Methods of Castration

Farm animals, I learned on a recent visit to Seven Pines farm, can castrated without any sedative or painkiller. It is done when they are young – as young as possible – and it can be done without a vet. The only tools needed are a scalpel (or other castrating tool) and an iodine solution to spray on the wound.

Also, there are a couple different methods of castration. Some involve removing the testicles; some involve just severing the spermatic cord.

Male mammals have two testicles and two spermatic cords. The spermatic cords in a calf are very “tough” and can be easily felt through the scrotum. They feel like a wide tendon. When castrating a calf, it's important to cut both of these cords WITHOUT cutting the central artery that runs down the middle of the scrotum. The artery is smaller than the cords and feels like a very thin, fragile tendon.

At Seven Pines, our class castrated a bull calf by cutting “slits” in the bottom of each side of the scrotum, then “pulling out” the testicles and cutting the spermatic cords.

We also castrated several pigs, which was more difficult. The pigs' testicles are “inside” their body cavity; they do not hang outside as the calf's do. To castrate a pig, one person hangs on to the pig's feet and holds it upside down, with the pig's head trapped between the person's legs and the pig's stomach facing “out” towards the castrator. The castrator takes a scalpel and makes a cut between the pig's legs. Then, the castrator removes the first testicle by “popping it out” manually and cutting the cord. Next, the castrator has to make a slit into a membrane (using the first cut as the point of entry) and dig out the second testicle. The second testicle is “popped out” by strategic poking and pushing, and then it is pulled out far enough for the cord to be cut.

Sometimes, if it is difficult to find the membrane to cut, a second incision needs to be made between the pig's legs in order to find and dig out the second testicle.

Although it looked (and sounded) like a horrible process to me as a city girl and animal lover, the pigs recovered quickly. After we set them down, they were walking and running around like normal.

Animal Husbandry at Seven Pines

Seven Pines is a grass-based dairy farm owned by one of my professors, Kent Solberg, and his wife Linda. In addition to dairy cows, they also have pigs, laying hens, and bull calves.

On November 5th, our class visited Seven Pines for the second time to learn about castration. We started by listening to Dr. Tom Prieve (a veterinarian and one of our professors) explain several methods of, and tools for, castration. Then, we castrated about a dozen young barrows and one bull calf. We also watched Dr. Prieve do pregnancy checks on several heifers and treat the foot of another. Finally, we took a pasture walk with Kent, checking in on his dairy herd grazing the neighboring corn and soybean field.

Visiting Seven Pines for the second time, I noticed more about Kent and Linda's approach to farming. Specifically, I observed the tenderness they showed their animals and their focus on responsible stewardship.

When we walked over to the calves in fenced-in circles, Linda introduced the calves by name. “This is Sven,” she said. “We're thinking of keeping him as a breeding bull.” Another bull calf, Zeke, we were there to castrate. However, while trying to wrangle him from the fenced circle, he escaped out the back. Stephanie and I gently coaxed him back towards the group. He didn't seem to be afraid of people and handled the castration quite well – no yelling or kicking.

Kent and Linda's cattle all appeared to be very tame. When Dr. Prieve did pregnancy tests and examined one cow's foot, Kent was able to get the heifers in the holding frame by just calling their names and walking with them in the right direction. He was gentle with them; no paddles or electric prods, like I had witnessed at a larger farm that Dr. Prieve visited to do pregnancy tests a couple weeks ago.

Some of the calves were set apart from the herd, because they appeared sickly after a rain. Linda said they needed special monitoring and attention. I felt like their care of these cattle came from a place of empathy and love; the calves were not simply “investments,” they were living beings with personalities and names.

When we went to castrate the piglets, Kent secured the mother hogs in a trailer. They were hollering, and Kent said to them, “yes I know you're mad,” in an understanding tone. He did not complain about them at all, but rather complemented them on being great mothers. After we were done with the castration, he let out the hogs saying “go comfort your babies.” The mother hogs did not appear aggressive after being penned up, as some hogs might; they seemed tame and relatively mellow. Some actually went back into the trailer to sniff around. Kent kept urging them to go see their babies, and eventually they did. The hogs seemed to trust Kent; or at least, they were familiar with him and did not consider him to be any kind of threat.

