They Want it BAD

Happy Sunday seed day! Someone is coming to get a couple of these guys. Time to wean them, it's time to sell them. You got a new poop corner here, guys. I see a fresh one. The poop corner's been back there. Happy day! You want one? What do you mean you want one? Oh, okay. And just like that, I changed the pig's diaper. Put a little mulch on there. You don't have to have a pigsty. Pigs don't have to stink. You can keep it sanitary and make compost at the same time. You eat Mama's leftover feed, huh? You guys getting big. You got your shovel, putting in wood chips. No, not there, not right on their feed. Here, over here. Oh, okay, go, go, go. Here, put it right here, Henry. She's just gonna wallow in it again. Let's cover it while she's up. Now you can't lay down in your own manure and your own parasites. Yeah, you're fixing it. Good boy. Put it in right there. Good boy. Hey, my man broke down. Transmission fluid all over the place on the side of the highway. Cow's got to be milked though, so they make it today, we'll get them to pigs. If he has to come another day, he can milk then. Hey, let's go! Is that bike a little big for you? Big. Oh, he wants his bike. Oh, oh, did you do the turkey poults?

No, I need help.

What do you need help with? It's hard. How are your T-birds doing?

Pretty good.

Free-range T-birds, little tiny things out in the grass. Two dead. Now, is that because they're outside and this is a little more wild? It's because they're turkeys and they're notorious for having difficult starts. You know, they're weak in the very beginning, but once you get them to about 6 weeks, you can't kill them. I couldn't be more excited though that this is working out because this just feels right. They just are very happy out and about on grass at such a young age. That means if it's not crazy cold, this chicken tractor could be your chick or poultry brooder. So if it weren't going to be particularly cold or wet, I think I would be bold enough to start chicks in this, and that could save you having to go through, you know, build a brooder, go through that process, and you could get them out on grass at day one, which, which is where they would be if they grew up in nature. What's this?

It's a crossbow I built.

You built that? Yeah. Good job. I see she dressed ready for some action. We had talked about maybe because we went so hard yesterday, drove 7 hours, went to a workshop. We're gonna take it easy today.

We're just gonna like fart around. We have Japanese knotweed. Anyone can notice.

This is Japanese knotweed.

Yes, we have a lot of it. So I'm— and you know me, I'm not gonna use glyphosate, and that's what they say you have to use, so—

Really? You can't even deal with that?

I'm gonna make— I have some vinegar, some agricultural vinegar, and I'm gonna inject it into the stems. We're gonna see what happens.

Do you have an injector?

I have needles.

Mom spotted some weed trees out in the pasture. We need to pull them up. They call it tree of heaven because I believe it grows so fast and upward, but they ought to call it tree of hell because it's, it's very invasive, hard to get rid of. We probably won't be able to pull it up all by the roots. It's brittle, so it breaks off, and then when it breaks off, it panics and it shoots off roots underneath the ground, so we're gonna hopefully pull it up by the roots. That broke it. I was afraid of that. That means probably have to dig it out. There we go. I'm gonna say that's wind. A wind. I hand pulled some of the remaining roots. I think it's decimated. While we're at it, let's cut this Japanese knotweed. The lambs actually got in there and ate it but didn't really eat it enough to kill it. I'm pretty sure that's invasive too. See if that— I don't know, see if that pulls it up. Nope. We might as well just, uh, we'll blade trim that and then let the grasses start dominating. Pack this in such a way and then haul it, put it in the dumpster. Yeah, yeah, you can't, you can't compost this. Oh, I think they were saying you can't burn it either because then the seeds— the seeds go up in the smoke and get places. Every nook and cranny matters on this farm. Need every bit of pasture we can get. Most important thing, Henry, when you're strip Mother Nature. Mother Nature modest, Henry? She's modest. Do one more pack. Yeah, it's dusty. Smoke, he calls it. Good boy. We want to especially get that out of there. If you want it, you gotta want it. Believe it or not, we've picked up feeder pigs and have had to do the same thing. Our minivan broke down, we had to rent a U-Haul or something to get it home, and, uh, we hauled the pigs in the back of the van on top of a trailer. How good is it going in here? How good? How good is it going? It's going really good. Boy, don't get her started on horses. No, we'll have another video for her channel.

Yes, yes.

We've set up a solar energizer, wet this down to ground this out a little bit. So we're going to train them to electric fence real quick. You guys have had enough drama. Just like, can you get in there and distract them? Because you don't want— what you don't want is for them to touch this and it not be on. Yeah, because then they'll be like, oh, I can— that's not— it's like a That's not gonna do nothing. And why you normally want to train them in a physical holding like this, yeah, is because what if they touch that net and then run forward? They usually run backward, but what if they run forward and they're at your house and there's— they don't know, they're not oriented? Here's what you do if they do get out for some reason early on and they're not oriented or trained to a bucket. Don't panic, get a pig board, okay? If you don't have an official pig board— yeah, a piece of plywood, a tin.

Yep.

They don't have very good eyesight.

My oldest—

I'll put my oldest elbows— and they don't have very good stamina.

Oh, that's good.

So just jog after them, just keep them in sight. You are an endurance animal, they're not. You'll eventually be able to herd them wherever you want them to go when they tire out. Hey, yeah, if you want to be very prudent start picking the, the weeds that are on the chicken net and feed those to the pigs. Trained one. The one will not touch it again. Actually, watch, watch this. This one might run forward. We might learn why we want to train them in a physical holding right here. See, that's why we train them in a physical. You don't want that to happen on your net when you get home. We should have maybe put it a little closer so they don't go behind it. Oh, is that the only one Hank got? Got that one. Bit it. One more. Oh, there they are! 4. All right, we've trained them, guys.

