Frozen Foods

Our first responsibility is to feed ourselves and I think we've done a pretty good job. We have just inventoried our freezers (That's right, we have 3) and were happy to organize better than 240 items or nearly 2 years worth of food. Here's to hoping that the power stays on.

More turkeys...

We still have turkeys left from 5 - 9 lbs. $7/lb. Get in touch with us ASAP to schedule a pick up.

Turkeys Available!

We are processing turkeys this Sat (Nov 16) and might have one with your name on it! Let us know if you want one ASAP. First come first served.

Birds will be ready for pick up Sat evening 6p-7p at Appenzell Farm (1146 E 4400 N, Hyde Park) or Sun 10:30 - 1:30 at our farm (697 W 100 S, Logan). We're asking $7/lb and will have birds ~9-15lbs.

If you'd like to earn your turkey through work share, we're looking for a couple extra hands Sat and would provide a turkey in exchange for the help. We can train anyone eager.

We've got plenty of eggs available, too! $3 doz or $7 for 2 doz.

Thanks!
~Zack & Maria
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folk (at) brymsbackyard (dot) com
435-554-1261

The journey of chicken to food . . . in limited sanguinary details.

We try to be very forthwith when we describe why we got into the farming business. We are working to support a food system that promotes biological diversity and cultural autonomy. We believe that can be best accomplished by what might be called "voting with your dollar." That means making purchases and economic decisions that reflect the world you feel ought exist in the future. So goes the push to buy groceries from a farmers' market or investing in clean energy technologies.

We started our journey by going vegetarian for a few years to conserve environmental resources. We then went "locavore" after reflecting on transportation costs and the systematic idiosyncrasies of alternative vegetable production (e.g. organic tomatoes commonly come from the desert of Baja California); not to mention, we very much missed omnivorous dishes of our European and Hispanic heritage.  We found local, pasture-fed animal products were prohibitively expensive for our student budget so we took on the production ourselves. And so we've found ourselves living the farm life with all the responsibility, humility, and gory details that come along with such a lifestyle.

We've included the preamble to justify our practice of slaughtering animals, though we prefer to say "process." Our respect for animals and their intimate relationship with humans has only been strengthened with this experience. The way we raising chickens (or any of our animals) and the subsequent processing into food is a result of that respect and our practices reflect that. If you chose to read on, you will be exposed to the whole act of making chicken into food. We hope that you can learn something about raising animals.

It all begins with keeping the chickens safe and well feed. These "rangers" are ready for processing at about 16 weeks. Up to that point we keep them on pasture with a grain supplement in the evening to promote growth and flavor and to get them back into their shelter at night.
 

 

When their ready for processing, we withhold feed for a day and then round them up. These crates are used for ease of transportation and extraction at the processing facility.

The birds are then extracted from the crate and loaded into a killing cone. Being held upside-down promotes calmness in the bird and rapid bloodletting through a cut in the carotid artery. Most importantly, this method is acknowledged as the quickest and most humane way to dispatch a bird.

The steps after death must be completed as quickly as possible in a sanitary environment followed by rapid cooling to avoid spoiling and the spread of pathogens. Scalding the bird in soapy water loosens the feathers for plucking. Depending on the age of the bird the water is set to 145 - 160 degrees F. Too little scalding will result in difficulty plucking or skin tears from pulling too hard, while too much scalding will result in skin tears from weak skin.

Plucking can be done by hand (15-30 min) or with a machine (30 sec - 5 min).

Cleaning and eviscerating is where the skill is involved. Feet, head, neck, and entrails are removed. Organs (i.e., liver, heart, and gizzard) are separated if desired. We don't really recommend doing this on your own for the first time and have left further details out for our casual reader. If you want to give it a go anyway HERE is a pretty good step by step guide from backyardchickens.com. As a plug, we have plans for a processing workshop with sufficient interest, so message us if you want to see that happen!

Some of our birds go right into packaging whole, though roast chicken gets old after a while. We do cut-ups of the rest. Can you name all of the parts?

Thanks for sticking through to the end! We hope your knowledge is empowering. It has certainly been a rewarding experience for us.

We've Gone Solar!

