1 pound ground 85% grass fed beef

1 pound ground organic pork

1-2 Tablespoons Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce

1-2 Tablespoons Lea & Perrins Thick Worcestershire Sauce

Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning (we use the lower salt version)

Grill Mates Fiery 5 Pepper Seasoning

Using your hands mix the pork, beef, Worchestershire, and Sriracha in a large bowl. You want the pork and beef to be throughly combined but don’t overdo it.

Gently shape the combined meat into patties about 4 1/2″ across x 5/8″ thick.

Sprinkle one side of the patties with Montreal Steak Seasoning, pat it in slightly so it will stick. Flip and sprinkle the other side the Fiery 5 Pepper and pat to help it stick.

Let them sit for a few minutes while you fire up the grill. With a gas or electric grill you want it on high with the cover on for ten minutes before adding the burgers. With a charcoal grill you should have started about an hour ago. Either way you want the grill temperature to be 450 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit for good exterior browning. Oil the grill grate with an oil soaked paper towel held with tongs.

I have made this recipe successfully indoors using a large well seasoned cast iron pan (See this post!) The pan should be hot and well oiled. You will probably need to cook in two batches in a pan. Clean the pan between batches for best results on the second batch.

Place the burgers on the grill grate Montreal Steak Side down. I don’t know why this works better but it does. When juices start to seep out on the top side you can turn. This should be at about four minutes if the grill is hot enough. The patties should have released from the grate. Don’t move the patties from where you set them down until they are ready to turn. The first side needs to be down until it starts to get a nice brown crust. Do not squeeze the burgers with your spatula while they are cooking, you are literally squeezing out the flavor.

After four minutes on the second side you can remove the burgers from the grill. Let them sit on your serving platter for at least five minutes before you cut into them. If you cut them too soon all the juices will run out taking away flavor and juiciness. Allowing them to sit allows the interior to finish cooking and the juices to fully reabsorb for a full flavored juicy burger.

You could serve them on a nice toasted sourdough bun with some thinly sliced raw onion. I can never be bothered. They taste so good I just eat them straight with a fork. I like them with a nice side dish of steamed or grilled vegetables like asparagus or broccoli. Skipping the bun and adding a side of lentils makes this a valid slow carb diet meal.

Notes on Sourcing of ingredients.

We buy our beef from Trader Joes and our pork from a local farm near Charlotte called Grateful Growers. Sriracha can be found in the Asian section of a grocery store or any Asian grocery store. The Thick Worcestershire and McCormick Grill Mates spice mixes should be available in any grocery store as well. We often make our own low salt spice mixes, but I wanted this to be easy for anyone to put together.

I cannot emphasize the importance of the quality of the beef and pork. Grass fed beef is completely different nutritionally than grain finished cow lot beef. The fat content is not the problem, it is the chemicals and hormones that causes you body to react differently to the fat. Don’t skimp and buy the off brand Worcestershire either, your taste buds will know.

Heat the glass or mug with hot water.

Add the vanilla syrup to the heavy whipping cream. Whip the heavy whipping cream by hand or in a blender till it is solid, but not frothy.

Use 1 cup piping hot coffee, we use cold brew coffee heated in the microwave until steaming but not boiling. The better the coffee, the better the finished product. Don’t skimp.

Empty the preheated water from the glass or mug.

Pour in the hot coffee gently.

Stir in 2-3 teaspoons of raw sugar.

Gently add 2 oz Bourbon. Use 3 oz if the relatives are really getting on your nerves. We recommend Booker’s or Prichard’s Double Barreled. Go all out on the quality of the Bourbon, it makes a huge difference in the final product.

Add the whipped cream. I like to stir in about two thirds and let the other third rest on the top.

This recipe makes enough for two.

Enjoy!

Happy Holidays from Kevin and Natalie.

I have an upright electric smoker with two grill grates and two pans. This recipe is based on that smoker but should be adaptable to other models.

Total preparation time roughly 4.5 hours including soaking the wood chips. Total cooking time about 2.5 hours including 25 minutes in paper bag.

Needed Ingredients

1 rack of spare ribs

1.5 to 2 oz of spice rub

1/2 cup of dry vermouth

double handful of hickory wood chips or chunks

Needed Equipment

Smoker, a sheet of food grade plastic,  a large paper grocery bag, a basting brush, a sharp knife, and long tongs.

Step 1 Soak wood chips: I do this in the pan from the smoker and use hickory chunks. I sometimes add fruit wood like apple or cherry. I save and dry any wood pruned from fruit trees for this purpose. I soak for a minimum of two hours turning the wood periodically.

