Membership https://www.littlemountainranch.com/community

LMR Newsletter sign-up
https://www.littlemountainranch.com/newsletter

Little Mountain Ranch Family Cookbook
https://bit.ly/4aGLmWW

Hi friends, In this video, we’re preparing for a bone-chilling -43 day here at Little Mountain Ranch. Join me as we prepare the farm to withstand the frigid temperatures, ensuring the well-being of our beloved farm animals. You’ll see firsthand how we insulate shelters, provide extra bedding, and take all the necessary steps to keep our animals warm and cozy during this extreme cold snap.

But that’s not all! We’ll also dive into the delicious world of homemade bacon. I’ll guide you through the process of curing pork belly, transforming it into mouthwatering bacon that you can enjoy right from your homestead kitchen.

And to add a little sunshine to this frosty day, join me for a mini garden supplies haul. We’ll check out the things I purchased from #westcoastseeds to jump start the 2024 gardening season.

So grab your favorite hot beverage, cozy up, and let’s spend some quality time together on the ranch. Join me in braving the cold, making delicious bacon, and getting ready for another season of bountiful gardening.

Thanks for watching!

Bunkie Life https://bunkielife.com CODE: LMR for 250.00 off

Harvest Right Freeze Dryer
https://affiliates.harvestright.com/1783.html

ForJars Canning Lids
https://forjars.co/?sca_ref=2654000.VOo,CbKAmd

You can also find us on:

INSTAGRAM @
https://www.instagram.com/littlemountainranch/?hl=en

Website
www.littlemountainranch.com

Pinterest
https://www.pinterest.ca/LMRChelsea/

Our Amazon Store
https://www.amazon.com/shop/littlemountainranch

Our favourite seed company!

West Coast Seeds
https://bit.ly/3khUsj5

As an Amazon influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases on any Amazon link and from my Amazon store. Thank you so much!

We would love to hear from you!

PO Box 4463
Williams Lake PO Main,
BC
V2G 2V3

Business Enquiries
chelsea@littlemountainranch.com

If you would like to support our channel, you can use the affiliate links above to purchase products we think are fantastic! It costs you nothing, but we make a small commission if you purchase. Thank you so much!

Disclaimer
The content provided on the Little Mountain Ranch YouTube channel is for informational and entertainment purposes only. While we strive to provide accurate and helpful information, we are not professionals. The techniques, ideas, and suggestions shown in our videos are based on our personal experiences and should not be taken as professional advice. Please conduct your own research, consult with professionals, and consider your local regulations and individual circumstances before making any decisions related to homesteading, farming, or any other practices shown on our channel. We will not be held liable for any losses, injuries, or damages arising from the display or use of this information. Always exercise caution and prioritize safety when attempting any project or task.

Hi everyone my name is Chelsea welcome to Little Mountain Ranch welcome to my kitchen I’m happy to have you here with me today where we are going to be curing some pork belly so last week or the week before I shared with you a big freezer

Cleanout that I did and that I had 60 or 70 lbs worth of pork belly that I needed to process so I did 21 lbs of it already and I have another 21 lbs of it in the fridge to be able to uh get all cured up

21 lbs fits perfectly in my smoker which is why I’m doing it in that size of a batch so we’re going to run through that whole thing and after we’re done that we’re going to head outside and I am going to catch you up on some of the

Things that we are doing to prepare for this cold front that we have coming through it is supposed to be 43 de my friends I’m Canadian I’m used to cold weather but -40 and that’s not even including the windchill is really really cold and what’s going to make it feel

Even colder than I mean I don’t know that -43 3° could feel any colder than 43° but we have not had any time to climatize to it we have had a much warmer than usual winter without any snow even it’s been above freezing many days over the the last couple of months

And not only have we not really had a chance to climatize to it but our animals haven’t either and that’s what has me worried so I’m going to show you all the things that we do to prepare for really cold weather like this to help keep our animals more comfortable

