Baby animals are so cute – births on the farm

Keeping animals are such a joy, especially when you can integrate them into the farm to reduce work load and increase fertility. Not to mention all the food you get. This year we have had so many births of piglets, chicks and lambs and here is a little into and some photos for you.

Piglets

These guys are so small and cute. We had two mothers give birth to a total of 16 piglets in our permaculture pig system. We had to separate each mother into different runs in the pig system so they wouldn’t harm each others babies. We also separate the male s into a third run. One of the mothers had difficulties giving birth so we had to assist was an interesting experience. This including putting our hand up the pig and injecting with something to loosen everything up.

This is our first experience of piglets born here and with all the extra work and difficulties we will have separating piglets from the mother when it is time to wean them we have decided we wont breed them again and just barter for your piglets to raise for ourselves.

The pigs help us with land clearance and turn a tone of waste into food.

Lambs

We have quite a few sheep who manage our 18 hectares of grass lands and forests for us. They create an abundance f manure which we compost for the gardens, manage our fire hazards, create wool for insulation on our natural builds and create meat.

The lambs create a lot of joy and we have had 14 born here this year. 4 of them were born from mothers that were also born here.

Usually we end up going to let the sheep out of the barn in the morning to find a cute little lamb there, like this one.

Chicks

We had around 30 chicks born this year that we have raised for laying eggs. About half are males so they will be for meat. They are so cute and quickly get quite big. These guys help us make compost in our chicken compost system and turn waste into eggs and meat.

Do you want to learn about animal husbandry the permaculture way? Then come along to one of our permaculture internships or courses or head over to our youtube channel.