While the pigs were being castrated, Dr. Prieve handed a baby gilt to me and said she needed comforting. This seemed perfectly natural in the context of Seven Pines; comforting gilts seemed in keeping with Kent and Linda's approach to farming.

The way Kent and Linda talked to, and about, their animals, was gentle and caring. They seemed to think of the animals as an important, contributing part of their farm who deserved care and respect. The animals were not treated as “property,” but as dedicated workers or family-member employees.

Before we left, Linda offered us homemade pumpkin bars, and Kent invited us to come back individually, spend the night, and experience milking. This hospitality went far beyond “educating students on business practices.” Kent and Linda genuinely care about community, relationships, and nurturing a new generation of farmers.

In Defense of Food | Reactions

In his book “In Defense of Food,” Michael Pollan outlines several suggestions regarding what, and how, to eat. We recently read part of this book for our class, Principles of Sustainability.

Most of the suggestions Pollan makes are familiar to me; I have heard them before. I took a whole foods cooking class several years ago, and many of the same principals were emphasized: don't eat food that isn't recognizable as something from nature; eat mostly plants; invest in high quality, organic food that is in season and locally grown; shop only in the peripheries of grocery stores; drink red wine with meals; etc.

Despite the fact that most of Pollan's advice was already common sense to me, there were a couple of points that made me want to re-evaluate the way I eat:

1. Avoid food products that make health claims.

2. Eat wild foods when you can.

3. Pay more, eat less.

4. Eat meals.

5. Try not to eat alone.

“Avoid foods that make health-food claims.” I actually hadn't heard this piece of advice before, but Pollan's explanation of this eating principle made a lot of sense. I tend to get sucked into health claims on food – as well as on vitamins, cleaning products, appliances, etc. But Pollan makes a good point: “it is only the big food companies that have the wherewithal to secure FDA-approved health claims for their products and then trumpet them to the world.” Furthermore, I agree with Pollan that it's easy for companies to distort or exaggerate the truth: health claims can be slapped on packages based on evidence taken out of context or based on biased studies funded by large corporations. It's tempting for me to trust what “experts” say and believe a beautifully-packaged product is good for me. However, I have to keep in mind the money that is behind all of the claims and packaging and that the health trends are changing as much as any “fashion.”

“Eat wild foods when you can.” I know that eating whole foods is good, but I never really thought about focusing specifically on wild foods other than the kind you can find in a grocery store, like wild-caught salmon. Foraging for food sounds like a lot of fun, and it would increase the amount of whole foods in my diet as well as increasing the amount of local foods in my diet. I remember picking wild blueberries this summer with my boyfriend, and – although I got eaten alive by mosquitoes – it was a satisfying experience. I found delicious, nutritious food – and it didn't cost me anything except time with my boyfriend and some physical labor in the outdoors.

“Pay more, eat less.” I have always thought that good food is worth the investment. However, when I thought of “investment,” I was thinking only in terms of money. Pollan writes, “paying more for food – in every sense – will reduce the amount of it we eat.” The key for me in this piece of advise is paying more in every sense. I agree with Pollan that it's easy to eat lots of food when food is easy to prepare or easy to access. It's tempting to eat a huge bowl of chips when all you have to do is open the package. It's easy to eat lots of sweets when you have candy bars at check-out aisles selling for pocket change. Recently I was at Mills Fleet Farm and I was feeling a bit hungry, so I grabbed a Pearson's Nut Roll at the check-out to have as a “snack” in the car on my 5 minute ride home to my apartment. If the Nut Roll had been more expensive, or if I had to make one from scratch, I would most likely not have given in to this indulgence.