I’m just going to grab our bacon out of the fridge here uh this bacon was frozen and so I have Tha it in the refrigerator and now we’re going to get it cured and then it will go back in the fridge for 3 to 4 days to get have that salt really

Penetrate and all the flavorings I’m going to give it really penetrate into the meat and then we’re going to smoke it but that will be in the next video before we get into curing this bacon I wanted to share something that I am super super excited about a little bit

Nervous about it because it’s a launch of something new but I’m really excited about it and that is my brand new website which I will put a link for you down in the show notes on my website I house my blog and that’s where I share tons of free information and my

Membership community and my store are also housed there so my membership Community is very similar to patreon for those of you that are familiar with patreon it’s just housed on my own website I share tons of information that are homestead related cooking from scratch related all the fun stuff that I

Do here on my channel we also do a zoom call every month where we get together as a community and talk about um whatever’s gone on during the month troubleshoot challenges and things like that I am offering something entirely new for 2024 which I’m really excited

About and that is a 30 minute one-on-one call when you sign up to my membership Community with me and the purpose of this call is so that we can get a chance to get to know each other and I can learn a little bit more about you and

What your needs are so that I can try to best fulfill them within the community and I am super excited about that the reason that I am so excited about it is because it gives me an opportunity to see your face which is really nice and

To be able to have a conversation with you uh and to be able to tailor my content to better suit your needs so I am very very excited about that so I do have a link for both the website and the membership Community down in the show

Notes if you would like to go and check it out and please do not hesitate to send me a DM over on in Instagram or drop a comment in the comment section below if you have any questions about it at all even if you are not interested in

The membership Community I wanted to let you know that I’m going to be showing up here just as I always have sharing all of the content that I do here on YouTube but I would encourage you to go and check out the website because like I said there’s all kinds of free

Information available there as well so now let’s get into curing this bacon we are going to be adding some paprika to our here we are going to be adding some black pepper a little bit of maple syrup and of course Salt so I am not using pink curing salt which is probably what

You’re used to seeing people cure with I stopped using pink curing salt a couple of years ago for curing my bacon and my ham as well and I’m really happy with the product but the recipe that I’m going to share with you today uh does have an option for adding the pink

Curing salt if that’s something that you want to do so I do have these 1B packages here and the reason for that that was a typo on my part when I sent in the instructions to my butcher I’m I’m not sure why I did that normally

I’ll get it in a Big Slab and then cut it up myself after but the one benefit of having one PB pieces like this is it makes measuring my salt to meat ratio really easy because I don’t have to weigh my meat cuz I already know each

Piece is one pound so I am doing 21 lbs here so I’m going to do a cup and A3 of salt and I’m going to add a little bit extra because the last time I did it I had just enough cure to get the last

Piece done but I don’t want to run out at the last piece so I’m going to add just a little bit of extra so I am just using Redmond real salt for this but you could use any kind of finely ground even slightly coarsely ground salt that you

Like as long as it’s non-iodized so there is our salt in our big bowl the amount of pepper and paprika that you use in your cure is completely dependent upon your taste preferences and and what I like is four tablespoons mounding tablespoons of black pepper and I’m

Probably going to sneeze and the equal amount of paprika so you can use plain paprika or smoked paprika smoked paprika is really nice so we’re going to do the same thing here so four tablespoons and then we need some kind of sweetening and in this case I am

Going to use brown sugar but you could use white sugar if you like as well and I’m also going to add a little bit of maple syrup so I am adding 1 and 1/2 cups of brown sugar to this here and then we are going to mix it all together

To make sure that our salt is well Incorporated in with our sugar oh my goodness okay I got to back up that is very peppery you want to have some Ziploc bags ready and this is best done with a helper which I do not have today but somebody to help hold the bag

Open for you to load the bacon into so I’m just going to get myself a bowl to sit here to put my bags in this just makes it easier to load in if it’s sitting in a bowl like that and we’re going to open up our