All energy we consume (i.e., food, gas, electricity) ultimately comes from the sun. Even fossil fuels were once ancient plants or animals that were preserved underground in such a way to allow for energy conversion today. Up to now, gardening has been our primary means of converting solar energy into a usable form. Bringing lambs, broiler chickens, and more turkeys onto the farm has required that we scale up our fencing infrastructure. We chose an electric fence, and are proud to be running it on a solar panel. It's just a start, but we hope to include other alternate forms of energy production on our farm in the future.

Leather: An unexpected, but most joyous farm product

One part of sustainability that we feel strongly about is reducing our waste. (See how we made that happen in our wedding HERE.) That means making the most of all the inputs and products on a farm. One skill I have been working at is tanning hides to make leather. My first attempt was with a lamb skin (wool on) that turned out pretty stiff. It will only ever function as a rug. My second attempt with a goat skin (hair on) worked out much better. As the pictures show, I was able to make the skin leather enough to wrap around my wooden djembe. I used wet scrape method, salted the hide, then softened with an egg yolk solution. We'll see how well the hair holds. My ultimate goal is to make a pair of buckskin gloves. We'll see how long it takes me to get good enough at the process. In the meantime, it'll be pretty exciting just to not have to throw away such fine looking hides.

More Twins!!!

This evening, while doing chores, I saw an unexpected little baby goat in the pen and was about to sound the alarm for an escapee. Instead, I realized that it was a moist newborn kid of Callie's!

Callie only gave us one baby  last year, which by expectations means she would only have one baby this year. We ran to her side to congratulate her and make sure everyone was healthy to find her giving birth to another. That's right, we got to see the birth of a baby goat.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't end here. Callie wasn't quite done. She tried to give us a third kid, which came out still. All of this excitement in less than 20 min.

Despite some hardship, we are pleased to welcome a baby boy and a baby girl from mother Callie! They are safe and warm in the kidding shelter next to Millie and her kids. Expect pictures and an update of the four kids soon!

It's Twins!

After much speculation, our first kids of the year were born Friday June 7th. Millie gave birth to twin male goats at around 6 a.m. These little guys are tri-colored with all sorts of spots. So far they don't do much besides eating and sleeping, but we expect to see them prancing around the farm and creating all sorts of mischief in no time. We expect Callie to kid sometime this week. Now we can finally look forward to fresh goats milk and cheese again on the farm. Look for more updates to come!

Chicks and Ducklings and Turklets, Oh My!

Day-old Red Ranger Chicks

In our efforts to expand our operations this year, we have been absolutely overrun with chicks, ducklings, and turklets (note: this is not the technical name for baby turkeys, but our own personal moniker). And this is just the beginning. Right now we have 25 red ranger chicks, 15 laying chicks, 18 ducks of various varieties, and 18 turklets.

Several brooders in our brooding room.

On top of that, we are expecting a hatch on Monday of laying hens. Needless to say, we are running out of space for baby poultry. Luckily, these little guys grow up fast. At this age, they still need to stay inside with heat lamps 24 hours a day, but by the time they reach 4 to 6 weeks of age they are ready to go out into the big wide world and start eating bugs, grass, and all the other things they love. This year we are expanding our turkey flock to meet growing demand as well as growing meat birds for the first time. We are very excited to be able to grow a larger variety

This little turklet is exhausted.

of animals this year and will even be testing a small flock of guinea hens starting this June. If you are interested in free-range, pastured chicken, duck, or turkey, feel free to check out our "items for sale" tab later this Spring.

To the Market We Go

We're all ready for market season to start!
Cache Valley Garner's Market opens THIS Saturday, 11 May 9:00a.

We've got at least 17 1/2 doz chicken and 8 doz duck eggs ready for sale. Get to the market early to be sure you get your pack.

Baby Animal Days at Brym's Backyard

Shish, Kabab, Gyro, and 24.

