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| Double rainbow, 2010. |
Every business needs a guiding principle- something upon which they base their practice, a summary of their overall ideology. Hill Giant Farm is no exception. Our motto is "the earth is the Lord's and everything in it," an excerpt from Psalm 24 in the Old Testament. This motto reminds us to have a proper attitude towards the land that we farm, the animals that we raise, the innumerable springs and other water sources throughout our acreage, and our approach to forestry management. If the earth, and everything in it; the land, animals, water and forests that make up Hill Giant Farm- belong to God, then we must be careful with how we treat these things. If a friend or family member lends us a fragile or valued item, we do not carelessly toss it about, neglect it, misuse or abuse it. Rather, we treat it with care and respect. Viewing the earth as God's encourages us to think about the environmental and sociological impact of the way in which we farm.
Here's some of what this means on a practical level.
1. We treat our animals humanely and do everything possible to ensure they are healthy, happy and well cared for. This includes giving them water from the same source as our house water, cutting and storing excellent hay, rotating pasture often enough, giving vitamin E to newborn lambs, and using vaccinations only when necessary. If, or when, the time comes for us to terminate an animal we ensure it is done quickly and humanely.
2. We use everything possible and waste as little as we can. Kitchen scraps become chicken fodder, sheep manure becomes composted mulch for the garden. Fruits and veggies past their prime become feed for the sheep. Jars from canning are washed, sterilized and used each year. In the meantime, the serve as glasses in our kitchen cupboards and storage containers in our pantry. Empty juice and pop bottles become lamb bottles. You get the idea.
3. We grow our vegetables with sustainability in mind. As far as possible we use seed varieties that are not hybrids and save the seeds for replanting the following year. The sheep provide us with excellent organic matter that enriches and gives back to the soil. We don't spray our apple trees (or any of our vegetables for that matter) and so far our yields have been tremendous, as long as you don't mind that your produce isn't "perfect".
The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. We're glad we have the privilege of looking after and enjoying 100 beautiful acres in Grey County.
Excellent blog!
ReplyDeleteAre your sheep for wool or for delicious mutton? Do you sell your vegetables or are they only for your own family's use?
Hi Shaun, To answer your questions we shear the sheep and sell the wool once a year, but it is always a net loss as the wool price in Canada is not very strong. We sell our ram lambs for lamb meat. We save the ewe lambs to build our flock.
ReplyDeleteAs for our vegetables, it is our plan to begin selling them at Keady market on Tuesdays this summer.
And what about routine shots for animals? Do you do them? Or do you consider animals healthier if they live as naturally as possible, without human notions of "protection" from disease through immunization?
ReplyDeleteHi Kane, you ask a very good question that gets right to the crux of the organic vs. inorganic sheep debate. We do use conventional dewormers via subcutaneous injections on our ewes and ewe lambs, but not our ram lambs. We only deworm when necessary because we don't wish to create resistance to worms within our flock. Other than that we only use medication on a specific sheep for a specific problem as needed. We don't have an ideological problem with the use of medication for ourselves or our animals as long as it enhances quality of life.
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