Bacon I’m also going to grab my garbage can to put here so I can put this paper straight into the garbage can so one of the other things that I’m going to do is sharpen my knife one second so one of the other things that

I’m going to do is sharpen my knife one second I always get asked about my knives and how I keep my knives sharp and I use a steel so my butcher who actually did this butchering taught me this a long time ago and said that when

You are using a knife the edge of the knife itself starts to warp just ever so slightly and the purpose of the steel you hold it at a 45° angle and run it along like this is actually to straighten out that blade it isn’t to sharpen it a sharpener itself you really

Shouldn’t he was telling me you really shouldn’t have to really sharpen your knives and even him as with his career being a butcher uh every 6 months to a year or or so as long as you use a steel and it really does make a huge

Difference my dad was a butcher too and he was able to do this part like you know like really really fast I am not one of those people I go slow I want to make sure my angle is right and it usually only takes around 10 swipes of

The steel and make sure you get a good quality steel as well and it’s honestly shocking you’ll use the steel on a knife that feels feels like it’s totally dull and it will be nice and sharp again so we are going to I’m just cutting my pieces in half here because

They fit better into my Ziploc bag so now what we want to do is cover the heck out of our bacon going to get it right covered right up and whenever I’m doing big slabs there’s usually some cracks in the uh bacon or just like an area where it’s

Where there’s space that you can actually wedge some of the Cure inside of there and you really want to do that so we’re covering it all up and shake off the excess and get it into our bag and what we’re going to do once all of

This bacon has had its cure bath is we’re going to put it in the fridge and normally for larger slabs of bacon I will cure them in the fridge for 7 days and multiple times throughout the day I’ll flip them over so they’ll be in

Their bag and I just flip them over this way so that way the Cure evenly distributes uh but because these are smaller pieces excuse me it’s not going to take as long for the Cure to penetrate the meat we are going to do it for 3 days

Instead I don’t want to overfill this bag because when I lay it flat I kind of want the pieces to lay in the bag and for the bag to lay relatively flat so this is going to be sufficient I am just going to finish this now and when I’m done I’ll be back

With you to show you the next step so I have two large trays here and I’m going to take my pork squeeze out the extra air and lay it as flat as I can get it so getting these is all flat like this just allows you to have a lot of the

Surface area of your meat covered with the brine on the bottom and then like I mentioned a couple times a day you’ll flip it over so that it can cover all surfaces of your pork evenly and I just realized I didn’t actually add any maple

Syrup to this and I often do add maple syrup but that’s okay cuz I can just base it with some maple syrup when it is in the smoker we got a new it’s called a Pit Boss I think Sportsman is the brand smoker it’s like a barbecue kind of style smoker

We’ve never had one before I’ve used the Big Chief just the big rectangle kind of basic smoker uh before but one of the disadvantages of that kind of smoker in our climate is it’s really hard to get the internal temperature of the bacon up

To 150° F which is where you want it at when you’re smoking when it’s cold in the winter time here but with this new barbecue I can smoke even when it’s really cool maybe not 43 but when it’s like it is today which is only5 I can get

It uh to nice and warm inside of that barbecue which is fantastic okay just about done this is a fair fairly quick process and normally I like to cure my pork belly when it’s fresh so I don’t freeze it first but that’s just the way that it worked out this

Time not ideal but still still going to work so I’ll catch you up on some of the different meals that we’ve been doing for the pantry challenge so we’re participating in the Three Rivers challenge which is a pantry challenge that goes on for the month of January

And February and the way that we’re taking on the challenge it can be done of course any way that you want it to but we are not going to still have a bit of air in there we are not going to the grocery store at all for the next couple

Of months and it’s been an interesting experience actually so far Dan and I have talked about it quite a bit Dan has found it so far to be a huge Money Saver and it really has been because we have not been ordering pizza we usually order

Pizza every couple of weeks we have not been going out and getting any kind of fast food so normally we don’t go out and get fast food collectively as a family very often at all because it’s like $130 when we do but when Dan goes

