An Autumn Day in the Life of a Humane Livestock Farmer

By Samantha Gasson, FACT’s Humane Farming Associate

FACT’s Humane Farming Team works with pasture based livestock farmers all over the country. One of my favorite aspects of being part of this amazing team of two is seeing what farming looks like from coast to coast.

As part of our quarterly “A Day in the Life of a Humane Livestock Farmer” series we plan on taking you on a virtual tour of two farms over two days, so you can share in a little of the wonder Larissa and I have the privilege of experiencing daily.

This quarter we’re going to take a peek into the lives of two pasture-based livestock farmers. Today, we’ll visit BOTL farm in “the quiet corner of Connecticut” spending an eventful Autumnal day with Nick Weinstock, then tomorrow we’ll head out to the Midwest to visit Kirsten Jurcek (farmer and FACT Board member) on Brattset Family Farm in chilly Wisconsin.

We hope you enjoy your virtual visit and that you find these farms as interesting as we do.

An Eventful Autumn Day in the Life of a Humane Livestock Farmer

By Nick Weinstock, the primary farmer at BOTL farm

I used to think that I was a planner type of person, who likes to have a plan and a method in place before starting tasks.

Then I met my wife, who is a planner extraordinaire. She has a childhood memory of her dad patiently explaining to her that one shouldn’t attempt to tie their own shoes without having a viable backup plan.

Since the two of us now own and run a farm, we spend lots of time recording numbers, analyzing data, making plans, drawing maps, and generally planning.

The funny thing is farming and planning don’t always mix well together.

Last Friday was a prime example. My wife has an off-farm day job, so she would wake up at 6:30am and be busy with that until 3pm. I would get up, feed the dog, feed myself, and get a call from the semi-truck driver that will be delivering 7,500 lbs. of palletized feed to me. I’ll unload the pallets from the truck using my tractor, put the feed into the barn, and start morning chores. I pasture raise pigs, chickens for eggs, plus sheep and goats for meat. That would leave me about two hours to work on the farm project du jour before I need to pack up eggs for the CSA delivery to a vegetable farm in a neighboring town. Then it’s time for lunch with the wife, more time for projects until it’s time for evening chores, followed by dinner and a family video chat to round out the week.

So, that’s what I planned on happening.

What really happened was quite different: I got up, fed the dog, didn’t have time to feed myself because the feed delivery was early, so I just grabbed some iced coffee I’d made the previous night and hustled outside. To my dismay, I saw the tractor had an ominous tilt to it. Upon further inspection, one of the big four-foot tractor tires was completely flat and was damaged enough that I couldn’t just fill it back up with a portable air compressor.

I have a sneaking suspicion this will interfere with my plan for the day.

I delivered the bad news to the semi-truck driver, who informed me that his truck was completely full, I was the first stop of his day, and my pallets were blocking all the other stuff he needed to deliver. These pallets had to go somewhere, and fast, but without my tractor being operational, I had no way to unload them. 

I recalled that the neighboring town has a mom-n-pop lumberyard that would sometimes unload feed pallets and store them when people were in a pinch. I called the lumberyard and asked if they could take the feed for me even though I didn’t know how soon I’d be able to pick it up from them and they agreed. I sent the driver their way and went back inside to get some food and think about what to do next.

While eating, I called a few local tire shops to see if they serviced big tractor tires and found one that said they could repair the tire that day, as long as I could get the tire there. 

My food finished, I went back to the farm and started morning chores while reviewing the latest in my head. While walking out to the paddock where one of the pig groups are, I realized I don’t have tools big enough to remove the lug nuts. On my way to feed and water the laying hen flock, I made a call to one of my neighbors who runs a landscaping business and has lots of tools. He said he had something that would work, so I did a quick inspection of the sheep and goat herd, realizing they had enough grass to keep them happy until afternoon, and headed over to the neighbor’s house to pick up the tools. 

By the time I had figured out how to remove the tire, successfully removed the tire, and figured out how to get it safely attached to my “farm truck,” aka my blue Subaru Outback, I was about to miss lunch, but I had to leave to drop off eggs at the CSA. I didn’t have time to make two trips, so I just took the tire with me to the CSA and then headed out to the tire shop. The staff at the shop were kind enough to stop what they were doing, check out the damage to the tire, make the repair, and re-inflate it so I could get on my way within a half hour. The lumberyard was on my way home from the tire shop, so I stopped by to check on the feed, say thanks, and coordinate picking up the pallets of feed.

When I got back to the farm, I heated up some too-spicy goat curry for lunch, and then headed back out to reinstall the tractor tire. Lining up eight lugs simultaneously while maneuvering a four-foot tire that’s too heavy for one person to lift took … a while. But eventually the tire was back on, and the tractor was good to go!

Next, I had to get my livestock trailer out of its parking place, remove the top so it’s in flatbed mode, attach it to the Subaru, and head back to the lumberyard. The max recommended tow weight of the Subaru (with trailer brakes) is 2000 lbs., so it takes me three overfilled trips back and forth in order to get all the feed back to my farm.

By the time I finished the trips, it was about 4:30pm. This would be the normal time on a Friday that I start evening farm chores and then head inside to relax, grill some dinner, and be done for the day. At this point, the only thing I really ‘did’ all day was get three pallets of feed – which, according to my plan, should have taken about 10 minutes.

Darn plans.