How 2 Pigs + 30 Chickens Prepped my Garden

Good morning to you too. Don't jump, don't jump. Good girl, good girl, good girl. Cold, frosty morning. Today we're gonna move the chickens and pigs to a new garden area. You're going to see the work they've done in just a short amount of time, and then how I go— I'll give you a step-by-step on how I move chickens and pigs and set them up to do most of the hard work for the garden. First, I've got to move the Isis. It's 7:30. We got out of the way everyday chores. Now to move these pigs and chickens. The first ingredient to success is bait for the pigs. If you're gonna put that fence down on the pigs, you gotta need to have at lure. You should have a partner too. Let's see if he's awake. Hey, hey, hey, come on! You know what my dad used to say? We're burning daylight. See that light out there? Okay, it's burning. Old apples, banana pills. Beef bone. Or is that for Laurel? I'll give that to Laurel. Beef liver. An old, old, old steak that went bad in the freezer because the door was left open. It's a long time ago, y'all. Finally getting around to it. This dog is about dying and going to heaven this morning. Liver, steak, and bone. Somebody else likes that liver. There it is. Some of you guys are wondering Did the Everflow waterer work from the other night? We tried it on a new angle for the first time overnight. Oh, look, you tell me, did it work? That's a flat pan of water, frozen, maybe a quarter of an inch. Everflow waterer, not frozen. Everflow waterer, 1. Watering pan, Zero. It's gonna work like this. I just need to set it up to where we're not using a walnut to hold up the hose or buckets. You might say pigs are a problem because they tear up the place. Wait a minute, pigs are a solution because they tear up the place. In just 2 weeks, they disturbed this, tilled this, plowed this. This is ready to go. Well, almost. This is what it looked like 2 weeks ago. That's what it looks now. We have 8 of these plots. 16 weeks will be done by the time— yes, that's gonna work out splendid! That's gonna work out splendid. So in 4 months, what's, what's this? Middle of November, December, January, February, March. Spring! Just in time. They're going to be done with all our 8 plots just in time for spring. Has this been plugged in? Battery?

Yeah, it's just plugged in.

Make sure we're bars up. Next thing we want to do is mow a strip for the new electric fence. It's weak. Ah, string trimmer. All right, this next step, we're mowing down the sod where the fence is going to be so it doesn't short out. This fence line right here is going to stay right where it is. These are our garden stake posts right there. That's our mark. So we go from that one to this one. This is our next corner. We go a little past just in case when we go to make these square, we'll be sure to have tilled the area. There won't be any area left until— and by the way, that area there, 1,200 square feet. You win Farm Animal of the Year. We got us a string trim line here. Well, that was string trimming. Jonah was beginning to move some of this stuff over. Now we're going to go— we're going to— this fence is disconnected. We're going to get the corner supports off before we let them go, start rolling up this fence. Yeah. Oh, not— I'm not going to do this side. I see, because these gardens are right next to each other, I can leave that side. So I need to get this everything else off. If you have two of these fences, 164-foot Premier One fences, go ahead and install the other one and then, and then pull the old one up and lead them through with food. If you only have one, we have to open up this fence, put it back in here, and get the pigs in there somehow. Do you think we should feed the pigs early today before the chickens?

The chickens can eat.

All right, well, let's get it going then. They're just gonna go all over the place for a little bit. That's okay. We can't let them find their food. Can you go put their food on? I—

wait, wait, look where I'm gonna put it. Look, a treehouse! They can't get up there.

You've been waiting for that treehouse to contribute to the farm, haven't you? Nice. 3, 2, 1. That was almost easy. They're right here on the verge of going in. You guys ready?

Y'all ready?