To town which he does all the time he often does and he has found that he is saving a ton of money by not doing that at all so we’re also not ordering and we’re also not eating fast food so I’ll finish that thought in a second but

First we’re going to get this put into the fridge we can actually stack these right on top of each other so the pressure of this meat on the meat below is not going to cause any issue so I’m G to get those put into the fridge and like I said they will be

Refrigerated for the next three maybe four days and I’ll show you when we are going to take this out and smoke it in a couple days how you can tell if your pork is cured and if it’s ready for the smoker I had a bunch of gift

Certificates that I had saved up from West Coast Seeds that’s where I buy a lot of my gardening stuff and my seeds and all of that I had already ordered all my seeds for the year so so I went on and ordered a bunch of fun stuff or

Stuff that I normally wouldn’t order this time of year but things that I still needed nonetheless so this isn’t all of it but I thought it might be fun to show you some of the things that I got so I I’ve used these in my garden before but they’re just

Plastic uh markers that are really great they actually last well and then I just use a waxed pencil crayon to right on them so I got some of those some more bags I like to use these bags for storing beets and turn-ups and potatoes in my root cellar and I needed some new

Ones a spray nozzle a brand new fancy Dancy spring nozzle I am notorious for killing hanging baskets not only killing hanging baskets but killing house plants I I’m not sure why when I love plants as much as I do and I love gardening as much as I do I cannot keep hanging P

Pots alive but I saw this and this one is specifically for doing pots cuz it’s it’s curved on the top like this so I can hold it in water I was kind of hoping that having this fancy new wand would encourage me to water more diligently so I think I

Mentioned this in a video I can’t remember but I don’t normally use uh covers domes like this on my seat s when I’m starting them but I had one that I tried when was this I don’t know four or five weeks ago when I was starting some

Micro greens and for germination it was fantastic because the humidity level is very low in my house I have wood heat but also just the climate that we live in there’s not a lot of humidity in the air and I have to water my seedlings constantly and it was really nice to be

Able to have these on cuz it cut down my watering by half it at least the only thing about them though is I do find that after H I don’t know four or 5 days or when the when the seeds actually germinate that mold starts to develop

Pretty quickly if these stay on you can get them ventilated which I’m kind of regretting that I didn’t order the ventilated ones now but um I’m just going to cut some little slits in the side to offer a little extra extra ventilation goal of these though is to use them for

Germinating more than anything else I’ll take them off after everything’s germinated there’s whoops there’s some more markers for the garden and then I did get I was telling you the other day that with my Sprouts these ones were my favorite lids and I only had one of them actually

Speaking of sprouts let me show you our Sprouts we’ve eaten almost all the Sprouts actually these are the only ones that we have left these were the mixed ones so you only want to keep them in your your fridge for 2 to 3 days or so this is day

Three so I’ll make sure that these get used up today but we used them on chicken melt sandwiches so chicken with mayonnaise and chopped onions and things like that a little bit of cheese on top and then the Sprouts on top of that it was absolutely delicious but anyways I

Want to do a lot more Sprouts did I only buy two I thought I bought more than two oh there’s another one there it is so I want wanted a couple more of these Lids the only thing that I did find with these Lids compared to the green one that I

Just showed you on that jar is that there’s a lot more air flow with these so you do have to rinse them off a little more frequently especially at the beginning so that the seeds don’t dry out but good air flow is actually really good as far as from a bacteria growth

Perspective and these are really easy to clean and disinfect as well so I’m happy with that and then I have never used these before these are tomato clips I always just use straight up yarn usually a cotton yarn and I like that because it’s soft on the plants and it is really easy

To rip the plants out and rip that off by the end of the season and then I can just throw it into my compost when I saw these on the website I remembered that many people had recommended these clips to me or over the years actually I do a

Lot of filming in my high tunnel where I grow all my tomatoes in the summer and a lot of people had recommended these little Clips I use cattle panels for trellising and I thought these would be really really handy and they are reusable I hope that they’re going to be