Step 2  Prepare the ribs: I use spare ribs sourced from a local organic farmer. Spare ribs have far more meat than baby back ribs which are often trimmed too close by butchers trying to maximize other more expensive cuts. Remove the membrane from the bony side by slipping a butter knife under it along the center bone. Lift gently until you can work you fingers underneath and pull it off first in one direction and then the other. Cut the rack into two roughly equal sections. Keep in mind the area available in your smoker and slice alongside one of the bones to separate.

Step 3 Apply the spice rub: Pat the ribs dry with a paper towel and then work a generous amount of spice rub into both sides of the ribs. I have used rubs intended for fish and chicken as well as those intended for pork. The rub does need to be fairly aggressive to compete with the smoke, anything with a hot pepper component should work. Some of our favorite mixes have been tequila lime and a sweet chipotle, but experiment to find what works for you. I often make my own spice rubs but don’t be afraid to use a prepackaged one, just check the ingredients and make sure it isn’t mostly salt or contains ingredients you can’t pronounce. I like to work on a sheet of plastic so that the spices which fall off can be reapplied. I then wrap everything up in the sheet of plastic and either refrigerate or just leave them at room temperature depending on how long I need to get the smoker going.

Step 4 Start the smoker and add the ribs: I get the smoker going and add the ribs as soon as it begins to smoke. Place the ribs so that the two sections do not touch the sides or each other, bone side down. You want the smoker to be at 225-250 degrees.

Step 5 Baste with alcohol and turn: At about 45 minutes generously cover the meaty side with a sprinkle of alcohol. I like to use dry vermouth which we keep on hand as a substitute for white wine in recipes. Rum, bourbon, and tequila could also be excellent choices. As with any recipe using alcohol, use something you would be willing to drink. Substandard liquor has off flavors which will carry over to the finished product. Turn the ribs and baste the bone side as well. I use a small basting brush to sprinkle vermouth onto the ribs. To minimize the amount of time with the smoker open one person can baste while the other turns. Repeat the basting in another 45 minutes.  At the second turn take a good look at the ribs. If the ribs are are a crusty brown and the meat is starting to pull away from the ends of the bones you are almost there. Let them cook for another 15-20 minutes and remove to a plate. Please note your exact cooking times will vary depending on your smoker, elevation above sea level, and current outdoor temperatures. The times I give are guidelines.

Step 6: : Immediately place the plate inside a large paper grocery bag, fold the open end to keep it shut and let the ribs sit for as long as you can stand it or 25  minutes. The ribs will come out of the bag in the fall off the bone state everyone craves and still quite warm and ready to eat. Slice the ribs apart and enjoy!

Since sensationalized stories about aggressive bees seem to be hitting the news lately, I thought it would be a good idea to post about dealing with an aggressive hive. The first step is to do nothing. Refer to the previous post about observation and management. Maybe the “Mean Hive” is all in your head. Then come back and read the rest of this post.

So I have an aggressive hive and I need to do something about it. I am zen calm when I open them up under ideal conditions and they are still very defensive when I open the hive. Perhaps I have guards and field bees “protecting” the hive out to a unreasonable distance. The answer is requeening.

Requeening changes hive behavior several ways. The new queen introduces new (theoretically less aggressive) genes. Over time, the newly hatched workers replace the older more aggressive ones and the hive calms down.

Just having a new queen can calm a hive down if they are without a queen or if you have deliberately killed the existing queen, perhaps because it refocuses the hive on survival rather than defense. Queen replacement is always a precarious moment in the survival of the hive even when initiated by the hive.

Just killing a queen could end up killing the hive. Not to mention, the hive is going to be very cranky till it has a new queen. To requeen itself, the hive needs fresh eggs that can be re-purposed to make an emergency queen. Emergency queens are weaker in many ways than born queens and you should avoid having one if you can.

The best solution is to bring in queen cells from another natural hive which will hatch out into a born replacement. This means that most deliberate requeening should be in the spring when you have a supply of replacement queens from your own hives or other local natural beekeepers. The hive will not calm down until the queen hatches out, but things should improve rapidly at that point.

You could also separate a frame with queen cells into a nuc and let them form a small new hive that can be combined with the aggressive hive when you are ready. Once the new queen hatches and is producing brood, you kill the old queen and combine the hives by placing the new box on top separated by a sheet of newspaper. The bees will remove the newspaper but it takes a while and they should be adapted to the smell of the introduced workers and queen by the time the groups can begin to mix.

Bringing in mail order queens should be your last resort. They are not adapted for your environment and you may be introducing the very aggressive genes you are trying to avoid. Keep in mind most commercial queen breeders are in southern states that have at least some permanent Africanized Bee presence.

Some tips on handling an aggressive hive or cut out. Many of these come from areas of Latin America where Africanized bees are what the beekeepers manage in their hives. Also, check out the excellent advice from Bush Bees (one of the oldest links in our resources page).

