Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Rammy]

Oh, ok! I was concerned you were somehow in danger! So you think it was Thor just growling at Maisey because of the food? Big sigh.....was worried you might get hurt!

 

[Southern by choice]

ah.... food. The LGD's can eat together except Chunk & Blue. They are no longer in the same field so that is no longer an issue. All the others are ok. I never have a problem if they are crazy about it as long as it isn't with us humans. Yeah- that would be an issue.
Rita is stupid over food. STUPID!

Glad you were able to diffuse the situation.

 

[Mike CHS]

Teresa finished up working the fecal samples from the other day and we are very happy with the results. All of our senior ewes had very small numbers of eggs and virtually zero Barber Pole eggs. The senior ewes (what's left of our original ewes) have had no medicinal wormer but they have all had the garlic juice concentrate and diatomaceous earth with the little bit of feed they get. They have strong immune systems anyway so those side things may have zero bearing. They are on a field that I did the nitrogen spray on but again all of that may or may not mean anything but I like the results regardless.

I'm also a happy camper that Teresa has taken on doing the egg counts but we have one sample that we have what we are pretty sure a few eggs that we can't identify. We will take that to the vet tomorrow to have him do some OJT with us.

 

[B&B Happy goats]

Mike, was it you that mentioned bioworma ? I had sent them a e mail for information and finally got a reply last night that said....they are approved now in the U.S ...but waiting on state approvals to be done. They should be ready to sell in early 2019 according to the e mail, I hope the cost is reasonable enough to be used by small and large herds...sure like the idea of how they say it works.

 

[Mike CHS]

I think it was @Goat Whisperer that mentioned it in one of my posts about what we are doing. I have looked into it also and will try it once it becomes available. It won't eliminate them completely but we are seeing enough reduction with what we are already doing that we will give that a shot also. We took 4 fecal samples to the vet this morning to get verification that we aren't doing something wrong since we were finding literally zero eggs in those 4.

 

[B&B Happy goats]

T

I think it was @Goat Whisperer that mentioned it in one of my posts about what we are doing. I have looked into it also and will try it once it becomes available. It won't eliminate them completely but we are seeing enough reduction with what we are already doing that we will give that a shot also. We took 4 fecal samples to the vet this morning to get verification that we aren't doing something wrong since we were finding literally zero eggs in those 4.

That is beyond awsome...almost zero ! We will be trying it also, I use the concentrated garlic, DE , "vacume" field, still keep the chemicals on hand to deworm but trying other methods.....BTW...the vinegar worked on killing the mushroom growth....

 

[Mike CHS]

I just made a casserole to use up the leftover turkey that we did on the smoker the other day. It's a low carb keto type recipe that is super tasting. We aren't doing a keto diet but this is what came up in my search. I rarely follow a recipe but I did follow this one. It has the taste and texture of a pot pie without the crust. I lost track of where it came from to give proper credit.

Leftover Turkey Casserole Recipe

Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes

The recipe called for crushed pork rinds sprinkled over the top along with the cheddar cheese (I did not do that)
Ingredients

• turkey breast about 4 cups (or chicken breast)
• one small can of mushrooms
• green beans about 1.5 cups fresh or frozen or 1 can
  
• 1 small carrot
• 1/2 small onion
• 6 cloves garlic
• broccoli about 1-2 cups
• 4 tbsp butter
• cheddar about 1 cup (or any other type of cheese)
• 2 tbsp chopped parsley

Keto White Sauce

• 2 tbsp butter
• cream cheese 1 philly block
• 1 1/4 cup heavy cream
• parmesan cheese about 1/2 cup
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

Instructions

• Dice the carrot. Slice the onion, green beans, mushrooms and broccoli. Mince the garlic. Shred the turkey breasts.
• Grate the cheddar and parmesan or use shredded.
• In a large pot, melt the 4 tbsp of butter. Add the onion, garlic and carrots. Cook 2-3 minutes and cover with a lid. Let steam for 2 minutes. Take the cover off and add the mushrooms and broccoli. Cook for another few minhutes, cover and let steam for another 2 minutes.
• Add the shredded turkey breasts and mix everything together. Turn off the heat and set aside.
• Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
• In a small pot, melt the 2 tbsp of butter on medium heat. Add the cream cheese in. It's easier to melt if you separate the cream cheese into small cubes before putting it in the pot.
• Once the cream cheese starts to melt, start mixing it with a whisk. You'll notice that the butter and cream cheese do not mix together and are separated. That's okay.
• Add the heavy cream to the pot and continue mixing with your whisk. The oil and milk will now mix together without any problems.
  
  Add the salt, pepper and nutmeg, and mix together. Add the parmesan AND Heat the white sauce until it starts to bubble, for about 2-3 minutes.
  
  
• Turn off the heat and pour the white sauce all over the meat and vegetable mixture in the other pot that we set aside.
• Transfer the casserole ingredients into a casserole dish.
• Sprinkle the grated cheddar, chopped parsley and crushed pork rinds (I did not use the pork rinds) over everything.
• Bake for 15 minutes or until the cheese starts to become golden brown.
  
  Take out of the oven and let stand to allow it to thicken a little

 

[B&B Happy goats]

Yummy, yummy... will have to give it a try, thanks for sharing

 

[Mike CHS]

I started taking some measurements and going back over the requirements that we have to meet for the Ag Enhancement Program and ran into a snag. It looks like the roof over the equipment has to be a minimum of 10' high at the outside wall and the highest I can go is 9'. I have a call in to the office that handles that so we shall see how firm that requirement is. An alternative is to move everything to the rear of the building and build a roof over that. That would give more flexibility in handling but it wouldn't be nearly as efficient getting sheep into the crowding pen to load onto a trailer and I'll have to play with how I would set it up to move the sheep easily.

I'm attaching some pictures of our current setup plus one of the rear of the building if anyone has any suggestion on how to arrange the chute if we have to move it to the rear. If we do move the chute to the rear, I'll build a solid panel fence to get the critters from the building out to where a trailer can get to. The actual working area on the side and the rear are pretty close to the same dimensions.

Another advantage is that I can make the actual fence in both the rear and the building side strong enough to accommodate loading/unloading the few cows we will have. I had planned on building a permanent catch pen at the other end of the pasture. The rear area would require some excavation but I can do that after the roof build is complete since that is separate from the enhancement project. I have the contractor we used for most of our big renovation projects coming over later in the week to bounce some ideas off of him.

 

[greybeard]

You thinking coming off A or B?

Either way, a 180° sweep tub will give you a LOT of flexibility in which way you choose to move them for loading and working. The one I use can be set up to send them either direction off initial flow movement. If you weld, you can build one easily enough (which is what I should have done instead of buying one)

A Bud box is another option.

(10' height requirement seems like overkill for sheep.....are the 'rules' one-size-fits-all or species specific?)