"The Most Nutritious Meat Known to Man"

Photo Courtesy of Brent Moore

Let's talk about rabbits. Not bugs bunny. Not those furry pets that people say are adorable but don't ever really do much (I apologize to any pet bunny enthusiasts, but cats beat bunnies for me, and dogs beat them both in my heart). I want to talk about farm rabbits that are bred and raised for meat.

I do think that there is a big distinction to be made between meat rabbits and pet rabbits. Although meat rabbit breeds can be used for pets, when raising them for meat, they become another farm animal, and they produce something that is, apparently, worthwhile.

I say apparently because I have only ever had rabbit twice, and since it was in a stew both times, the taste was covered by many other flavors (especially salt the first time, as I misread the recipe and used a tablespoon of it instead of a teaspoon. Wow, was that gross). Common opinion says that it is comparable, though not identical, to chicken. Like chicken, it is a white meat. What makes it special are the numerous
health benefits that go with it.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, after extensive testing, has stated that "Domestic rabbit meat is the most nutritious meat known to man."

Rabbit meat is one of the leanest meats known to man. It has less fat than beef, pork, turkey and chicken. It has almost no cholesterol and lower sodium than other meats, so it is often advised for people with heart problems or people who are watching their weight. Most of its protein is easily digestible, making it extremely useful for those trying to build muscle and recommended for those who struggle to digest most meats. On top of all that, it has less calories than other meats and higher amounts of calcium and phosphorus.

For those of us raising rabbits, there are other benefits. It converts feed to meat at a higher ratio than any other farm animal, taking one sixth of the amount of feed that a cow does to make the same amount of meat. Also, it's meat to bone ratio is higher than other farm animals, even chicken! Finally, they reproduce like rabbits (because they are rabbits), making it fairly easy to have a steady supply of them, and they don't take up much space.

This winter, we are going to be building cages for them, and come spring, we will be in the rabbit business. We are leaning towards getting New Zealand rabbits, which are one of the top meat breeds. This is one of the things that we are doing that we are just as excited to eat as we are to provide for other people.

Turkey Time

Somehow, Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and so what better time to talk about the turkey enterprise.

Admittedly, this is one of the enterprises that we often forget when we make lists or attempt to answer the question of what we will be doing on the farm, but turkeys have been on our radar for months. We figured that we have a lot of experience raising chickens and at least some of that knowledge should translate to the larger poultry, and it would be appealing to people to get to pick out their own turkey, know what its environment is like, and pick it up freshly butchered (We are allowed to butcher and sell up to 1000 poultry- turkeys count as 4 poultry though- each year without government regulation) a few days before Thanksgiving.

Photo courtesy of Don DeBold

While we definitely weren't closed to any ideas in the early planning stages, we were skeptical about turkeys. You see, we didn't know of any farms that sold them, except for a couple in books that we read that were not even in our region of the country, and we would have to contend with the supermarket, where frozen butterball turkeys sell for about a dollar a pound.

Once you do the math, it is a bit frightening to consider how big businesses charge that low. We figure that we could raise a turkey for roughly $20-$25 dollars, but that is without anything going wrong or any birds dying, so a more accurate estimate would be about $30. Now, we don't want to charge the snot out of people for anything, but we also want a fair price for our labor. Selling the birds for $30 to roughly break even didn't sound worth it to us.

Then, as we were going through farms and websites and getting prices for products, we realized that a lot of them sold turkeys, and we were looking at farms in our region. It turns out the going cost for a local farm raised turkey was in between $3-$5/pound! An organically raised turkey goes for $6-$7/pound! At roughly 15 to 20 pounds per bird, that price would put us in the profit zone. But would people pay that for their Thanksgiving feast? Almost every farm that sells turkeys (and I visited a lot of websites and have talked to several vendors at farmer's markets) sells out over a month before the holiday. So... we are on board to try it and see how it goes, as with most of the enterprises we are preparing for on the farm.

Photo courtesy of Tim Sackton

The first Thanksgiving we are ready to sell turkeys for will probably be two years from now. We are ambitious when it comes to trying a lot of different things, but we recognize that we can't start everything this upcoming year. However, we will aim to prepare a place for them this upcoming year and be all set to try the turkey business in 2016.