• Wear as much white as possible. Hive predators like bears and skunks tend to be dark. Avoid looking like a predator.
• Get a white mesh veil instead of a black mesh one, aggressive workers can cover a dark veil to the point where it is hard to see out of your veil. The white mesh minimizes this response.
• Break the hive into separate boxes as far apart as possible and requeen each one, or combine the queenless ones with calm hives using a newspaper combine.
• Do things in stages, over multiple days if necessary. Do not let yourself be is a position of having to rush. If the hive gets too hot to handle, break off and come back another day.
• Leave an empty box on the original hive site to gather up loose workers and field bees, do a newspaper combine with this box and an existing hive or nuc to integrate the most aggressive component of the original hive into a calm hive.
• Try a sugar water or kombucha misting spray instead of smoking the hive. Misted bees are busy cleaning and grooming instead of harassing you. Try this first on a normal hive if you haven’t tried it before. You might decide to get rid of your smoker.

First off, if you are in doubt, do nothing. You can’t make the bees do anything. What you can do is provide an environment which will encourage them to behave in a way that meets both your goals and theirs. Try not to forget they will always try to meet their own goals first. Stop messing with them while they are trying to do it. Stop trying to stimulate them to produce brood when current conditions don’t suport it. Stop trying to prevent them from swarming. Stop trying to run things by the beekeeper agenda rather than the bee agenda. You and the bees will be much happier and more productive.

Sit and watch the hive over several days before opening it up. Natalie has spent so much time watching the hive, casually and actively, that many times she’ll spot irregular behavior (like an pending swarm) before I will. This happen because she loves to watch the hives from her studio window. If the hive is busy, they are probably doing fine. If you do need to open them, it might just be to add another box. Hives with a top entrance seem to be bothered less by being opened up. My theory is that airflow doesn’t change as dramatically. Adding a box to a top entrance hive could take less than five minutes including pulling up a couple of full frames to serves as guides in the new box.

If your area is prone to a particular pest or disease, the best thing you can do to protect the bees is help them stay strong. This means leaving them plenty of honey stores, keeping chemicals away from the hive and rotating out old wax so the bees can build fresh natural comb. Feeding sugar promotes disease. Chemicals reduce fertility and hurt the bees as much or more than the pests or diseases they supposedly prevent or cure. Contaminated wax promotes disease, reduces fertility and damages the bee’s long term survival prospects. When I say chemicals I also mean so called medications. Medications have no place in a healthy hive with natural comb.

It can be useful to move frames within the hive or between hives. Keeping all boxes the same depth (all mediums) supports this. You might want to shift brood into a super to draw bees into a new box they have been hesitant to enter. Or possibly bring in brood from another hive to allow the bees to requeen. Maybe you’d like to open up the brood chamber to encourage the bees to focus on expansion rather than swarming. Sliding empty frames between full frames encourages the bees to keep it straight as the hive draws new comb. These options for hive management are only available if all boxes are the same depth. Forget the deeps. Go for medium boxes. Easier to handle all around and will save you expensive back repair long term.*

Don’t waste time hunting for the queen. Sure it is nice if you spot her, great for a photo op or to show a new beekeeper you are mentoring. But the hive is open longer and disrupted more. Look for brood, Look for eggs. If you have brood, you have a queen. Keep going. Keep your time in the hive to a minimum. Do only what you need to do and get out of there.

Stay calm. I cannot overstate this. If you are calm, then the bees will be calm. Zen beekeeper equals zen bees. The bees react to pheromones. If you are fearful, they can smell it. If you are calm and focused, so are they. The best advice I can give you is to bring someone else along. If you are focused on showing them the bees, you will forget to be nervous yourself. If they can stand just a few feet behind the hive without a suit and veil, then everything is great. If they are getting buzzed, then you are upsetting the bees and need to try again another day. The bees will warn you. They will ram your veil if they are irritated. If they are irritated, back off and try another day.

I don’t have a suit. I tuck my jeans into my socks, wear a white long sleeve shirt, my bee gloves, and my veil. Sometimes I only wear one glove, especially if doing something fussy. If I had short hair I might be able to do without the veil but they get tangled in my hair if I don’t wear it.

Choose your day to open the hive. It should be sunny. There should be very little to no wind. It should be fairly warm, too warm for the long sleeves and jeans. If most of the bees are out gathering honey and pollen, there are fewer bees to cope with during your inspection. The field bees tend to be the most agressive component of the hive. I like late afternoon because I am not disrupting the hive during the most productive part of the day. I get the smoker going in the shade before suiting up. I don’t want to spend any longer in the full outfit than necessary. If it is too hot for the outfit, it might be too hot to mess with the hive anyway. Disrupting the temperature controls of the hive can be a disaster if it is too hot or too cold out when you open the hive.