“Eat Meals.” I am a notorious snacker. I very rarely sit down to full meals. In fact, when I'm alone (which I am 95% of the time I'm eating), I usually only eat one thing at a time. It's much easier to eat a couple almonds here, and a granola bar there, and then have cereal later followed, maybe, by some popcorn. Eating randomly and haphazardly like this, it's easy to end up consuming a higher quantity of a lower variety of foods. Peanut butter toast can become a staple. So can corn chips. A lot of people have told me it's healthy to snack often, because it prevents blood sugar from dropping; as a result, I've felt justified in making “snacking” my primary method of food consumption. It makes sense to prioritize meals over snacks, though, because meals encourage a more balanced diet and they help make you aware of the quantities of each item you are consuming. For example, a couple chips on a plate with a sandwich, salad, and veggies is easier to “track” mentally than chips eaten out of a bag while watching TV.

“Try not to eat alone.” This is a difficult one for me because I live alone. However, I recognize that for the most part, when I eat in the company of others, I tend to eat meals instead of snacks. There are the exceptions – friends of mine who, when I'm with them, usually entice me to down candy, chips and soda along with them. But when I make plans to have dinner with people, most of the time we cook real meals. It's easier to cook good meals when there are helpers, and conversation makes all of us eat more slowly. By contrast, when I eat alone (which I do the vast majority of the time), I usually watch TV and eat snacks or single dishes mindlessly. Sometimes this is a good thing: I can end up eating an entire bowl of kale or a bowl of pumpkin soup that is healthy but not necessarily tasty. However, more often than not, eating alone causes me to reduce the variety of my diet and increase the quantity of food consumed. Furthermore, eating alone can leave me feeling unsatisfied and set up cravings – making me want “something” to eat, regardless of the fact that nothing really sounds good.

Three Ways to Kill a Chicken

This fall, I've been exposed to three "methods" of butchering broilers (chickens): at a small-scale chicken processing facility, at a large vegetable farm, and at an Amish farm.

As an animal lover who can't stand the thought of animals suffering, I was intellectually interested yet emotionally uneasy to learn more about the grisley details of chicken slaughter. However, the contexts in which I witnessed chickens' demise, I knew, were about as "sustainable" and "humane" as it gets -- it was to be an easy introduction.

To my surprise, my exposure to chicken butchering actually was somewhat comforting -- it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. In all cases, the deaths were quick, and it seemed that the chickens had no idea what was coming.

Granted, I didn't see any actual butchering at the factory; I just took a tour, saw all the equipment, and learned about the process from one of the employees. Our guide said the chickens were killed with an electric knife that both slit their throat and stunned them at the same time. Apparently, this is the most humane way to kill chickens. And it does indeed happen quickly. At that factory, they kill chickens one at a time at the rate of 13 chickens per minute.

I did see actual chickens killed at the vegetable farm and at the Amish farm. At the vegetable farm, it was somewhat mechanized; they do a couple hundred a day. However, the killing happens in the open air and the birds are caught and killed in small groups, so there are never very many birds "on deck" at the kill site.

Interestingly, the birds "in line" to be killed didn't seem to notice anything bad was happening. In fact, some free range laying hens walked into the "kill room" of their own volition and happily poked around, oblivious to the chickens bleeding out two feet away.

The butchering at the Amish farm was by far the best, in my opinion -- meaning it was the least traumatic for me to witness. I even helped out, catching the broilers and picking up their corpses after their heads were chopped off with an ax. The chickens, as far as I could tell, were completely unaware of what was about to happen, even as they had their neck on the chopping block. With one or two strokes, it was over -- the body summer-salting away while the farm dog scarfed down the head.

I think one day I might be able to kill a chicken myself -- something I never thought I would be capable of. It seems to me that decapitation, without any fearful anticipation, is not that bad of a way to go. It's certainly better than some of the alternatives.

White Earth Land Recovery Project | Culture and Sustainability

The White Earth Land Recovery Project is based on White Earth Indian reservation. The people on the reservation make crafts and grow, harvest, process and package food – such as wild rice, maple butter, maple syrup, wild rice flour, and soups. These products are sold under the Native Harvest brand over the Internet, via catalog, and by select grocery stores. Proceeds from sales are used to buy back land to increase the size of the White Earth reservation.