This is another project that I am pumped about. I hear that turkeys, especially as poults (baby turkeys), are harder to care for then chicks, but I believe that we are up for the challenge, and in two years, my Thanksgiving turkey could be a bird that I have brought up myself, watched it grow, butchered it a few days before the big day (if you eat them a day or two after the butchering, apparently they are a bit tough), and, at least to me, will taste like victory.

Hog Wild!

Right next to the goats, on the paper with all of our goals on it, on our map of the future farm, and in our hearts (ok, maybe not in our hearts) are pigs! While the idea of raising them seems appealing (at least to me), the idea of freshly smoked bacon makes me go hog wild. I will have to curb my enthusiasm a little bit though, since we aren't planning on starting them until the spring of 2016, but I have a feeling that that will be here before I know it, especially considering how many other enterprises and projects are already demanding our attention.

In the meantime, we hope to prepare a home for them next summer. This will involve some type of lean to and fence. Then we will buy a few piglets and be on our way come the following spring. Shortly afterwords, I hope to construct a small building to be used as an old-fashioned smokehouse. Unfortunately, such a smokehouse does not come remotely close to meeting government standards, so the old-fashioned smoked hams and bacon will be just for us and some family.

As with everything we are planning on doing, we intend to start out small and slow with a potential for growth if we like it and if there seems to be a market for it. The first year we will buy a few piglets and raise them, likely keeping one for ourselves and selling the others as freezer pigs. When I say freezer pigs, I mean that a person would buy the "live" animal, so then, since it belongs to them, there does not have to be as much government inspection on it. We would take it to the butcher, and they could pick it up from him.

Breaking even on this venture, or even making a small profit, will depend a lot on how we go about feeding the pigs, and, of course, our ability to sell them. The easiest and most expensive option for feed is to buy pig feed as needed. Finding a place to buy it in bulk would make it a little cheaper, and supplementing it with other foods makes it even cheaper than that. Other foods could include just allowing them to forage if we give them enough space to do so, but it could also include basically any expired food (such as milk, bread products, eggs, or yogurt) and any extra fruits and vegetables from the garden (one guy told me about all the pumpkins they got for them after halloween). Though it is illegal to give pigs for sale table scraps (to avoid giving human diseases to pigs and then back to humans when dinner time comes), it is perfectly acceptable to go to a supermarket and ask for their expired products.

If we want to continue and expand the pig project, we may well decide to keep a sow or two and try birthing our own piglets. This would add a bit more work, but it would also make us more self-sufficient, give us a cheaper source of piglets, and add to the old-time farm feel that we are shooting for. We may continue to add more sows to the business if we desire to expand this enterprise, however, we are many years removed and much experience away from even considering keeping a boar.

Pigs get big... fast. It takes them about 6 months to go from a cute little piglet only weighing a few pounds to a 230 pound behemoth that needs to be butchered before it keeps growing (I remember reading an article about a wild hog at 850 lbs, and thinking then that boar hunting in the middle ages was no joke). While those who have gone before us tell me that pig raising is not very hard, it will certainly be an adventure where we learn a lot of new things.

The Hust Roosters

It has occurred to me that I have been describing some of the things we plan to try in the future, but I have not really hit upon who we are. Most everyone that has read this blog knows one of the founders of the Hust Roost, and most know a couple of the founders, but not that many people know all six of us. How rude of me not to introduce everyone!

As mentioned just a second ago, there are six of us (three couples): Joe and Cathy Hust, Casey and Rachel Hust, and Tom and Hannah Taft. Here is a glimpse into who each of us are and our roles within the farm:

Cathy Hust (Ladies first): The wife of Joe, she currently works at a lab in Sayre, PA where she tests many things, including water and soil. You can see how her job has already aided the farm. Besides being the one who tests the soil, she also provides much of the punch needed to work and maintain the garden, and as we develop the Hust Roost, baked goods, canned vegetables, and jams will be another area of her expertise. Right now she is dabbling in the kitchen, trying a little bit of this and a little of that. Rachel and I currently have a container of her apple butter and pickles in our fridge, along with homemade vanilla in our cupboard.