Able to hold up with the heat of the high tunnel but they are designed for it so I got a bag of these to try I would need way more than these if I was going to use these exclusively but I just just wanted to try them for first before I

Bought too many we are going to be starting to grow some of the Woody herbs here in the next couple of weeks and by the time we hit mid-February we’re going to be in seed starting full swing which is very very exciting so this is a nice

Kind of little gift myself to kick off the gardening season so on that note let’s get bundled up and head outside like I said it’s not too cold out right now but let’s just check the weather for for cast here we have a snow warning of

Course a snowfall warning so it’s – 3° right now -7 tonight and this is all in Celsius -7 tomorrow then – 28 tomorrow night I’ll put this up on the screen but – 26 so daytime temperatures are – 26 – 28 – 31 and then the nighttime temperatures

Are the real kicker – 28 – 3 4 – 43 so that one is for Friday – 40 Saturday and then it starts to warm up again- 29 um on Sunday so that’s when you layer when you go outside I’m going to talk when we’re outside about what we do with our

Animals to help keep them safe when it’s really cold but what we do is limit the amount of time that we spend outside when it is that cold you can actually freeze your lungs within a very short period of time so we always have scarves of course any young kids don’t go

Outside at all when it’s that cold we try to make sure we stock up our firewood downstairs in the basement so we’re not having to open and close the door to trck In and Out to have the furnace going um what else do we do Dan is

Actually going to be picking up some new board games today so that we have something to do over the weekend when it’s too cold for the kids to be going outside so there’s lots of video games and board games and movies and reading and all that kind of stuff that happens

Cuz you just don’t go outside when it’s that cold so I’m going to go grab some gloves a tuque and a jacket and I’ll be right back let’s start with Miss Maple he sweet girl such a good girl our livestock Guardian dogs are Great Pyrenees and Pyrenees are really well adapted to cold

Temperatures in fact they prefer cold weather they do not like it when it’s hot they actually struggle more and are more at risk of any health issues if it is is hot outside than when it’s cold that being said when it gets really cold I make them come in the house and I

Literally have to force them uh they don’t like coming inside and so what we try to do is find a cool place for them to be snow is blowing right in my face uh a cooler place for them to be in the basement because they can overheat they

Have a double coat so a really thick insulative coat next to their skin and then a longer hairs on the top so they can can overheat really quickly one of the other options that we have for them if they get too hot in the house is to

Bring them in the shop over here we we also have a shop cat too so we have a wood stove and electric heat in here but for our shop cat Nala let’s see is she in here Nala no she’s gone out there’s a cat

Door so she can get in and out but we do have a heated bed over here behind the wood stove so it’s just a a heated bed that’s specifically designed for animals so it’s safe it’s not going to cause a fire or anything and then a blanket on top so

She can curl up on this as well to keep warm we also have a litter box in here for her as well so then it when when it gets really really cold outside she doesn’t have to go out there and freeze her little paws we have another little

Cat house I’ll put a picture on the screen here of what it looks like it’s up at the house unless I remember when we go back up there to show you Barn cats are are an essential integral part of having a homestead and so our livestock Guardian dogs at least in our

Setting where we have lots of wildlife around but uh because we are dealing with livestock and we have grain all over the place the rodents would get out of control the rats and the mice if we didn’t have cats but we of course want to make sure we provide them with warmth

When it’s really cold here we are at one of my favorite buildings this is the chicken cpop this old chicken CP was built in the 1930s give or take a few years we’re not entirely sure what its vintage is but it’s old it even has uh

Clay chinking in between the logs so the coupe itself is made out of log nice thick logs on the roof so it’s really warm in there I’ll take you in there in a second but we also have this outdoor covered run here they have a door that

Goes out to the outside pen as well but we keep that closed in the winter time but this way the animals can get outside they can get some fresh air and when the sun shines through here they can get a little bit of sunshine in the winter

