The cotton patch geese are growing up here at EEC Forest Stewardship. Goose and Gander parents are naturals, with the babes picking up all the good lessons in how to glean, swim, clean themselves, and avoid hazards like eagles and territorial roosters. This family flock has also learned how to navigate the electric mesh netting and where to graze after the sheep have rolled through. We’re keeping the gate closed now to make sure the geese stay on the farm. They have been known to waddle quite a ways into neighboring fields if left to their own devices. Luckily there is plenty to do here in our fields, so the geese thrive and jive close to home. Most of the young ganders form this clutch have evidence of grey feathers in their plumage. I’ll wait to make a final inspection once they are fully mature, but male cotton patch should be solid white, so this group of young males will be feeding the farm and friends later this year and into the next. The mater pair will continue their work and be a fixture of Leafhopper Farm’s soil restoration plans. For now, managing one pair is plenty. If in future we shift gears and want more birds, there is an amazing breeder here in Washington to support out plans.
In Cascade Katahdin news, the lambs are growing up so fast! All singles this year- very rare, but the babes all had all the milk form mom, so each babe is large and filling out nicely for the fall. Right now there is a plan to cull quite a few animals this year. I overwintered 10 ewes, and think it was just a few too many, though looking at past flock records, I’ve overwintered ten in the past, but this year, having all singles, I am trying to figure out what happened to cause the low birth rate this year. Most of my reading says it’s about how much protein they get right before breeding, so I’ll make sure to have extra mineral and protein blocks available. Okie, our ram, is looking very good too. I wrote an earlier piece on him this Spring. With two years of breeding at this farm under his belt, I am starting to see what I like from his genetics, and what’s not so exciting- like horns. Yes, a ram lamb was born this year with parts of his horns intact, so he and his mom will be culled. It’s important to keep the breeding standards of a given breed to ensure the characteristics that are wanted.
This year, Spring and Summer weather has been blessedly mild, allowing for good pasture growth and lush food for the herd. As I type, on July 3rd 2025, the clouds are moving in, and we’ll only reach about 70F today. What a wonderful day! Tomorrow’s explosions will find me in the mountains on a high alpine lake hike for a few days. The sheep, after observing for seven years, are not adversely affected by the fireworks. Gill, our livestock guardian dog, is also unphased. I can not say the same for Valley, so she will join me in the mountains to avoid the stress of a loud weekend. I wish the other wildlife- especially the small birds, could know to flee in time. Such massive explosions cause small animal brains to hemorrhage if they are caught by the blasts. Night time flashes of light and loud booms scares many daytime birds into the sky at night in great confusion. Finding their bodies on the ground with death masques of shock and horror helped me step away from a beloved childhood tradition.
Have you ever looked so closely at a thing you can shut out everything else in the world going on? Like reading these words right now. I’m writing them with the awareness of a Douglas squirrel alarming from high branch of young red alder in front of me to the north, the whirling circular song of Swainson’s thrush, staccato with robin alarm every sixteenth .p9 (cat jumped into my lap and typed her own notes) Now she is climbing me- the squirrel call heightens intensity. A plane flies by, but the words keep translating across these page and then your lovely eyes follow the breadcrumbs like stars for a captain. If only we could read the landscape like this- moment by moment, because in thinking about this so deeply, trying to translate the importance of each cycle, instead of living it- I miss out on exactly what is going on and being fully present with it. The barking dogs down the hill to my southwest. Knowing the directions and seeing them in my head. Stretching mind’s eye into the topography and going down that hill to see the farm where the golden retriever lives and knowing the neighbors there. Connection to place and people.
The animals are always there helping me learn languages of the landscape. Because of the low mineral count in these soils, due to complete removal of canopy cover and the ability to slow and sink vast rain events, the chickens need certain supplement inputs to stay healthy. Calcium to grow healthy bones, beautiful feathers, and a protective shell on those precious eggs is imperative, and not easily found in the landscape here. Scratch and Peck layer has that supplement in a loose form within the mix. Each bird can selectively take in what they need. Pellets do not allow this self selection, so some birds are over-supplemented, or under, with no way to easily regulate intake. Pellets are also brought to a high temperature, thus killing many of the beneficial living biome the birds are also expecting in the grains within the pellet. The steam is added to kill off any harmful bacteria, like salmonella, but I ask how the source creates such a high count of these bacteria in the first place.