The best proof of all this I can give you is the so called “mean hive”. Every beekeeper I have ever known has a mean hive story. This hive will sting at the drop of the hat, but always produces loads of honey. Mostly because the beekeeper stays away from them and lets them do their thing. They also probably have a stronger reaction to the beekeeper than other hives because the beekeeper “knows” they are mean and is nervous when dealing with them. This becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Deal with the hive on a different day than other hives in the same yard. Try not to open more than two hives a visit unless everything is just going swimmingly. This would never work in a commercial operation, but you are not in this for the money, so what is your hurry? Maybe the mean hive is all in your head. If it really is mean, requeen from a gentle hive. You don’t want a truly agressive hive in your backyard anyway.

More thoughts on natural hive management to come.

Incredible photo used with permission of Michael Azar a begining beekeeper who is a fan of Backyard Ecosystem.

*I think that the first place I ever saw going to all mediums suggested was Bush Bees. I have a link in the resources if you want to learn more from this excellent website.

I am going to make some very specific recommendations for your first hive and give you the reasoning for each part of it. What works (or lately doesn’t work so well) for a commercial migratory operation almost never makes sense for someone with a hive or two in their backyard.

The recommendations involve standard equipment that is easy to find, easy to assemble, and should last a long time.

1) Standard bottom board with the entrance reducer turned to the two bee width entrance. This provides an even foundation that rests on concrete blocks or bricks. You should level it very carefully side to side with a slight tilt toward the front to help move any water toward the entrance. The two bee entrance lets the bees guard the bottom entrance with minimum resources and keeps out rodents while serving as a drain if any water gets into the hive. The bottom entrance should be thought of as a service entrance, a place for the bees to take out the garbage.

2) Medium boxes so that any frame in any box can be changed out with any other frame in any hive. Being able to move resources around will help you resolve almost any issue that your hives might have. Medium boxes are relatively easy to lift even full of honey.

3) Top entrance made using either a migratory cover and shims or a telescoping cover with a homemade rest which has two positions to open up the entrance in summer and reduce it in winter. Either way you want an entrance that spans the entire front face of the hive. I discovered this almost accidentally with a nuc which had a very small entrance. I was worried it might be too hot and propped the lid open at the front lip with a stick. The bees love a top entrance.  The difference in the amount of foraging and the build up of resources inside the hive is obvious to even casual observation when you have two otherwise equal hives.

4) Foundationless frames with a bare wooden starter strip. If you want you can use a little wax in the groove to help hold the starter strip in place. Let the bees build on bare wood. Their attachment will be much stronger than to a melted wax coating. Foundation is made from old contaminated wax. If you use foundation you are not chemical free. Letting the bees draw their own wax is key to the future health of your hive. Harvesting older frames wax and all  is the best way to keep out any contaminates the workers bring into the hive.

5) No painting. Paint is just another chemical. Keep it away from your bees. Your equipment will last just a long as if it was painted since you won’t be chiseling and prying at it like a commercial migratory operation. I would also recommend using cypress boxes and covers if you live in a wet climate. I love the weathered look of unpainted hives after a few years exposed to the elements.

6) No Chemicals. I have talked about this extensively in other posts. If you are using anything in the hive you are not a natural beekeeper. Chemicals kill bees, either quickly or slowly, they have no place in your hive. In principal I am opposed to feeding the bees even sugar water. I have done it in the past and probably only succeeded in propping up a doomed hive a little longer

7) No Queen Excluder. Let the queen go where she needs to go in all seasons. Take frames of honey from where you find them, replace them with empty frames so the bees can draw fresh wax. Put frames of brood back in the hive as close to where you found them as possible. The bees probably put them there for a reason.

The next post will cover hive management practices that will work in harmony with this setup to keep both you and your bees happy.

Durning the course of our relationship, this was one of our only dietary struggles. I was raised to be very aware of what was in my food. No pre-mixed packages or ingredients, everything was made from scratch and very little pork because of the nitrates. Kevin loved pork, and honestly it really freaked me out. I would do nearly anything to get him not to buy pork. Eventually, we found a compromise and would always check the ingredients before we took something home. But there was still that nagging thought, what else is in that meat?

Eventually, as awareness grew, we started shifting more and more toward organic meats. We also became increasingly dependent on Whole Foods to supply them. But again, as time moved on and awareness grew, I became not quite comfortable with what they were providing. And then we moved.

Charlotte does not have Whole Foods and the grocery stores here have thrown us back 10 years in organics. Not even a smidgen of organic meat to be had. There are some “natural” grocery stores here, but half look just like Whole Foods and others are the real thing, but have very limited selections and are unbelievably expensive. So the hunt for meat began because I couldn’t go back to conventional. What I found has made me infinitely happier.