Time but they don’t have to get their feet cold in the snow chickens do not like walking through the snow at least mine don’t and then in over here of the chicken C so you see we have a light here and this is just an LED

Bulb I don’t like putting heat lights or any type of light bulb that can get hot in a chicken Co because chicken coops are very very dusty I don’t know if you can see all the dust yeah you can very dusty places and that dust can accumulate on heat lights and start a

Fire it’s actually not uncommon at all for Barns and chicken coops to burn down because of heat lights so we don’t use them in our chicken coop but because it is so well insulated in here being log my chickens stay nice and toasty so there is this window over here I can see

That there is a need for a little bit more insul in the window but this window is usually open all the time unless it starts getting really cold like this and then we put feed bags over it and stuff it full of insulation just so that it

Keeps it a little bit warmer in here we do have ventilation in the chicken coup however because humidity is one of the main things that can actually harm chickens in chicken CS in the winter time they’re actually very well suited for cold weather when a chicken fluffs

Up their feathers in the winter time with their actually doing is collecting air that goes in underneath inside of their feathers and creates just a a little bit of an insulative barrier between their skin and the outside air which I’ve always thought was kind of cool but um we have really hearty breeds

Of chickens we have Bard rocks and Partridge Santa Clair’s and a couple of other mixed breeds and then we’ve been kind of creating our own Barnyard flock of chickens over the years and they are very hearty little chickens we also of course keep the nesting boxes full of

Fresh hay and then on the ground of both the run out here and the chicken cop we have a thick layer of wood shavings to keep the ground insulated for them but it’s funny cuz even though it’s a lot warmer in there most of the chickens hang out out

Here see you later Ladies as far as protecting the chickens in this kind of weather there’s a few things making sure that they are protected from drafts so cold drafts blowing on them at night that can definitely do them in when it’s this cold uh humidity so make sure you

Have ventilation in your chicken cpop it’s a bit tricky to do ventilation and no drafts at the same time but keep your ventilation uh holes in your roof or vents or whatever away from where their perch is allowing them to have some kind of undercovered area that they can get

Outside and get some fresh air if you can do that is fantastic and then of course changing out water all the time because even even with tank eaters which we have in all of our water tanks when it is as cold as it’s going to get here

They will freeze anyway regardless so we always at least three times a day will go and refresh the wat so that they always have some water to drink where should we go next let’s go see the sheepies the Sheep make me happy they’re just such beautiful lovely animals and I

Had mentioned in one of my videos a couple weeks ago that we just love sheep and they are non-aggressive what I had said in the videoos that they’re just non-aggressive and so sweet tempered and they don’t challenge fences and all these wonderful things and someone pointed out to me that Rams can actually

Be really dangerous and I have heard that but lucky for us our Ram is a gentleman and he has not tried to do anything harmful to anybody which is really good so this is one of my ladies here she’s just a sweet sweee aren’t you

And then my Ram is right there and he’s a love and then three more ladies in the back and all of these girls are breed cannot wait to have some Lambs I hope we get a couple of the darker ones like these ones hi heny as you can see these

Guys have covered area to stay protected with lots of thick bedding but the biggest advantage that these guys have going for them is those thick beautiful wool coats this kind of temperature is not going to fade these guys in the least uh when we get close to lamming

They are due to lamb at the end of February so it is potential that we’ll have cold weather and if that’s the case then these girls are going to go into the barn I want them to lamb in the barn anyway just because I can keep a close

Eye on them and they are all first timers except for one who ended up losing her calf her C or not her calf her lamb uh her lamb was still born last year so I want to keep a really close eye on on these ones for their first

Time we have an old horse so later on today we’re actually bringing her up to this area so that she can be in the undercovered area on the other side by where the Sheep are but she is almost 27 and just getting up there in the years

So we want to make sure that she has cover and unlimited access to feed okay I’m going to try to sneak up on my pigs here because as soon as they hear me they’re going to want to come out but I want you to see how they’re

