Squeakytoyfarm.com and Silverglenranch.com

Baby Chicks!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:58:00 +0000

We received some baby chicks in the mail this week and Gretchen is very excited. However, it wasn't all good, as we did have some die. Gretchen ordered 19, and arrived in the mail and we didn't know they were at the post office until the next day, so it made it a little hard on the chicks. We will most likely order some more chicks, as we hope to be able to offer eggs to customers this summer at the farmers market. We currently get around 6 eggs a day, and once we are at full production we will most likely get around 20 a day.
Currently these chicks are in a box in our basement with a heat lamp on them as baby chicks are very sensitive to the temperature at this age. I will try to take some pictures of them as they keep getting older.

Seperation

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:39:00 +0000

This weekend we separated all of the pigs. In this picture you will see that the mom is on the other side of the fence. Everyone seems to be doing well so far. Now pigs are very fun to have around, however they sure do not herd very well. It took us a while to get one of the older pigs into a different section. One of the moms is getting a little fat (A little like myself), so we will have to ration feed her, so she can lose some weight. The younger pigs you see in the pictures they will start to get open feed which means they can eat as much as they want and when they want. Also in the picture is a feeder, which we will start filling up in a couple of days. We don't fill that up right away, because even though we separated them, we need to give them a couple of days to make sure they do not break any of the fence. The weather is getting to really feel like spring, as it was 73 today. It get a little tricky with our fire because sometimes it gets cool in the evening, so we have to start a fire and then it might make the house really hot. However, we still haven't used propane for heat since the first week in January. Very exciting.

Okay I am behind

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:06:00 +0000

I know I haven't written a blog in a while. However, right now is the easy stage. I guess we did have a little drama because our electric fence shorted out, so that meant we had little baby pigs in the yard. It was actually very cute, and really not that big of a worry because we knew they would go back to their mothers. Then again, they started eating some chicken feed, so we had to find the short. I looked and looked and I could not find it, but then Gretchen was able to find the short and it was back to working. What happens with electric fences is that if it touches any kind of metal it will short out and then not work. It happens from time to time and can be a pain, because then we have to walk the entire fence line just looking for the spot.

So this weekend, Kansas won the Big 12 tournament. Yes you have learned today that I am a KU basketball junky. I love it. It is the one time that I can act like a child and just have a good time. So that means my favorite time of the year is next weekend and it is the NCAA tournament. Lets all cheer on the Jayhawks.

Walnut Valley Farmers Market

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:13:00 +0000

Today I went to a meeting with the Walnut Valley Farmers Market. This is just a small farmers market in Winfield, and they have a goal of 20 vendors. We are going to try and see if we can get involved in this market. We plan on selling free range eggs, sides of pork and vegetables. Now I have never grown a garden before so this could be a very humbling experience. Right now I am trying to put together a list of items to plant and see if I can do this. Now if anyone has some advice please let me know.

We also plan to sell some T-Shirts at the farmers market as we have already had some requests for our Squeaky Toy Farm T-Shirts. So look for us there this summer. A website will be up soon!

Kansas Free Range Eggs

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:11:00 +0000

It is getting warmer out and the sunshine is staying around longer during the day! A hint of spring is in the air and we are so excited. Not only are we tired of all the mud, but the added sunshine means we are starting to get eggs again. Part of a chickens production depends on the amount of sunshine during the day. During the shortest days of the year we did not receive any eggs, but now were are getting around four a day.
Now are chickens are free range as we open their henhouse in the morning and they are free to roam anywhere on our property. Research has shown that the nutritional content of eggs from genuine free-range hens (hens that forage daily on a grass range) is superior to eggs produced by conventional means. These studies report higher levels of Omega 3 and Vitamins A and E, and lower levels of total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and Omega 6.
So lets cheer for a breakfast of eggs and sausage! It is just a good feeling knowing when I eat this meal that both items came from our farm.

Eating Like a Pig

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:50:00 +0000

Everyone has heard the term, "eating like a pig", well after having some pigs you can understand how that term comes about. Now pigs are different than other animals in that they do eat until they are full and will then stop eating. Other animals will actually just keep on eating and it can cause death. Actually once we wean the piglets from their mothers we will then have a feeder with feed in it and they can eat as much as they want. The mothers then will be on a ration feeder, because just like humans they can tend to eat too much and get FAT! (But I can't blame them because I enjoy food also). If you look at the picture here you will see the little ones eating some feed and just making a mess! They eat like pigs because they just get it everywhere. The pigs right now are eating feed and also still nursing from their mothers. We will actually wean them between 6-8 weeks of age, instead of 2 weeks which a lot of confinement operations do. We just want it to be as natural as possible.

The weather is actually much better today and it looks like the week ahead will be much warmer! Lets hope so, because cold and snow is not any fun for working on the farm!

Wine on Valentines Day

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:05:00 +0000

As we appreciate the fact the people buy local and look for our products, we also like to support local businesses. This Valentines day we went to a local county winery, called Windswept Winery. It was a wonderful wonderful evening and if you ever get a chance, you should make the trip. Not only will you be able to enjoy the wonderful wine, but you will be able to talk to the owners Randy and Rebecca. This dinner was a five course feast and it was fabulous. Now I am by no means an expert on wine, however this night I had my first experience with food being a perfect fit with wine!