If you can’t grow your own, go to the source.

What I’ve found is that there are many independent growers all over the country who raise organic, grass fed beef, happy, healthy porkers and fowl for all your festive and every day occasions and you can buy directly from them. They sell in the same cuts or quantities you might get in your grocery store. The prices are comparable and there are a variety of delivery methods, from pick up at the farmers market, delivery to your home similar to door to door organics, as well as weekly pick up at a particular location. I even email our preferred pork provider to have them set aside what items I want to pick up so I know it will be there, and I’m not dependent on how slammed they are at the farmer’s market.

Here are some sites I’ve found which can help you search your area for those growers.

Eat Wild I’ve found to be the most helpful and it covers the country.

Eat Well Guide is more general and includes much more than meat. I haven’t used it too much, but it looks pretty good.

Some sites are also regional, such as Know Your Farms, so do a search for your area. As an example, this is an wonderful site. The organization even has an annual farm tour which I think would be interesting, especially for those with kids.

Most independent growers also have their own sites now, so do a search for what you’re interested in and your area. That’s how I found my pork people, Grateful Growers.

Don’t limit your thoughts. Think about eggs, quail, quail eggs, rabbit. We’ve even been able to find our prized heritage turkeys for the holidays. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, say buffalo, email a farmer on the list and ask them if they know of someone or who they would recommend. I did this with my favorite pork and fowl people and they were a wealth of information. Chances are if it’s there, they’ll know. Many things are possible and many different items are available. Broaden your horizons.

Most local growers have email newsletter they send out. This is one of those times when it pays to pay attention to the contents. The farmers will announce limited offerings, such as the turkeys, what farmers markets they participate in, local restaurants who source their products. They may not supply a detailed bio of the chicken you might be buying, but I’ll bet you could see his coup if you really wanted.

Another benefit from buying your meets like this is the obvious locovorism. The meat is really fresh, has a reduced carbon footprint because of it’s proximity to your area and you’re pumping money back into the local economy. Win win win in my mind.

In the end, if you are like I am and deeply care about what you’re putting in your body, don’t take some big chain’s word for it. Their word isn’t always that good. For example, Whole Foods, along with Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farm have caved in to Monsanto and have agreed to stop fighting the use of GMO crops which will endanger many supply chains, including beef, pork and poultry (learn more here). How can you have organic beef if they are eating GMO crops? In 2008, California filed a lawsuit against Whole Foods, among others, for not putting warning labels on organic hair care products which contained high levels of 1,4-Dioxane, a known carcinogen (learn more here). Sadly, what was once a staple in our daily lives is now tarnished, but I’m really grateful for the new options I’ve found and we’ll never go back.

Time to assemble!

What you need to get started that was not in the box with your bin.

• Newspaper for shredding and lining the bin.
• Eggshells
• A cup of finished compost or worm castings.
• Water
• A big tub or bucket to mix things in.
• Two cups of kitchen scraps.
• Worms

Lining the Base of the Tray

Line the bottom with newspaper

You’ll need to line the base of each tray with 3 or 4 sheets of dry newspaper. This keeps the contents of the tray in the bin while allowing excess moisture to drain. Since you’re likely starting out, you’ll only be working with one tray for now. Consider the amounts outlined in this post would be for that one tray.

Melting the Coir

The coir brick dissolves in water

Soak the coconut coir in about 3 quarts of  water until it breaks apart and is moist. Wring out any excess water. You want it to be throughly wet but not leaking water when you squeeze a handful.

Mixing

Mixing the damp coir and leaves

Mix the wet coir with 1 cup of finished compost or decayed leaf litter from beneath shrubs. You could also use worm castings from a working bin. Special note: No pine straw, what is visible in the photo are actually the stem component of the compound leaf structure on honey locust trees.

Adding the Eggshells

Adding egg shells

Add crushed eggshells. This is super important. It keeps the ph balance correct and provides fine bits of grit for the worms to use as teeth in their gizzard. Smaller bits are better but you are not powdering it. Just crush up dry eggshells with your hands and add to the mix.

Adding Prepackaged Paper

Add prepackaged paper mix

Mix in the prepackaged shredded newspaper mix. Note that the mix had more than just newsprint but also cardboard and office paper. I will talk about this more in the next post where I give you an alternate method of creating the bedding mix, but for now take note that the variety is beneficial. When this is throughly mixed it is time to check the moisture content. The bedding should be moist but you should not be able to squeeze excess water from a handful. It should feel like a wrung out sponge. Too wet and the worms will drown. Too dry and the worms will be unhappy or even dehydrate.

Add Bedding to the Tray

Adding the bedding mixture

Add your bedding mix to the tray.

All the Bedding is in Place

Bedding material

The bedding should be several inches deep and cover the bottom of the tray.