Sleep so as you can see there’s two pigs in there the pigs burrow right underneath hay just like this and because this hay has been building up over the last couple of months it’s composting and underneath so when they get up out of there and it’s cold steam will just come

Out of there showing how nice and warm and toasty it is underneath so as long as they have protection from the snow falling on them and they’re under this big roof here but we have this extra board here just so that if the wind is

Blowing in the snow is not going to blow on them so it’s a little pig Nest I don’t even know where the other one is she’s really tucked in in there I can’t even see her so they will stay toasty warm and underneath there Heritage pigs

So they do have a little bit more fur than the regular pink pig you’re probably used to seeing but that’s not what actually keeps them warm in temperatures like this it’s the thick layer of fat that they have underneath their very thick hide that actually keeps them warm and then of course some

Type of extra protection from the elements like this big pile of hay here so that is the chickens the Sheep the pigs who else oh I have my rabbits in here so my rabbits are usually in rabbit tractors outside we have two pet rabbits and they are in this rabbit tractor

Inside of the barn so that they are really protected from the elements hello Mama that’s grandma rabbit she is six I think and then this is one of her babies from a few years ago the rabbits are kind of similar to Great Pyrenees from the perspective that they um are more in

Danger from heat than they are from the cold so really freezing temperatures uh you know -40 nothing really does well when it’s that cold but as far as regular kind of cold winter temperatures rabbits do just fine as long as they’re protected from the elements and they have good bedding so

Did I say this about feed earlier I can’t remember but one of the things that we do this time of year is to free feed all of our livestock so the chickens always get free uh fed free free fed but the pigs get fed twice a

Day but this time of year when it’s cold like this we free feed them because having an active digestive system when you’re cold actually helps to warm you up a little bit and there’s nothing worse than being cold and hungry at the same time we have some of my favorite

Animals this is Oreo he is not friendly at all he’s what he came out not really very interested in people hi buddy hello this is Miss Freya oh no somebody pooped in the lick bucket what the heck let me clean that out for you okay one of the cows pooped

In their lick tub so this is a protein lick tub and we put a protein lick tub out for our cows and our horses when it’s cold like this I’m not really sure if it helps but it is a little bit of added protein and they sure love it lots

Of molasses in there so I’m going to rinse that out for them but before I do that let’s just head down here quickly and I’ll show you what we do for feed cows and horses in the winter time always get free fed and we kind of go a

Little overboard when it comes to filling their baale feeders we usually will put two bales of hay in two feeders side by side so you can see there’s one here and there’s one over here and there’s a couple motivations for doing this we don’t have a huge herd eight

Nine nine I have nine uh but they like to lay down in this area with all the extra waste hay that they take out of the fa the feeders around each of the feeders and having two feeders allows us us to have enough of that packed nice

Area for sleeping um for all of our livestock our livestock also had the option of going up into this forested area here which provides them for with shelter and protection from the wind and this old girl over here this is our old girl Ivy that I was talking about so she

Is going to go up to beside the barn so the other thing that I am going to do where is she oh she’s up over here so I have a calf that was born 6 weeks ago and she hasn’t had an opportunity to grow a thick coat like all these other

Cows have here let me show you this girl this is Fern so this is Fern’s Mama right here and as you can see Fern is a fluffy butt hi Fern hi sweet girl how are you doing looks just like her mama don’t you but yeah she has a nice

Thick fuzzy coat whereas Miss Blossom over here doesn’t so I’m actually going to put Blossom and her mama who’s milkweed in the barn during this cold snap at night uh normally she gets separated from her mom at night and we milk in the morning but I want her to

Have access to her mom’s milk 24 hours a day when it’s really cold for the same reason we free feed our animals so this little one that’s Fern she’s being shy so this is the kind of heater tank heater that we have in our tanks we have one in the pig tank