Cathy on left. Joe on right.

Joe Hust: The husband of Cathy, he currently works at IBM. This June, after 30 years there, he scaled back to part-time so that he could put more work into starting up the farm. He is the biggest schemer of us all, constantly coming up with new ideas and plans. He has had his hands full this summer expanding the chicken coop, expanding the garden, installing the new wood furnace, purchasing the land next to ours, and generally maintaining the homestead before the reinforcements (the rest of us) come down in the spring. He, along with Tom and Casey, plan on doing the manual labor of the farm.

Rachel Hust: The (lovely) wife of Casey, she is currently in her senior year at Roberts Wesleyan College up in Rochester. She is studying Biology and communication, as well as running on the cross country/track team (she is really fast!). She is very excited to move down after graduation to start life on the farm, and she has also been dabbling in the kitchen. Over the last couple of months, we have had several types of breads, a couple different types of jam, muffins, homemade donuts, and homemade bagels. On the farm, she is going to be the one in charge of the flower and herb gardens, she will be co-heading up the bakery side of things with Cathy, she will be making crafts, she will be milking goats, and she will be helping me keep the blog going. She is applying to Binghamton for grad school, and depending on what package they offer her, she hopes to either attend school there for Biology or get a part-time job in a lab or a doctor's office.

Rachel on right. Casey on left.

Casey Hust (that's me!): The husband of Rachel, he is currently about to start up a new job as an assistant maintenance man at an apartment complex in Rochester (Thursday is my last day with Friendly's, and Friday is my last day with Ace Hardware). He graduated from Roberts, where he met his (lovely) wife, in 2013. He has been researching the various aspects of the farm and blogging (very intermittently), as well as going down on some weekends to help Joe (Dad/Pops) with his (massive) list of projects. He and Rachel plan on moving down once she graduates, at which point he will join his father in the manual labor department as he looks for a part-time job to supplement the farm.

Hannah Taft: The wife of Tom, she is currently finishing her senior year at Roberts Wesleyan College. She ran (she used up her eligibility) on the same team as Rachel for three years(she is also really fast!), she is studying to be a nurse, and her and Tom are excited to be moving down to the Hust Roost once she graduates. They are very excited to fix up the yellow house next to Grandpa's, which they are purchasing from Joe. Once down in the Binghamton area, she plans on pursuing a career in nursing while helping out on the farm.

Hannah on left. Tom on right.

Tom Taft: The husband of Hannah, he is currently working at a daycare in Rochester. Though last on this list, he is certainly not last in our hearts, as he has been a great friend to me since first grade and for all intents and purposes is a brother to me and a son to Dad and Cathy. He also graduated from Roberts in 2013. He has been making weekend trips down to help Joe on projects as well as begin to prepare the yellow house for him and Hannah to move into. Come next spring, he will be joining Pops and I as the manual labor of the farm as he substitute teaches (his degree was in education).

Perhaps we are motley, but none of us would ever deny how God has brought us all together as we start the Hust Roost. A big part of the reason I love our developing farm so much is because I love each and every member of it. Undoubtedly, we will have our friction since we will be interacting so much, but these are good people to have friction with. They all desire to put God first, and they all look forward to some good honest work.

We're Not Kidding Around: We're Getting Goats

If you were to poll the six members of the Hust Roost on what enterprise we are looking forward to the most, I feel pretty confident that you would find a clear winner: goats. It took us a while to consider goats, and a goat farm a couple miles down the road that went out of business at least turned me off to the idea of it. Obviously, we have since warmed up to them.

This picture of a very happy Rachel was
taken at Dave George's house.

When researching and discussing what things we wanted to do on our farm, it became clear that we had room for and wanted to try at least one type of milking animal. Our choices came down to having a family cow, a couple goats, or some sheep (we never really looked into yaks). As we try to be a practical bunch, we studied up on all of them in an attempt to discover which creature would fit our farm the best and would reap the most rewards for the least risk.