Adding Food to the Tray

Adding the first greens

Place 2 handfuls (about 2 cups) of food scraps in one corner. The more squishy and yucky the food, the more the worms will like it. Freezing and thawing the scraps will help break them down.

To avoid problems with pests and smells feed the worms a vegetarian diet: Avoid meat, oil, or dairy. To keep the worms happy: Avoid the onion family, citrus, or hot peppers.

Cover the Food

Covering the greens

Cover the food with some of the bedding.

How to Shred Newpaper the Easy Way Step One

Ripping newspaper the easy way

Remove any glossy inserts from the newspaper, coloured inks on newsprint is fine, it is the ink used on the slick feeling pages that is a problem.

Holding the newspaper by the spine fold, tear strips about two fingers (an inch and a half) wide. If you tear in any other direction you will not get strips.

Easy Way Step Two

Now rip down the length of strips

When you have several strips you can tear into squares by now tearing across the strips. If you have a chance to plan ahead, you can do this a bit at a time as it will tire your fingers if you are not used to it.

Completed Squares

Newspaper squares

Covering the Bedding With Shredded Newspaper

Newspaper squares

Add 2-3 inches of dry shredded newspaper to almost fill the bin. This will insulate, wick up excess moisture, and help prevent fruit flies and other pests.

Covering With Wet Newspaper Sheets

Covering with wet newspaper

Cover everything with 3 or 4 sheets of wet newspaper. Place the lid on your tray. You are now ready for worms.

Buying Worms

Adding in the Worms

Worms! You can find them online, your local garden shop, or bait shop. You best bet is via craigslist or a friend who has an operating bin. Ideally, you want worms and castings from a mature bin.

If you are purchasing worms you want worms at all stages of the lifecycle: adults, juveniles as well as worm castings which contain the eggs. The best source is an active worm bin which is at the far end of the cycle and is almost completely castings and worms. Buying adults only from a bait shop will work, but will put you weeks or even months behind while waiting for the next generation to come along. You also have no idea what the bait shop worms have been exposed to in the way of pesticides and chemicals and in most cases the owner of the shop doesn’t know either.

The worm supplier you buy from should offer a worm starter kit that includes bedding and castings. Buying from suppliers who are selling adults only by the pound will result in a slower start to your bin. Adults only may also result in dead or nearly dead worms if they are shipped when it is too cold or too hot. Bedding and castings will help insure their survival by adding a certain amount of insulation.

Time to Add Worms

Add the worms to the bin by lifting the lid and peeling back the moist newspaper, pull aside the dry shredded newpaper layer and add the worms to the center of the tray along with any bedding that came with them. Recover with the dry shredded newspaper and the wet sheets. Replace the lid.

Now what do I do?

Leave them alone for at least a week. When the worms have consumed most of the food you added to the corner of the tray you can add another 2 cups to another corner.

Feeding

Be patient. The most common mistake with new worm bins is overfeeding. It will end in tears and a hell of a lot of fruit flies. Make sure the worms have consumed the majority of the previous feeding before adding more. This may take more than a week between feedings. As the worm population stabilizes you will be able to shorten this time. Freezing and fully thawing what you plan to feed them will help break it down and make  it easier for the worms to process quickly. Food added to the bin should be room temperature.

You can add coffee grounds and crushed eggshells along with the food. Both help stabilize the environment in the bin. You should not need to add water to the bin. The food should bring in more than enough moisture.

There is lots of great stuff in the instruction booklet that comes with the bin. Take the time to read it before setting up the bin.

You will learn about alternate bedding mix, and more tips, and in Part III.

Personality wise, goats are like a cross between a dog and a cat. They love to be stroked, pet, scratched – especially scratched, and can be trained to walk on a lead, carry packs, or pull carts. Much like the feline, they will possibly come when called, but don’t hold your breath. They demand attention, get jealous if another herd member is getting more love than they are, and make human-like screams when in pain or afraid. They will sit in your lap, nibble your shoe laces, eat from your hand, and sometimes give kisses. They are intensely independent and curious, to the point of being naughty. They will exploit any weakness in a fence if it will gain them access to better forage or allow them a larger area to explore. They are smart and crafty, verging on wily. The job of a goat owner is to stay one step ahead of her caprine friends. Challenging? That would be an understatement. Rewarding? You betchya!

So how the heck does one raise a goat in a city, let alone the country? Sheesh! With a little work, problem solving, innovation, determination, and staying on one’s toes, goats make lovely backyard companions. If you are considering taking the caprine plunge, here are a few things to consider.

1. Is it legal to own goats in a city?

Before diving in, find out whether or not your city allows goats. Municode is a fabulous online resource for researching your city’s codes.

