run.

As the farm was originally a dairy farm, a lot of what we need is already here, it just needs bringing back up to an operational level. The 'pit' is one of those things. It's a 10ft deep, 20ft x 20ft concrete hole that will collect all of our liquid waste and a small amount of solid waste, with the liquid waste being pumped off and spread as 'fertilizer' around the paddocks. Until this week the pit was full of 25 years of solid waste.

Environmental laws now in place mean things need to be done radically different to 25 years ago when the tank was built. Back then it didn't matter that the bottom wasn't concrete and that the pit wasn't sealed. Today it's the law. In the next few weeks the bottom will be concreted in and the tank fully sealed. After that we will either dig a secondary lagoon to pump liquid waste to (from the pit - and prior to spreading around the farm) or we will build another pit. This will take care of all of our waste water issues bar one - the need to connect the septic tank (the one without the drain field) to the pipe that drains into the pit. As the waste water from the septic will only contain wash water, we do not need the expensive septic system we had originally thought. Instead the cost of building it will go into the new pit. Swings and roundabouts really - but it gets us the ODA approval we need.

Once the manure management plan is in effect the Milk Barn construction can continue. The reality is that this solution will cause us the least aggravation.

On Friday we moved into the next phase of our operation regarding the sheep as well. Our 25 lambs and yearlings from Vermont Shephard arrived. We have decided to sell all but 3 of our lambs to slaughter (we will slaughter a couple for our own freezer, but the three we will keep are the little one we hand reared, and the two named by Jordanna and Zoe, my two girls - thankfully 2 of them are ewes so we should profit from them down the line). Of the ewes we will keep a dozen, which means that from mid June we will be down to 25 East Freisian ewes, 12 Dorset/Hampshire ewes and 3 cross-breed lambs - for a nice round 40. In February next year the 12 ewes and the 12 yearlings will lamb, adding approximately another 35 sheep (a far more managable number than the current 135.

The puppies continue to do well. All 4 are now very active and are looking to explore their new world. Both Othello and Gizmo are proving to be extremely good parents and it will be difficult to sell the puppies, although we have had interest already.

The last few days the weather has been wonderful and we have extended our vegetable garden yet again with corn, cabbages, carrots and lettuces. Both the strawberries and potatoes are doing extremely well (maybe it was adding some of the 'fertilizer' we dug out of the pit that did the trick).