A Farmers Vocabulary Explained!

Now you have to know that, with all these new experiences, we are expanding our vocabulary in leaps and bounds. Farming entails an entirely new language!!

Kits – the name for baby bunnies! Always thought it was bunnies, go figure.

Culling – this is what you say in front of the animals so that they don’t realize that you are actually talking about how you are about to execute them for your own food.  When I talk to the animals, I avoid any discussion on what I had for dinner last night….. might be kinda upsetting for them – so we just call it “culling the group”.  Which we know means that they will be dinner some time soon.

Hopper Bopper – I’ll get really technical here – this is the mechanism used to “cull” (see above) our rabbits.  I have seen it used but prefer to not think about that.  It comes with 2 pieces – one to initiate the “cull” and another to help with the…. ahem, preparing of the culled animal to be acceptable for bringing into the kitchen to be cooked.  Totally what I refer to as a farm blue job.  See below.

Farm Blue Job…. any job that I feel needs to be performed by the men of the family….. and yes, the pink jobs are done by the ladies.  Call it sexist if you like…. works for me!

Pasty Butt – seriously, this is almost exactly what it sounds like – the little baby chicks sometimes get their poop stuck on their fuzzy butts.  The heat lamps tend to dry it there and it bungs them up – they can’t poop – and you need to get it out of there quick.  Yes, there is a lot of wiping involved, and let me tell you, it is not easy to catch that one baby chick that you know has pasty butt, but looks exactly like the 30 other birds that are running around in the circular pool…. think about it for a minute.  And I can tell you that I have found a new use for Q-Tips!!!   Just ask!

Vent – the bit of the chicken where the egg comes from.  It’s in the back, underneath…… you get the picture.  Things get stuck in there, eggs for one.  See also pasty butt.

Combs and Waddles – weirdest looking things – the comb is a bit self explanatory – its the red bit on the top of the head of the chickens and turkeys.  When the hens fight – they peck at each others combs – they get pretty nasty and can draw blood!  The waddles are the red cheeks that they get when they are mature.  It helps you to know that they are getting ready to start laying eggs.  Kinda like waving a red flag that says “I’m fertile!” Kinda embarrassing if you ask me.

Bumblefoot – a problem with the pad of the turkey foot.  Can be totally disgusting and potentially involves pus and antibiotics……  more than I want to think about. I say we pass on this at all costs.

Grower Mash – I swear there is 500 different kinds of food for these birds…… medicated, unmedicated, mash, crumbles, grower feed, finisher feed, organic…. it is totally confusing…. can you give crumbles if you can’t get mash?  Do they need medicated feed or just regular feed?  Are they better off with organic or is it just a more expensive feed ( totally!)

Fairy/Fart Eggs – I kid you not, these exist!  These are tiny eggs that usually have no yolk in them.  A hen that is just getting started with laying eggs will often give you a couple of fairy or fart eggs before she ramps things up the the usual size egg. Not as weird as freak eggs (see below) but just another weird thing you need to watch for on the farm…. it’s not like there are not enough strange things going on!!

Freak Eggs – ok, not technically a real term, but I have no idea what else to call it.   Apparently it is possible for a hen to lay an egg with no shell! Freaky thing to find.  Looks like any other egg but you can see through the outside and there is no shell, just the interior membrane. Normal egg inside.  The fun never ends – I swear the chickens lay these just spook you!! Like a chicken April Fool’s joke.  Happens when the little darlings don’t get enough calcium….. we give them oyster shells… yes another food for them… to help them with their calcium.   Bet you city folks didn’t know that chickens eat oyster shells!!  Does that make eggs an aphrodisiac??

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nematodes – a fancy, dancy term used by farm folks to fool gullible city people.  Another word for worms…. of various kinds.  Specifically for us, the kind that are very good in the garden.

Scapes – apparently these are the bees knees!!!  I had ever heard of them.  So, you may not know this but it takes forever to grow garlic…. You put it in the ground in late fall – say November.  Then you leave it there until some time around the end of July or the beginning of August.  Ridiculous plant..  seriously, good thing everyone loves garlic!  Anyway, if you are growing garlic right, the plants will produce scapes, which are long tentacle like things that come out of the centre of the garlic plant just before it flowers.  It curls into a small coil at which point everyone goes insane and get all excited. They cannot wait for the scapes (I had never heard of scapes until we decided to grow garlic!) The scapes are cut once they do a couple of curls and everyone does all kinds of creative things with them – add them to olive oil for a great garlicy oil, use them fresh like chives in cooking, and dry them for use later.  Apparently garlic is not just garlic – it’s scapes too!

Compost – apparently it is possible to take all the grass, hay and wood chips that we use for the animals and add the scraps from our meals and mix them into a big heap – add water – and at some point, it becomes soil! Sounds great but what they don’t tell you is this thing called turning the compost…….think about it, rotting grass, rotting wood chips ( covered in chicken dodo by the way) and rotting vegetables…. add heat and the result is less than pleasant.  I am not sure why we need to create soil when we have so much of it already but what I hear when I mention it is, good for the environment, great growing soil, recycling blah, blah, blah.  Lots of work and takes forever.  PS. Blue job.

I am sure that there are more “new” words to come…. I’ll keep you up to date.