If you find it’s not legal, change the law like the folks in Seattle, Denver, and Kansas City have done or are attempting to do. Goats make great backyard pets as they are relatively quiet, don’t smell (only bucks stink and you wouldn’t want to keep one of them in the city anyway), don’t bite, their manure can be used as compost (unlike a dog’s), and they can demolish your weeds.

2. Do I have enough room for goats?

That’s right, I said goats, plural. These guys are herd animals. To just keep one would be cruel. However, if you can find a wee goat fresh from her mama’s teats, you might be able to get your golden retriever and her to make friends. I wouldn’t bank on that so I would say it’s best to go with two goats, at the least.

There are two sizes of goats, miniature and standard size breeds. Miniatures require 135 square feet of roaming space. A standard goat would need twice that, which would probably be more feasible in a suburban backyard. With the 1000 square feet we have in our San Francisco backyard, standard sized breeds are out of the question.

3. Goats need daily care and adequate shelter.

Contrary to popular belief, goats will not eat anything. Stick some meat or cheese under a goat’s nose and she will turned her head in disgust. Don’t even think about picking something off of the ground and offering it to her. Your gift will surely be rebuffed. And once and for all, goats don’t eat cans. They might taste one, but they won’t actually eat it.

Goats are ruminants, intended to digest the cellulose of plant fibers. Thus plants should be the basis of their diet. Goats are mostly browsers, but you probably won’t have enough fresh and dry forage in your backyard to cover all of their dietary needs. We feed our goats alfalfa and/or orchard grass for the dry. If you have a wether (castrated male), don’t feed alfalfa as the high calcium can cause urinary problems. To a lesser degree we offer the goats fresh things like weeds, raw veggie scraps, and tree branches for the leaves. Green things can potentially cause bloating of the rumen, which can be deadly, so always keep some baking soda out. The goats will eat it if they need to neutralize their stomachs.

Goats should also be fed a ration of grains twice a day in order to ensure adequate nutrition. This should be available from your local feed store. If you have a lactating goat or doe in her later stages of pregnancy, you need to make sure that her feed is at least 16% protein. Of course, fresh water should be available at all times.

Goats have high mineral needs, especially for copper. They need to always have access to minerals, either loose or as a compressed brick salt lick. Watch for high salt contents since that can deter the goats from taking in enough minerals as they will stop consuming when they feel they have gotten enough salt. Do not be tempted to buy something that is labeled for both goats and sheep. Copper is toxic to sheep so these products will be useless. Goats must have copper, as I recently discovered when one of my goat’s coats started to go gray and dull – a sign of mineral deficiency, particularly copper. We now give our goats copper boluses twice a year along with their minerals. On the other hand, too much copper is toxic. Do your research on how much copper your goat will need and administer accordingly.

Every six weeks, hooves need to be clipped. Twice a year, goats should be de-wormed. And once a year, you will need to update their tetanus shots.

As for shelter, goats require something that will keep them dry and out of the wind. We use dog igloos, but any small draft free structure will work. It’s also nice to have a dry area for the animals to roam around on rainy days. We’ve put up clear corrugated roofing over a portion of their pen.

Life expectancy for goats is around 15-18 years. Figure they will be around as long as human children usually live in their parents’ homes.

4. Goats need to give birth in order to produce milk.

I know this might come as a shock to some of you, but don’t feel silly that you didn’t know. Time and time again, overly educated adults, some even mothers themselves, have asked me how I got my goat to produce milk. Mothers, people! This goes to show exactly how far we have been removed from food production. We can’t even recall that goats, like all mammals, must have offspring in order to lactate.

Now that we’ve all reached that little epiphany, let’s move on to reproduction in an urban environment. First you will need a buck to impregnate your goat. Unless you have a large property, I wouldn’t recommend bringing the buck to your little urban homestead. You may be wondering why you couldn’t have a male and female goat pair to make babies. Well, I’ll tell you; bucks smell. Really, really, really strong. They also pee on their faces in order to woo their women. I’m not kidding. Apparently, it drives the ladies wild. (Attention human men, I am certain this only works for goats. Don’t even think about trying it. I guarantee poor results.) We send our does off to the country, where the odiferous buck is of no offense, for a six week romantic get away, otherwise known as a stud service. For $50-75, our does receive room and board and all the lovin’ they can handle. They come back to us pregnant and five months later give birth on the urban farm.

This leads us to the space constraints of dairying in the city. Once the doe kids, those babies grow faster than a bean sprout. Suddenly, your little herd of two has turned into a gaggle of four or five. Though those little fluffy critters are cute enough to make you puke, you live on a plot the size of a postage stamp. Where are you going to put these new additions? Most likely, you won’t have room for more goat friends. Good quality dairy does are highly marketable, if you can find a buyer in your area. Therein lies the rub. Goat rearing in the city is kind of like a pyramid scheme. You need to keep finding people willing to purchase the goat babies to keep yourself in milk. Oh by the way, did I mention that goats only produce milk for about 10 months? After that, they will need to be “freshened” (impregnated) in order to give milk again, which means more babies to find homes for.