Over there as well I find these ones just work better um over the long run than the floating ones even though the floating ones have the advantage of keeping an area open on the surface of the water tank they just break almost every time so anyways yes Little Miss

Blossom she’ll go in the barn at night with her mom because it’s a little bit warmer in the barn but they’re fully protected from the wind there and I just don’t think she’s going to be able to make it through -40 if she’s out exposed

To the L Ms number one kind of takeaways freef feeding them making sure that their water is checked regularly throughout the day we also do health checks so every time we go feel uh water bucket or feed them uh we always check to make sure everybody’s looking okay

And nobody’s struggling too much there’s been many a time that we have had a animal up in the house like a a pig or a chicken or a rabbit up in the house I think we even had a calf in the house once that was strugg in the cold

Weather so keeping a really close eye on them you can give them a little extra protein in their feed so you can give some scratch to chickens some um like our pigs get tons of household scraps they’re also being freef fed and then the protein Lick Lick tub for the

Cattles so I hope that you enjoyed this video everyone and I look forward to seeing you next time bye hey maple

22 Comments

  1. I really enjoyed the tour of your farm and seeing how well you care for the animals. I also learned a lot about how to cure bacon. I don’t know how you find the time to do all you do and film it. I’m going to stop procrastinating now and edit some video. 🙂

  2. We had a female husky that LOVED the cold. It would be snowing or so cold you couldn't stand even being out in it, BUT she loved it!! We had to make her come inside!! Sure miss her!

  3. I too was caring for an old mare up until Sept 2023 where I had to make the difficult decision to euthanize her. Little did I know we were going to have such a mild winter. As good as she was still doing, I went through a divorce and we sold the acreage. With not being able to keep a close eye on her over winter, I chose to put her down. She would have been 33 this May. So the reason for this message is to let you know of an option for your old horse should arthritis or pain be a factor. I was giving my mare 3ml of CBD Oil twice a day. I found a reasonable place to purchase the CBD Isolate and I made my own oil using MCT Oil. She was very good at hiding her pain and for the last 4 years I have been dealing with a condition called sleep crashing as well. NOT FUN!! I used to jump with her in both our younger years and so although she was good at hiding it, I am sure she had pain at 33 years old and I had no problem giving her the CBD Oil for the remainder of her life. If you are interested in further info on this let me know. Thanks for the fun vid!

  4. One difference between the UK and Canada/US is that you "hot smoke" and actually cook your bacon when you smoke it. Our store bought bacon is "cold smoked" and the bacon is still raw, but with a smoky flavour.
    It's probably because we don't have the history of home curing that you have. "Hot smoked" is safer and easier to store without refrigeration.

  5. Thank you for such an informative video! Not sure if you’ll see this but be careful about sharpening your knife over food.. it can let off tiny metal shards which are now in your food. You should also rinse and wipe off your knife blade after sharpening to get rid of all the particles.

  6. Great amount of bacon. I am monitoring various outside storage areas this winter to determine what might be the best non-refrigeration based curing.

  7. If your ever wanting to try out feed for your pigs/cows/chickens/sheep that are soy and corn free feel free to look us up we are near lone butte. Fh farm and feed 🙂 would love to help you out if it works for you 🙂
    Been following you since you only had 3k subscribers!

  8. You are lucky to be able to feed your pigs and chickens kitchen scraps in the UK we are not allowed . If the fruit and veg has been in the kitchen it can not go to the animals.Because of foot and mouth. Have your feed bills gone up in price I have sheep cows pigs on and off chickens ,geese,and ducks and not forgetting a hive of bees. I go to the feed shop twice a week and its round about £150 per week. Hay is now £6.25 per small hay. Keep up the good work love the videos.

  9. @Little Mountain Ranch
    For your plastic sprout covers, instead of cutting the plastic for venting; use a soldering iron to burn holes and this will prevent splitting or breaking.

  10. Love all your cooking. They are a great difference from my cooking in the south. I have tried several of your recipes and love them.

Write A Comment

Pin