My next blog I will give you an update on the baby pigs and they are as cute as ever.

Is she a cat or a dog?

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:04:00 +0000

This is Kiwi the dog we have named our farm after. Sometimes she doesn't really act like a dog. In this picture, Kiwi is sleeping on the top of the couch. I mean we have had our cats perch up here, but now Kiwi is starting to do it. My wife Gretchen will say, I know I should tell her to get down but she is so cute! I swear this dog just brings a smile to everyones face.

Also tonight I had a pork chop and it was great. I just fried it in a pan with some olive oil and it was very tender. I think next time I might try a little marinade. We will see. We have also now gone about a month without turning on our heater, we are just using wood in our wood furnace. It is a great feeling to be able to do it.

I would love to hear any comments of anyone who is reading my blog! Let me know of any subjects you would like me to talk about.

Great Taste

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 03:41:00 +0000

I know it has been a week since I have posted a blog. Just a crazy week for me, as I was out of town. Really it is Gretchen that does most of the work around here during the week, so I just have to say how wonderful of a job she does!
Anyway we picked up our first processed pork and it is great!

Here is a quote from a customer.

"We went to pick up our hog Saturday and have been "pigging out" since. The meat is delicious! Doesn't draw water or shrink while cooking either. So far we've tried the chops, bacon and ham - great food!" ~ Alisha

Also the butcher at Walnut Valley Packing, mentioned that the Wacker hogs were great looking hogs!

It is great to hear these comments as we feel like we are offering a product of good quality and treated very well. So thank you everyone we purchased pork from us.

Propane

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:38:00 +0000

This picture of a fire you see, is how we heat our house. Living in the country we are on a propane tank and just like gas for your car, the cost of propane keeps going up and up. Last winter we paid $1.59 a gallon and this winter it has been up to $2.13 a gallon. Now we have a 500 gallon tank and I think last winter we spent around $1300 on propane. So this winer I purchased a wood burning furnace. This furnace is in our basement and connects to our central air unit and uses our air ducts. It works pretty good and we haven't turned on our propane furnace for over week now. Of course this does create some work for us because we have to cut all of this fire wood to be able to burn. The good part about cutting the wood is living in the country we have access to PLENTY of wood and we are getting a great workout cutting the wood. In this second picture is some split wood and it is a funny little story.
Okay, in all the movies you see the rugged tough guy who lives on the farm, he will split wood with an ax. Well I have always had that image in my head so today, I thought I would see if I could split a hard piece of wood with an ax. Well, this picture shows my accomplishment. Gretchen had a good laugh out of me, because I said how tough I felt and for anyone that knows me, is that I am not really a tough guy. Most likely we will use the power splitter when we need to split wood, but most likely we will just cut smaller pieces that do not need split.

So for one day though. I am a rugged tough guy who split wood with an ax!

Let it snow!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:44:00 +0000

We received a decent amount of snow last night as you can see from the picture, and snow always seems to make chores on the farm a little harder. We had some snow drifts that were knee high as I was walking out to feed the pigs. I do not have a good picture but the baby pig that I call "Big Red" has this thing when her mom moves away from her to drink or eat, "Big Red" will then bury himself under the hair. One day Gretchen went in to the barn and couldn't find him; and then all of a sudden she saw some hay moving and he was hiding under some hay. It is currently 18f, but the pigs are almost 2 weeks now so they should be able to handle this weather much better with each day. Now my only worry is I have to drive through all of this to get to work tomorrow. Living in the country is great, however it takes more work to just get into town.

It was a big day for us.

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:41:00 +0000

Kansas weather can be crazy at times. This morning at 6 a.m., it was 45 and very little wind. Then when I left for work at 7 a.m., the temperature has dropped to 33, and even an hour later it was down to 23. Crazy Kansas weather. Here is one of the baby pigs that I call "Big Red", she keeps warm by cuddling up to her mother as best as she can. It is amazing seeing the size difference, her mother is around 400 lbs and then you have this 4 lb baby pig.

Another hard thing about the weather, is today was the day we were taking our hogs to a local processor.
It was our first experience with this, and it went fairly well. Sometimes they didn't seem to go where we wanted them to go, but with some time they all went in. It was a little bit of a bitter sweet moment, because we have grown fond of the pigs. Gretchen has mentioned a couple of times that it is a little sad, however we feel like we are also doing a better good by treating them humanely and selling locally. Here is an article that is much better than I could have ever said about the issue. http://www.westonaprice.org/healthissues/ethicsmeat.html
If you ever have any questions about our farm or what we do, please drop me an email. Also if you disagree I would love to hear your thoughts also.

Clean cute baby pigs

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:24:00 +0000

Our baby pigs are now a week old. Here is a cute picture of one of them. It was actually a great weekend and today we set a record with a high of 72. However the crazy Kansas weather is calling for a high of 37 tomorrow. I mean we will almost cut the temperature in half.