In doing a little reading, I found that animal byproducts and soy are the most contaminated. The grain my gals get has not corn or soy, and no animal byproducts. It’ also certified organic and yes, expensive compared to many other cheaper steam treated crap on the market that will keep your birds alive and healthy enough for the few years of productive laying you’ll get out of them. You may also see a greater depletion in landscape around the coop as they spread the crap you feed them into the soil. Concentrated flocks will spread concentrated amounts. The flock here at Leafhopper Farm has about an acre of well established diversity in fruits, flowers, forbs, grasses, and more. The coop cleanings go into ageing compost for later use in the garden. All the manure is as clean as it’s source, which to this day, in twelve years of feeding, the land and animals remain healthy and clean eating. This trickles up to the sheep and what they are also eating- the same greens grown by the chicken poop, which then adds in nitrogen neutral sheep poop and the ruminants brows the landscape. What a great, restorative cycle from one clean input source.
What you put in is what you get out. The sources really do matter, and your animals will show you what’s missing, in their health and well-being. Weight can fluctuate a bit- more noticeably in the sheep, especially when they are nursing, some ewes are better at transferring nutrition than others, and that goes into the long term breeding shifts I make for the health of the herd. Long term breeding lines are great at transforming the brush and grasses into good meat and healthy carcass size throughout birthing cycles. The ewes that don’t are culled out over time, but it takes a few years of observing lifecycles before making such choices. I had a ewe who became Skelator each lactation cycle, but her ewe lambs did not carry on the habit, so she was not culled for that trait alone. Not many sheep are culled for a single flaw- unless it’s a huge one, like horns. Ability to convert pasture to meat each year is greatly increased by rotational grazing methods, which are in full swing by early July 2025. Rains and cooler temperatures have given us a very productive second growth after initial Spring grazing rotations. Careful planning and reseeding has brought in clover, plantain, yarrow, dandelion, dock, and several grasses in a pasture with additional hedges to brows, creating that diverse diet from no chemical methods of holistic, restoration farming practices.
Poultry remains the foundation stock of any farm- in being the most prolific and, usually grained in one form or another for maximum production. The surrounding vegetation gets the benefit of all the manure laid down from good inputs, and lush garden, pasture, forest, hedgerow, and stream thrive with more diversity every day. There are some more heavily used areas of the ground that are without much diversity- from the building footprints to heavily rocked driveways, but beneath them, the soil lives on. Near the coop and barn structures, there is a lot of restoration happening to reintroduce more plant-life. The soil had been canopied by some older red cedars, which put out chemicals to make it hard for other species to survive. This legacy left the ground in transition, with much of the over winter barn muck piling on to dilute the tannin soil. Now burdock and dock are working on compaction from decades of cows and horses too. The flock loves dashing around in the knee high leafy forest where insects are returning in droves. The best kind of landscape has the many sounds of buzzing and chirping from the small creatures that are so crucial in our living systems of ecology. Though some of the bugs are less welcome, all play intricate parts in nature.
The chickens are thriving on a landscape at it’s growth peak. As I move the young hatch of chickens from their youngster pen to the coop, where an established flock will need a few days of integration with the newbies. Young birds need a group of buddies for successful mixing into an adult flock. After a decade of lessons and learning by doing- with a flock of about 30 birds, I’ve found that a 10 young birds is ideal for introduction, and six minimum for survival. Small groups of five or less get fragmented by the larger flock and picked off. Safety in numbers really does apply in this species. After three days of confinement- with extra feeding, the whole group gets let out again to free range and the young birds now know the coop is home. With the introduction of 10 new birds, I’ll need to cull at least that number in the Fall to keep the healthy number preferred in this system. 30 remains the magic number, for the flock health, with two roosters. I get more than enough eggs to sell and share, as well as keeping grain costs manageable.
The system does grow and shrink with the annual cycles of abundance and dormancy through the seasons. This is why culling is done in Fall. It also happens to be cool and better for meat during slaughter. My current flock of 18 sheep is grazing fine on the landscape while there is an abundant growing season, but as the summer waxes into full heat, without rain, the grass slows it’s growth and once green pastures lay dormant and yellow through the hot long days. If I’ve managed things well in rotation, there will be enough pasture to get the herd through to fall, when shorter daylight hours slow pasture growth to near stand still, and the plants pull all their energy back underground, into the roots till Springtime and longer days signals a renewal in growth. In winter, pregnant ewes are fed alfalfa twice a day while growing lambs for next Spring, the hens low down laying to rest their bodies and make it through winter, so they don’t eat as much. I actually feed the same organic grain serving year round, in the growing seasons, there are a lot of fresh greens and insects to supplement egg laying. In over a decade of forming the rhythms of this farm, the animals have been stellar at showing me the seasons and what needs to be done. I can’t imagine not working with the animals and having them as crucial labor on the landscape. It’s a lifetime of learning and I’m so grateful for this opportunity.
EEC Forest Stewardship 