And then there are the males. The livestock world is cold to the men of the species. Since it takes very few males to impregnate lots of females, breeding bucks are kept very selectively. Most males are either wethered to be companions for other goats or slaughtered for meat. You will have a 50/50 chance of having male offspring so you need to figure out what you are going to do with them after they arrive. Could you butcher your own animals? Would you be able to find a buyer locally? On Craigslist? Are there farmers outside of your city that might purchase a goat or two? Be honest with yourself. Sending the offspring to a local shelter so that you can make chevre from your own animals would be irresponsible animal ownership, not to mention it would give the rest of us urban goat owners a bad name.

5. Milking goats is a daily job.

When your doe is lactating, she must be milked every day. Every day. Twice a day for standard sized breeds (I only milk my miniatures once a day). This means if you go on vacation, somebody needs to do the milking for you otherwise your doe will dry up and you will be milkless until the next breeding cycle. Make friends with goats’ milk lovers. You can probably train them to do the milking while you are out of town in exchange for all the goat milk they can drink. This type of trade has worked well for me.

6. The key to raising urban goats is adequate fencing.

In a rural area, setting up a goat pen and small barn is pretty straight forward. Urban areas can pose more challenges, particularly around legal code issues. Most cities have restrictions around how close animals can be to dwellings. San Francisco requires that animals be kept at least 20 feet from any door or window. Find an area of your yard where you can contain the goats legally, and yet allow for enough roaming space to keep the gals happy.

Miniature goats need a minimum of four foot high fencing to adequately contain them. For standard goats you would probably want to go with five feet. We use redwood fencing in some areas and wire field fencing in others. Goats love to gnaw on wood (not severely) so plan to replace wooden fences after a few years. Some people use electric fencing, but city’s often have rules about that so make sure you know what you can and can’t use. There are a wide variety of materials that will make good, strong fences, just remember that goats are escape artists. Gaps, spaces, or holes in fencing larger than 4”x4” could have you chasing small goat kids down all day long. Thin wire will be rubbed against and bent down until the goat can leap over it. Play it safe and build secure fences before your goats arrive.

7. Be good to your neighbors.

In a city, you live so close to your neighbors that you can practically spit on them. Don’t. If you want to have your animals without raising the hackles of the folks on your block, keep things clean and tidy. Keep your manure shoveled and compost tumbling to prevent stinky anaerobic activity. Use lime or enzymatic products like Roebic to control urine odors. Keep flies and vermin in check. Nobody wants to live next to a dump. Don’t let your property become one.

8. Disbudding and castrating are necessary evils.

Goats have horns. In small spaces, you do not want a goat with horns. Not only could she injure you or a child (god forbid), but she could seriously harm another goat, dog, or herself. Horns can break off during aggressive play or attempted escape artistry and as the horn is alive, there is a vein inside that if broken can cause the goat to bleed to death.

The most effective way to stop horns from growing is disbudding, which entails shoving a two week old baby in a small box so they can’t move and pressing a special hot iron into their skulls until it burns the horn bud off. This is as painful as it sounds. Disbudding irons are pricey and the process is ugly, so I take my kids to the vet to have it done. I’m a total wimp when it comes to inflicting pain on baby creatures, though I am sure that I will eventually take it on since having the vet do it is expensive too.

Castrating males isn’t as bad, though there is a lot of controversy around which method to use. Like I said before, male goats are not cut out for city life due to their unique smell. They can also be aggressive. If you decide to wether your goat, at around eight weeks you want to either band the testicles with these thick rubber band thingies (available at feed stores) which cut off blood supply to the testicles, or use something like the Burdizzo to squash the blood vessels.

There you have it: the basics of raising goats in the city. There are a lot of issues to take into consideration when thinking about owning goats. It is a serious commitment. Will goats become as popular as the backyard chicken? If my ability to find buyers for the babies that we produce here at Itty Bitty Farm in the City is any indication, the answer is most assuredly no.  Yet I hope that all the work involved doesn’t dissuade folks from considering them as potential pets. Producing your own milk from animals that you have direct care over is more rewarding than you can imagine. It’s worth the effort and reminds us of how grateful we should be to those who produce our food.

For more detailed information on raising goats check out Gail Damerow’s book Your Goats (geared towards kids, but a great book for beginners) and Storey’s Guide to Raising Dairy Goats. My hands down go to source for all things goat is the Fias Co Farm. This site has some of the most extensive information on raising goats out there on the web, including a lengthy list of plants, shrubs, and trees that are poisonous to goats.