My class visited White Earth earlier this year. We met with Robert, who talked with us about cultural issues in regards to sustainability. He said that for them, sustainability meant not just having fresh, local foods, but preserving cultural traditions and knowledge as well. For example, “wild rice” has a cultural and spiritual significance that it is important to pass on along with knowledge of how to grow and harvest it. Robert said that when the elders were asked why the rice crop was bad this year, the elders said it was because the tribe had not paid enough attention to the lakes and water in cultural and spiritual rituals.

What Robert told us about the connection between culture and sustainability reminded me of Wendell Berry's essays – and in particular “Three Ways of Farming in the Southwest.” When Robert said the elders cautioned that the wild rice crop was not good because the people hadn't cared for the water enough, it reminded me of the concept Berry describes the Papago people having towards agriculture: cropland is something the people make. In both of these cultures, the idea exists that humans should be stewards of the land and care for the soil and water. If the crops fail, it is not because of bad luck, bad weather, or bad machinery – it is because they were not careful enough stewards of the core natural resources that grow their food.

Green Goddess | Winter CSA

Garden Goddess is a winter CSA operated by Chuck Waibel and Carol Ford, who grow greens in a greenhouse attached to their garage in Milan, MN. Chuck and Carol designed the greenhouse based on years of research. As a result, their greenhouse is much more energy efficient, and it cost less, than “typical” greenhouses or high tunnels.

Chuck and Carol's ingenuity has not gone unnoticed; Chuck and Carol's greenhouse has become a famous “model” for growing produce in cold climates during the winter. A couple years ago they wrote a book detailing how they built their greenhouse -- all printed copies were sold. Chuck and Carol have been hired as consultants on the development of several other greenhouses in cold climates, such as the greenhouse at the charter school in Grand Marais and a greenhouse in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Chuck and Carol also have been featured on MPR.

Recently, my class got to visit with Chuck Waibel and see his greenhouse in person. Chuck is a fascinating polymath who seems to know a lot about everything -- from history to computer programming to literature to engineering. Oh, and Chuck also is the author of a fiction book called Phoenix, MN.

Chuck and Carol are now in the sixth year of their winter CSA. They currently have 12 members, but many more than that are on their waiting list.

Any produce that does not go into the CSA boxes is sold to the local grocery store in Milan. Chuck said other grocery stores are interested in buying his produce, too. However, currently he does not produce enough to meet this demand. Good news for us budding Minnesota farmers!

Harvest Thyme Bistro

Recently I visited Harvest Thyme Bistro in Wadena, MN, with my Sustainable Food Production class.

Harvest Thyme Bistro is a new restaurant café serving locally-grown food. It is owned by Derek and Shari Olson, who both work there full-time. Harvest Thyme is located in the back of a building that also houses a bookstore and a used clothing store.

Our class had the opportunity to talk with Shari Olson about the bistro, which opened a year ago (the day after Thanksgiving). Shari explained to us that Harvest Thyme Bistro gets its food from more than 100 different farmers and producers. Harvest Thyme buys whatever farmers can’t sell. Shari said that the local foods they cannot serve or use right away are canned or frozen.

Challenges they’ve had to face include educating the public about the value of local food; finding affordable local food sources; and getting local food without a coordinated distribution system. They’ve made progress in educating people about the value of local food, she said. They talk to their customers personally about the importance of eating local foods, and they put up a sign that articulates their bistro’s values and principals. In addition, they include the farmer’s names under the specials made with their food, helping people connect the food to specific individual producers. In the future, they hope to have farm tours and facilitate interactions between customers and farmers. They also distribute the “Pine and Lake Country Local Foods Catalog,” in which Harvest Thyme Bistro is featured, and a “green routes” pamphlet listing locations and descriptions of food producers in Minnesota.

Find out more about Harvest Thyme Bistro on MPR.