The pros for goats began to pile up. They would provide good-tasting milk at a rate that was easily what we would need (a cow would produce way more than we would need!). Health-wise, the Journal of American Medicine says, "Goat milk is the most complete known food."
It is much easier to digest than cow milk and has more nutrients.  Their milk is also ideal for making cheese, soap, and lotion because of its high butterfat content and binding ability. They are great for clearing brush (and the good Lord knows we have some of that to do). They are hardy and relatively inexpensive (especially compared to a cow). They have strong personalities, the kids are a hoot, and it is easy to see them becoming a draw for the farm.

One negative of having goats would be that they will need an excellent fence. A common saying is that "if you take a bucket of water, throw it on your fence, and some of it gets through, so will your goat." But after some consideration, we have decided that we are willing to invest in a very solid fence. We also decided to stay away from electric fencing. Although cheaper and more mobile, we want to make our farm as human kid friendly as possible. In our minds, this means leaning up against the fence to check the goats out and reaching through it to pet the curious creatures. We also think that it will look a lot better and fits our farm scheme of being a welcoming place better than electric fencing.

The other big negative of having goats, or any milking creature, is that we will have to milk them every day. We have decided that we are willing to put that work in and that it will be offset by a few things. 1) There are six of us. That means I don't have to milk every day. 2) We are only going to have a couple goats. That means milking really won't take that long (a good goat milker can do an average goat in 2 minutes). 3) We will have as much milk as we can drink. And 4) Rachel wants to do all the milking because she is already in love with them (No, we don't have them yet. Yes, I still expect that I will be doing my share of milking).

The shirt that Tom and Hannah got Dad (Joe),
who is very excited for the goats.

Our plan is to get a couple goats (heavily leaning towards nubians, as they are good for both milking and meat) this upcoming spring. We have an area that will suffice for them in the summer, and preparing winter housing for them throughout the summer will be on the ultra-urgent list. Depending on how old they are when we buy them, they may not be ready to kid and milk for a while, and it may be a while before we taste any of them. We intend to start out small, only producing what we can eat ourselves as we test the market for selling goat meat— over 60% of the red meat consumed in the world is goat, and apparently there is quite the market for it). It is legal to sell raw milk and cheese at the farm, but there are many stipulations, and we will have to look further into it to see if it is worth following such stipulations. In the meantime, we plan on keeping the milk for personal use (and letting some family and friends try it!), making cheese for personal use, making soap (which we will sell), and recycling old milk to the other animals on the farm (it is a great source of protein).

At the very least, goats will be an adventure, and we are looking forward to giving them a try.

Plotting Out Our Orchard

For me, the past two weeks has been spent putting several hours into researching fruit trees. I felt like a student again, as I constantly had a textbook (Holistic Orchard, by Michael Phillips) and a notebook, furiously scribbling down notes on anything that seemed like it might be important.

We, too, are reaching for fruit glory.

This was brought on by the expansion of the Hust Roost and the new access to the plot where we decided to begin our little orchard. When we go down to Glen Aubrey this weekend, we will stake out the exact locations of the future trees, take soil samples for Cathy to test (it is notably convenient that my step-mother works at a lab), and potentially order the trees for the spring.

To begin with, we are looking to plant sixteen trees next spring. Five will be apples, four peaches, three cherries, two pears, and two apricots. They will be twenty feet apart from each other, and we will have designated areas for future expansion should we so desire. In the meantime, we will make the soil as ideal as possible before Spring based on the test results. This will likely involve putting lime down to alter the ph levels of the soil, the calcium levels of the soil, and the magnesium level of the soil, composting manure to be prepared to use near the trees, and putting wood chips around where the trees will be to build up the good fungi in their future root zones.

Tom and I have spent the last couple of days reading through more types of apples, peaches, pears, cherries, and apricots than I ever knew existed, trying to find the perfect fruits for us. Obviously, we put a high value on flavor. However, we also had to give strong consideration to what cold hardiness zones the fruit could thrive in, what the fruit's history in our region has been, how susceptible it is to common diseases for our area, when it ripens (we preferred to have the fruit mature at different times so that we could harvest apples for two months instead of two weeks), what was necessary for the best pollination, and what size tree is best for us.  May I just say that my brain is in a bit of fruit shock right now.