I know some people say that pigs are a dirty animal, but in reality they are very clean animal. Below I have a picture, no the picture is not that great of a quality because I took it with my cell phone,they but you will see the little pigs in the corner. Now this corner is the opposite corner that they sleep. What they are doing is going to the bathroom in that corner. They are just a week old and they know to go to the bathroom in a different location than they sleep. The mother will actually walk outside to use the restroom. Pigs really are one of the most entertaining animals to watch. You might have noticed that they like the mud, but their is a reason for that also. Pigs do not have sweat glands, so they coat themselves with the mud to keep cool. It is interesting they really are sensitive to the weather, can't take the cold or the heat (Kind of like me).

Tomorrow is a big day, as we will be taking most of our pigs to the locker. Gretchen will help me load them, but she isn't sure she can make the trip to El Dorado with me. But maybe we can get them up their in time to see Barak Obama. If you did not hear, Barack is speaking in El Dorado. I guess his grandmother is from their and the votes from Kansas could actually matter. Exciting times.

Its still cold outside...

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:45:00 +0000

I can't wait until spring gets here. Last night we had a low of 5 degrees.... Ouch!
Currently it is 19F. The cold weather sure makes more work taking care of all the animals. Tonight I cleaned their water tank out and got all of the ice chunks out. I then refilled the water, which will of course freeze tonight, however it looks like it will be warmer so it should melt. All 8 pigs seem to be doing great. The north sow with 7 piglets is such a good mom. Gretchen has been putting hay in a small door way to her house, to help protect against the wind; Then the next day all that hay has been moved to the mothers bedding, as she has made a nice THICK bed. It is really very interesting to watch. This weekend I will take more pictures of all the little ones.
But really who I am to complain about the cold, because Gretchen does most of the work during the week as I drive to my warm office job. I am a lucky guy, and those pigs get treated well by her.

Baby Pigs and a learning experience!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:27:00 +0000

This weekend has been a VERY VERY busy weekend. Saturday was a COLD day with a high of 22F and a low of 11F, and of course one of the mothers thought it would be a great day to give birth. She has a spot in the barn with a good amount of space and in the morning it looked like she might give birth then. We went into town in the morning to an then arrived home around 3 p.m. and checked on her and see she had started labor and already had 6 pigs on the ground. Now this was our first time ever having a sow in labor. I had read a lot of research on what we need to watch for and we also wanted to have things happen naturally. We have a strong feeling that nature knows what to do. However, it didn't seem like things were going well because the baby pigs were not nursing and getting very cold. It seemed like the mom was not claiming them. I had mentioned before this was a new experience for us, so we were calling neighbors and friends to see what was happening. We brought baby pigs in the house to warm them up but would take them out later to try and get them to nurse. It seemed she had one more baby to give birth to and that took another 4 hours until that happened. Well to make a long story short only 1 survived and it was the last one. I think since she was able to nurse the last one that it gave her the strength. It was a long night as we tried to do everything we could to help them, but it was a harsh introduction to pigs giving birth.

After getting very little sleep we worked the next day to make a shelter that might help the second sow with her birth. We moved this building over to her area.

We then put about two inches of hay down in the building to help keep everyone warm. On Sunday the temperates were better with a high of 42F and a low of 17F but we had a strong wind which made it feel much colder. Before we moved this shed over it I knew the sow was going to have her babies very soon, because she was taking grass on the ground and trying to make some bedding. I think she was very happy we moved this over because she went in right away and didn't leave.
After filling up her house with more and more hay, we would check her often during the day and night. At about 11 p.m., she looked great and I thought it was a safe time to go to bed. The next morning I went out and checked on her and was happy to see not only the sow but 7 happy little pigs and they looked great.
As you can see her, we had very different experiences with our first litter of baby pigs. I am sure we made some mistakes, however it is nice to see that a good mother can make a huge difference. We did make the decision that we will not have a litter again in the middle of winter. Hopefully we can get some sleep in the coming week!

Welcome to our farm

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Wacker) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 05:15:00 +0000

I have created this blog to give updates on our little farm. http://squeakytoyfarm.com/
My wife Gretchen and I were married in June 2006 and bought a house with 10 acres two miles north of her parents place. Gretchen is a 2001 graduate of Kansas State University with a degree in animal science, Gretchen has an uncanny awareness of the animals under her charge, and seems to know whenever there are problems and just loves animals. Gretchen takes care of the animals everyday year round, I (her husband Jeff Wacker) try to help as much as I can, while I maintain the business. Together we take great PRIDE in raising happy and healthy animals!
How we got started is we bought two bred gilts and between them they had 11 pigs. Now a gilt is a pig that is having her first litter. Once she has her first litter she is then called a sow. My grandparents were hog farmers, but this has been a new experience for both Gretchen and I. We also chickens on the farm and hopefully by next summer will have turkeys along with a garden of items that we will sell at the local farmers market. Anyway, I will try to update this often so you can see what is going on with our farm. Please email me if you have any questions.