What, what size is that?

That's the one if you're doing solar, you got to go with that.

I got the 8. I was testing the 80 and it was hitting like 10.

You just have to make sure you keep stuff off your net.

That was actually the pig too, so I tested on the chicken.

Okay. All right, well, that's good. That goes back to the, um, turkey poults. Hey, Gideon, can you run this back to the turkeys? They'll tell you this, they're not like cows and sheep. Cows, sheep will touch this once and they won't again unless by accident. Yeah, they'll test it 4 times a day, so it's got to always be on. Yep. And notice how I just used a Premier 1 gate because it's only like 3 feet wide. Yep. If you had to use your net in there, you'd have to zigzag it back and forth. The pigs are bothering it while you're setting it up, it can be difficult. But that's all you got. You got—

is that what you mostly use the gate for? Do you actually use it?

No, I don't ever use it as a gate. Yeah, I just use it to train piglets. And it's similar enough to your pig fence that they're smart, they'll know.

Yeah, yeah, they'll know.

He came over and asked me to do this.

That's the trick. So this is what we're going to do, Rebecca. You stand over this way. Keep going, and then yeah, we knock him out. Look how still he is, and look how happy he'll be. I like that shirt, by the way.

Do you?

Abundance Plus in the house. Here's the plan: we got a pig panel strapped in over there, we've got one here by the door. We're gonna herd the piglets over here, let everybody out but 2 females. Shut it up, zip tie it, and then we have an opening right by the door. Oh, careful. Are you sad? Is that your new best friend? Somebody want to get in there and lift on it? You ever had pigs in your van before? No, no, no.

This was called a pig at one point.

What a birthday! A birthday to remember. Brandy, since it's your birthday—

thank you.

I got— well, not with her name on it, do you? Nope. I got—

I got mine now. I got a book with Gideon's name on it.

Well, then you give that other one away.

And thank you much.

You're one of the few people that have Gideon's signature, huh?

Yes.

Oh, Mr. Brown. I wear your shoes, Mr. Brown.

Mr. Brown.

That was a cute book, huh? You remember that one?

Yeah, enjoy that even though you have it and have probably already read it. Say goodbye to your buddy. Bye-bye. You might be a homesteader if you go pick up a couple of pigs on your birthday with a trailer and a—

well, I didn't agree to this part. Was she getting a new car for her birthday?

Yeah, right.

You're gonna have to really make— you got to swing by the Biltmore House on the way out of here.

Last year I gave her a house for my birthday.

Oh, so there you go.

You're caught up for a while.

Caught up for a long time.

Hey, they've learned to wheelie with their legs up. Boiling water. What's the idea?

Trying to get—

you can pour it on their roots. Yeah, and that's supposed to kill it?

I think so. I don't know, I'm trying.

As big as it is?

I'm just gonna try a bunch of different things. We're just gonna see what happens. I'm just trying a bunch of different things because I don't know what's gonna work.

We got another experiment. 45% vinegar.

Well, I was telling my dad about it and he goes, I got something that will kill it. I wouldn't touch it, Pop. Dad said not to.

All right, regular store-bought or regular household vinegar is like 5%. I think because you're in the fresh air, don't take a whiff. She's got her glasses on, she's got her gloves. Is it going in.

This is an old thing, so it's kind of— it's hard to—

no, I'm sure it's hard. Probably have to get right in an empty vein.

No, it's not that. I can't get it to go down. I could barely get it to go out.

Well, you should see if it'll spray even if it's not in a thing. And I thought I was on to something because I was like, all we got to do is drop vinegar down in there. Well, every knot it stops. That's what I'm thinking, Becky. What you don't want to do is like mattock it and cut the roots. You want to pull all—

well, they said you can.

Look at this. Goodness, look at that. I think I got the mother, the mother lode. So that little root can—

you got a tree of heaven too. Oh, that's a tree of heaven.

This afternoon, Jonah's got his heart set on a dock for the pond. Yep. And so we're gonna do a locust beam across the edge so then you don't have to have poles. How did we miss this locust when we were all over the farm looking for decking for our house? Might pull up that tree of heaven while you're over here. He's gonna be on the mini X. The plan is he's gonna push it, I'm gonna notch it. We're gonna hopefully fell this thing peacefully. Very much under control, and it's very much going to go that way. It's going to be hard to swing back this way now. Just caught up in a big vine. Wow, now it's caught up in that tree. All right, we did it. I'm gonna start pulling up your Japanese knotweed. Back to the saving this old farmhouse from Japanese knotweed and vines. The war on Japanese knotweed. Big briar left there. We're gonna have to get that up with the machine. I think we've done what we're gonna do over at the farmhouse. What if you went just right here?

That was my thought, was what happens if you just shifted it Look, Jonah, that's a lot of decking, bro.

The idea is to put a dock in the corner of this pond. How are you going to hold that there though, Jonah?

That's what this T-post is for.

We got to get all this algae out of here. Meanwhile, Lily, and with a little bit of help of Mom, right? Yeah, cucumbers are back in season. Indian raita, Indian spices on the chicken. You guys want to see the look we have so far? Okay, getting better. Right? Every day, in every way, we're getting better. Look at this pile of Japanese knotweed. We're crushing it. What you need, bud? Uh-oh, uh-oh. Sold a couple of pigs. Pigs for everyone. Had a good meal. It's another day in the books. Happy day.