Baby goats are the cutest

We have kids!

Here at BOTL Farm, we let our goats breed naturally, when they come into heat, regardless of when that happens. It’s good for them and terrifying for us. We now have confirmed that in September of last year, our buck (farmer jargon for breeding male goat) had one heck of a week. 

How can we tell? All of our does (farmer jargon for breeding female goats) kidded (gave birth) within one week. It happened during the intense cold we had earlier this month, meaning that yours truly had a heck of a week. 

It’s pretty remarkable that all the does came into heat in such a short time and were successfully bred. It gives a new meaning to “tis the season.” Kidding this winter, though made remarkably difficult by extreme weather, was otherwise really successful. All of our new does twinned, which is a great indicator of herd health. It’s common for first-time moms to single instead of twin, so we were over the moon to get twins from everyone. We even got triplets from Freyja. Besides being prolific, she’s a good-looking goat, good enough to be featured as the brown and white goat on the label of our goat meat packages.

860-FEET-810

If you’re a frequent customer of small farms, you may have noticed that there is wide variability in how farms deal with the business side of business. We strive to be professional and superbly organized, like having a website that provides detailed information on our operations, lots of pictures, and we keep it up to date. We have online ordering systems, wait list systems, policies, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) that you would expect from a professional business. This is all on the up-and-up, but you may have noticed that our business phone number has an area code from New Jersey. Wait, what? Is that professional?

Okay, up until now, our “farm phone number” was Nick’s cell phone. Like many adults in the US, our cell phone numbers indicate where we were living in the early 2000’s (Kalamazoo, MI and Whitehouse Station, NJ).  As our little farm business grows (they grow up so fast!), it’s ready for the next big leap: it has its own phone number. 860-333-8810.

If you have a number for us saved in your phone that starts with 908, go ahead and update it now. The newsletter will wait. Thx.

No really, go do it.

Okay, you’re back. Great. You may ask, how can I possibly remember this number going forward? We’re happy to note that you use the local area code, 860, then spell the word ‘FEET’ on your dial pad, and then just remember 810. Amazing. 860-FEET-810. 

Plans fall apart

BOTL Farm’s Primary Farmer (PF, Nick) really likes going to farming conferences. He appreciates the opportunity to learn new things, meet new people, and to reconnect with old farm buddies (often over a few drinks). Many farming conferences happen during the depth of winter, when most farmers are more able to travel. Because PF is our primary farmer and because we keep and breed animals on pasture year round, it’s important that Secondary Farmer (SF, Danielle) takes over all PF’s responsibilities and becomes Acting Primary Farmer (APF) when PF is gone. 

If you know us at all, you may realize this is not an apples-to-apples switch: one of us excels at her day job of obscure data analysis and modeling, while one of us understands how mechanical things work and can fix them when they break. Becoming APF is always a challenge, and that challenge can be easily compounded by bad weather and stuff breaking.

This past month, PF had two conferences and three family visits planned over a 10-day window. SF ascended gracefully to her role as APF, brought in familial reinforcements for good luck (thanks, Dad!), and the trip began smoothly. Within 36 hours, it had all fallen apart. The weather turned deadly cold, goats started kidding, and PF got the flu. The rest of PF’s travel plans got scrapped and we’re both still recovering from the flu. Bleck. Last year we said PF was on probation for leaving the farm because of how badly it went, and this year didn’t turn out any better… 

The latest in chicken feeding technology from NCO

In the words of the famous Jeffrey Mattocks on nutrition in pasture-raised chickens, “birds don’t eat dust.” Okay, honestly, we haven’t checked if that’s the actual quote, but that’s the general idea. Also, Jeffrey Mattocks might not totally be ‘famous’ in most definitions of the word, but when we were baby farmers, we were delightfully influenced by his ideas on pastured animal nutrition. We now use Fertrell products because of his thoughtful and researched advice.

Anyways, back to chickens. In general, most feed is pelletized so the birds can’t pick and choose which parts to eat. When you’re buying and feeding super-premium quality chicken feeds that are in mash form, it can be frustrating and disappointing to see birds waste/refuse fines/dust. That’s not just the sweepings from the feed mill, that’s all the vitamins, minerals, and probiotics that help set these feeds apart from the crowd. Chickens are choosy jerks! 

To help combat this problem, New Country Organics has developed a new feed line called Power Pellets. It contains coarse-ground grains along with pelletized fines, so it’s a feed that still looks like food and not just all pellets. NCO advertises it as a zero-waste, zero-dust feed. That sounds pretty miraculous, so we’re excited to see and hear how it performs in practice. They don’t have a corn-free version yet, but we’re hearing positive initial results from our feed customers. We’ve started stocking it in small quantities. This is basically NCO’s Classic Layer, with the fines pelletized. Very interesting.

Find Us

On farm store: Every Wednesday noon - 2pm, every Saturday 1 - 3pm. Pre-order

On farm self pickup: Every day 8am - 8pm. Pre-order only

Wooster Square Winter Market, New Haven CT: This market runs every Saturday from 10am - 1pm until the end of March. We will be there every other week. Dates we’ll be there in March: March 07 and March 21. Pre-order

Ask a Farmer Anything, Virtual Question Sessions: Monday March 16 from 7:30 - 8:30 pm and Friday March 26 8 - 9 am. Registration free but required 

It's too many dates! Save me!