Yes, this venture is going to be juicy.

Besides making my head spin, all of this research has gotten me really excited. We knew we wanted to have an orchard, but now I can picture it when I close my eyes (in fact, when I close my eyes, all I can see is fruit right now). We visited an orchard just yesterday, asked some questions, and bought some fruit. Now, as I look at that fruit in our fruit bowl, I can almost taste the fruit of the Loom (I have decided to call our little orchard, the Loom).

The next couple of days will be spent researching what nurseries we want to buy our trees from before we make our fateful purchase. According to everything I have read, it will be three or four years before our trees are bearing fruit, but our orchard journey has begun, and we are prepared to work hard so that we can one day enjoy the fruit of our labor.

Getting the Most Out of the Garden

One of the main enterprises of the Hust Roost will be fresh produce. Grandpa has been gardening in the backyard since the early 1960's, and my father and I have both been picking and eating fresh veggies since we could walk. So, while we know how to successfully manage a vegetable garden, we are now faced with growing enough produce to eat and sell. Here are a few strategies for accomplishing just that:

   1) Expansion

the South garden before expansion

the South garden after expansion

Between Grandpa's garden, which Dad and Cathy have been taking over as Grandpa has downsized each year, and Dad's garden, we already had over 2,000 square feet of space. That usually amounted to as much as Dad and Cathy could eat and give away to close relatives and friends. This summer, we have
tilled up about 2,000 more square feet. We have quite the impressive rocks from all of the stones we have picked out of the freshly tilled land.

the North garden after expansion

the North garden before expansion

2) Composting
In order to build up this new soil, we are developing a system for all of our manure and compost. Right now, that is mostly chicken manure, but our future plans will include using rabbit, goat, and pig manure, not to mention that we intend to do vermicomposting. Vermicomposting is basically using a little worm farm to quickly turn manure and compost into an optimal soil.

3) The Use of Beds

Casey next to some of the beds

This summer, in the North Garden (that is what we call my Dad's garden. Grandpa's is South), we have experimented with the use of beds. The idea is that you have specific areas in your garden for planting that you never have to step in and compress the soil. It is very good for the organisms that help vegetables grow. Next Spring, we will make more beds for the rest of the garden space and put mulch down for the paths in between the beds. It is very useful for organization and weeding, and it is very healthy for the plants. We do intend to have a few sections of garden without beds for potatoes, as they are easier to hill that way, and we also plan on growing a patch of pumpkins and squash out back where they can spread and not get in the way of everything else.

4) Extending the Growing Season

a "hoop house" before adding the plastic sheet

It is our hope to build a greenhouse in the next couple of years, but in the meantime, we have already built one hoophouse (basically a mini greenhouse that sits right over a bed) and will build more for the spring. This allows us to plant earlier and keep growing later. We also intend to set up an indoor growing space to begin growing plants (such as tomatoes and brocolli) from seed in the late winter and early spring.





5) Companion Planting and Crop Rotation
We have also been studying (and will continue to research) companion planting and crop rotation. There are many vegetables that you can plant practically right on top of each other, and instead of hampering one another, they actually benefit each other. For example, the Indian method of planting corn, squash, and beans together draws nitrogen into the soil for the corn, allows the beans to grow up the corn, and the squash shades out any potential weeds. With companion planting, we can get more out of each bed and have fewer weeds to pull! As for crop rotation, we can maximize the proper nutrients for each type of vegetable by planting it a year after a crop that leaves a lot of a nutrient that is critical for that specific vegetable. There are whole books written on the best rotation for an average vegetable garden!

6) Cover Crops
Finally, we intend to plant cover crops in the winter to provide a safe haven for the healthy organisms in the soil throughout the cold of winter as well as draw nutrients into the soil. In the summer, a few beds will lie farrow to build up the nutrients as well. However, these cover crops are not useless. They provide feed for livestock, and they can produce multiple cuttings.

Gardening is one aspect that we already know quite a bit about, but the more we research, the more new things we learn. We are excited to try new things to enhance our garden as we produce fresh vegetables, and we are looking forward to continually learning more as we go. There is nothing quite like getting your hands dirty.