It's spring once again and that means baby animals for the Bryms. We have acquired 4 adorable black belly and painted lambs this year and they are growing in leaps and bounds (not to mention leaping and bounding everywhere). Keeping with tradition I got to name three of them and Zack named one. Mine are Shish, Kabob, and Gyro. Zack's is 24 because that is the number on it's ear tag. He's so practical. This is

Zack's "24".

our first year raising lambs long term (we "raised" one for a a month or so last year) and so we are learning all of the ins and outs of raising sheep. As it turns out, it's not too different from raising goats and so luckily we have almost everything we need. This weekend I get to play amateur veterinarian and administer tetanus shots all around. Poor Zack gets to play amateur assistant, which generally involves holding disgruntled animals while I do the easy parts. He also gets to be our amateur livestock wrangler. Han Solo (our border collie mix) is not quite up to the task of corralling all the sheep and goats yet, but he is learning.


In other news, the goats are pregnant and due in May/June.

Pregnant Millie.

"How do you know they are pregnant?" you might ask. Well, first of all, just look at 'em. They are rotund. Second, if you know where to feel, you can feel those little kids moving around inside of them. No ultrasounds for these ladies, just good old fashioned stethoscopes and know-how. Stay tuned, other baby animal news coming soon!

Thank You Loyal Customers!!!

We are very fortunate for the strong support we have for our farm from friends around the community. One customer in particular stands out for his excitement about duck eggs. Last year, when we began selling eggs at the Cache Valley Gardener's Market we put a sales promotion on the back of our business card. You earned a free dozen for buying six. The card worked to get return business as we expected,  but very few people continued using the card. This particularly awesome customer did not give up and just earned his second free dozen this week!!! Many thanks to you and those who have supported our farm!

Although we are no longer run this promotion, we are back in spring production. We have both chicken and duck eggs available and will be selling again at the Gardener's Market May 11.

Chicks Are on Their Way

We isolated our roosters with their respective ladies to keep some true breeds on the farm. We anticipate chicks hatching within the next month or two.

Duck Eggs Are Back!

We have collected the first dozen duck eggs of the year! Spring must be here. We'll be selling them immediately as they get laid.

We've moved our farm updates HERE. "Like us" to stay up to date with what we are doing on the farm.

Have you ever seen a goat wearing a coat?

Meet Tosca Leigh. She is a 4 year old Nigerian Dwarf goat. Each day she provides us with milk that we either drink fresh or make into cheese. Maria was excited to use milk from our very own farm for the cheese-making workshop she hosted for Slow Food Cache Valley, last fall. You can see a blog entry a participant posted shortly after the event [CLICK HERE]. We hope Tosca kids for us this spring so we can continue milking her for another year. It is incredible to have this addition to our poultry farm. Soon we'll introduce you to our yearlings so you can keep up with them too!

The Turklets are Here!

The turklets are here! And by here I mean they arrived two weeks ago and I have simply been too busy to write about them. They arrived the same day that I drove into Cache Valley after driving all night from Des Moines. Unfortunately we lost one in transit, but since then it has been smooth sailing. Fourteen baby turkeys have graced our foyer for over 2 weeks now and all I can say is, they make so much noise. We have to close the door at night or else they would keep us awake all night long. But they are a lot of fun. At first I was a little worried because they barely ate anything the first week. I worried in vain. Now, I can barely scoop their food in fast enough. They have recently taken to endless escape attempts of a complexity and vigor we could never expect from the chickens. Several times a day I hear the loud flapping and high-pitched squeaks of a turkey attempting to fly through the mesh screen we keep over the brooder to prevent wide-spread turklet rebellion. On the first day that we realized that they were trying to escape, we aparently didnt put enough of a cover on the brooder because later that day when I did a count, we were down one turklet. As Zack and I frantically turned over boxes and looked under the benches in the foyer, I couldn't imagine where the turklet could have gone off to. Normally, when a chicken escapes, they stay directly outside the brooder and cheep their little head off until they are reunited with their chicken brethren. Not so for our adventurous turklet. I found him three rooms away sitting on Zack's leather desk chair as happy as a...turkey. Since then we have fortified our defenses and no further escape attempts have been sucessful. However, they have taken to playing "king of the castle" on their waterers. When one turklet decides he wants to claim his rightful place on top of the waterer, a turkley battle royale often ensues to the amusement of Zack, myself, and the general turkey community. However, their time in the brooder is drawing to a close. We are expecting more turkeys and our first round of ducklings to hatch out in a week or so....

Chicks grow up and move away....across the yard.