Okay, I'll lure the pigs, you got the chickens. You see this silver bucket? Get you a smell of that. Get the pigs a little smell, a little taste of their food, and they will follow you anywhere. See? All right, I will. Now that the pigs or chickens are in there happy eating. They'll be grazing soon, filling soon. That's when we go around and secure our fence with our Tiber Tuff posts. That's when we energize it. This right next door looked like this 2 weeks ago. So that's going to take them 2 weeks. In 2 weeks, we've got this. We're— in a minute, we're going to rake this smooth, pull out any major sod. 2 weeks before that, they were in here. They did this area. We planted this in cover crop, put some hay over it. Look, the COVID crop is coming up just below the surface there. Can you see it? And before that garden bed, they were in here. And look how well the COVID crop is coming up in here. By the way, this is a cold-hardy cover crop, germinates down to 45 degrees. Grows down to 25 degrees. And where were they before this? This is where they were. We have these low tunnels on because it's winter. We're protecting them from frost. Here's a patch that was planted in cover crop. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that beautiful? Now for the best part, the surprise. What's under these tunnels? You know what's under this tunnel? Unbelievable abundance. Look at these lettuces. Oh my word, how beautiful. Oh my, it just goes on for like ever. We're gonna be harvesting salad out of there all winter long. What's in the next one? More salad, more salad. We like our salad. Is this fun? You guys want to see what's in the next one? Looky here, our favorite Goes excellent with breakfast. Can anybody guess? Endless row of it. Swiss chard. One more, two more. Garlic. See the garlic coming through the mulch? Can you guys name it? Can you loyal vlog fans name it? Oh, kale! Again, endless winter supply of kale. Yes! And the pigs and chickens Chadley made me do it. Now the next step. Now wait a minute, isn't that beautiful? Isn't that beautiful to see the animals on new grass just going to town? Going to town. Okay, now we smooth this up, get out any rocks, get out any big sod. Let's do it now. Well, I'd hope to get a little further than this before time is up, but we did pretty good. All we lack— we've raked it up, the whole thing, but then we're going back through and getting some of this deeper rooted stuff. Let me give you an example. It's a pain in the butt to get this stuff up, but once we get it up, it's up, and that's gonna be one less weed to deal with in the spring. Look at that, look at that root system. Satisfaction. Pull that sucker up. I hope you noticed our tools of the trade here. What's critical is, of course, pigs, chickens— about 30 chickens. About 2 pigs, American guinea hog, mobile electric fence, mobile pig shelter, mobile chicken coop, and the chick stall. Everything must be mobile. Mobile waterers, feeders. The reason I have to go today, we got to do breakfast, pick up the house, and then, and then Pop— some of you guys know we've started a show with him called Wednesdays with Willard. It's about his and our family's struggle with his cancer, but also a celebration of life. Today he's taking us all out in celebration of my birthday and Josiah's birthday, so we're going to document that. He's got some neat things he wants to show me at the house. That'll come out on Wednesday. Wednesdays with Willard, I encourage you guys to check it out. It's not so much about homesteading as it is just about life and celebrating a life well lived. There's a lot we can learn there, so I look forward to showing you guys that on Wednesday. Oh, don't go in there with them muddy boots. They're crazy. What you got for breakfast?

I got some water.

Some what?

Uh, water. Oh boy, real water.

Uh-oh. I want everybody to clean up before we play.

Okay, well, up there is clean. We just have to clean back here.

Yes, good attitude, good attitude.

Hey, you guys clean the hallway. Me and Shelly clean our bedroom. You guys clean everywhere else. Oh wow, we have turkey.

This is what I'm talking about, y'all. This is the pigs and the chickens doing right here. This is Swiss chard from that very garden. Start with lots of butter. There's the eggs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. This family needs at least 10 eggs. Look at these beautiful eggs we've been getting. Look at that assortment from Beauty's barnyard flock there. And should have lots of greens. It cooks down, it cooks way down. Let's have it all. Let's have it all. Like Swiss chard and eggs?

Yeah.

Do you really? Yeah. Thanks for your help there, Lily. Yeah, wait, wait, let's do this. Show you the possibilities here. I mean, this is not our pork fat, but it could totally— could be and will be very soon, soonish. So we have greens that grew out there in the garden. Let's say we put a little bit of pork fat in here, or maybe we cook some sausage or ham or bacon, and then eggs from the system too. Do you see that? Do you see this gardening system? You see why I call it the Animal Garden Miracle? Because— pour it in, Lily— because we could eat breakfast. We're eating breakfast off our system instead of tillers. We have pigs and chickens. Okay. All right, and we could do lunch too. You saw lunch. We have lunch for us. We have some in here. Look, we have some ready to go. Look, here's some salad. Here's some cut-up salad. There's some for like use as a, like instead in place of a bun, like with a hamburger or something. And then of course you could have supper off of that system too. Come on, let's eat!

It's time to eat!

Oh, we're missing a plate.