With the turklets arriving in just a few days, it was time to move the chick(en)s outside. Not to mention they were packed in like sausages at 5 and a half weeks old. They needed some room to stretch out and play. And, frankly, they stunk. They seem to be adjusting to their new home well. Since they have thus far lived inside for their entire lives, they are mildly terrified to leave the coop. I literally had to pick up each and every one of them on the fifth day and relocate them in the yard. Some of them didn't understand how to get home and so I had to pick them right back up again at the end of the day and put them inside. Since then they have become foraging masters and are waiting for me at the gate each morning to rush outside and explore.

Our cockrels are starting to assert some dominance and a couple of them even have a few groupies that follow them around all day. Oddly enough none of the roosters are crowing yet and so, although they are hitting it off with the ladies, they still cheep like babies. We expect the crowing wars to begin any day now though. When they do, we will finally know who "Brym's Next Top Rooster" will be. We already have two out of the running for sure. Quasimodo and Franken-chicken have been doomed from the beginning. We are pretty sure Quasimodo got bumped around a little too much in his egg and so he ended up looking like...well...Quasimodo. He has a freakish hooked beak and a hunched back. He also isn't the brightest chick in the coop if you know what I mean. Franken-chicken...well we suspect fowl play in the gene pool. His general lack of feathers has led him to be the object of all of the other chickens aggression. Luckily he can run like the wind and avoids their endless taunting and mockery. Needless to say, we will not be letting these boys make it past round one of rooster selection. But they will make a delicious dinner!

"Good Morning, A box of chickens is waiting for you..."

This was the message I received this morning on the phone from the post office at 6:37am. In my excitement to see our baby chicks and my concern that they would have to stay in the cold dark crevices that must be reserved for baby creatures arriving at the post office, I jumped out of bed and ran to pick up the new arrivals. All 45 of them made it through the transit and are peeping away in our modified mudroom hatchery. We have nine
varieties, which will be acknowledged in the coming days as we can identify them. I expect they will grow to be strong cocks and laying hens. For now, I will be watching over the chicks making sure they have sufficient warmth, water, and feed and ensuring that an all-important orifice stays sufficiently clean. Here are a few pictures to give you a sense of the adorableness we have acquired.

Duck Eggs for Sale!!!

 Quite spontaneously, we have become the caretakers of a small brood of ducks. One day, while discussing the limitations of our small backyard farm, Maria mentioned that it might not be feasible to include ducklings with the ordering of chickens and turkeys for this spring. I agreed and promptly received a link from Maria for ksl.com, the local classified ads, showing four Khaki Campbell Ducks that were available in North Logan. So within a matter of a few hours, we decided not to have ducks this summer, I acquired a crate, cleaned the chicken coop and transported one drake and three female ducks back to our house.

Turns out, a disgruntled father was finished with the life lesson he wished to impart on his daughter and the ducks no longer served well along with his landscaping. That's right, the ducks, a lean-to for shelter, a small wading pool and a whole slew of rose bushes were enclosed by a small wire fence in the back of his house. This is, of course, located adjacent to the built-in trampoline and full sized basketball court behind his half-a-million dollar home over looking Cache Valley.

I found out quickly he was not accustomed to handling poultry. I brought the cage to one size of the lean-to and asked him to escort his ducks into the trap. Unfortunately they quickly sensed the danger and fled backwards through his legs. So now it is my responsibility to round up the flustered fowl and urge them to scatter into the cage. The first and second attempt ended with him exclaiming that he never thought a duck could fit between the hole he had left between his leg, the opening in the cage and the corner of the lean-to. Clearly, he was mistaken. I finally had to pick a few of them up by hand and toss them into the cage. This was where he recognized that I had done this before and asked if I was just going to eat them. I had to remind him that he spent 6 months and about $50 in feed getting them to lay and I wasn't going to let that opportunity pass.

Needless to say, the brood is still relatively apprehensive when I enter the run in the morning to water and feed them. However, they must be comfortable enough as they continue to provide us with 2-3 eggs per morning. That means that the laddies are laying almost everyday! As there is no way I could consume all those eggs myself, they are available for sale. Duck eggs, aside from being rare, are much larger than a chicken egg and have a substantially higher fat content, best suited for egg sandwiches an baking.

Check out the "Items for Sale" page for the details on how to get yourself some delicious duck eggs.