All is quiet in the barn at Rambling Vewe Farm in Gilford, until farm manager Jeff Keyser walks in with a pail full of milk sprouting multiple tubes with rubber nipples.
Suddenly, the air erupts with the sounds of tiny, impatient bleats from a cluster of orphaned lambs in pens separate from the herd. Their mothers didn’t want them for some reason, Keyser explains as he picks a wiggling ram, so it’s up to him to feed them until they grow a little more.
The lambs are a little baa-shful when it comes to the bucket, but once they figure out it’s where the food is at, they latch on.
“There he goes,” Keyser chuckles as one kneels down, stumpy tail wiggling.
A similar tableau will soon play out at Osborne’s Agway stores around the state, but with smaller, fluffier charges. Agway co-owner Tom Osborne said chicks will be arriving in dozens about April 6, and store patrons will be treated to the sight of baby Golden Comets and New Hampshire Reds milling about under a heat lamp. Still in their fuzz, the sound of their minute peeps will fill the store, he said.
There’s no doubt cute baby animals are a sure sign of spring: As buds unfurl on the trees and grass pokes its way through the snow, it’s not uncommon to see newborn farm animals frolicking about. But as backyard farming becomes more popular, it’s important to remember the amount of work that goes into taking care of a wobbly-kneed lamb or a chick still in its downy fluff – and to remember those cuddly critters won’t stay small forever.
Keyser started thinking about this crop of lambs last summer as part of his meat market. He’s got about 20 so far, a smaller herd than the 50 or 60 lambs he usually has at this time of year. Many lambs didn’t make it, however, and he’s not entirely sure why. Part of it, he thinks, may be a bacterial infection from last year’s hay that doesn’t make the mother look sick but affects the fetus. The feed wasn’t as good due to the dry weather, he said.
Most of Keyser’s lambs were born in February in the barn, away from the cold. He tries to time them so they’ll be a good 50 to 70 pounds when Easter rolls around. That’s when the Greek Orthodox community looks to buy lamb to celebrate the holiday, Keyser said, and those customers are typically his biggest market.
It might be hard to imagine those cute little lambs as someone’s dinner, but Keyser’s been raising sheep since he was nine – and to him, sheep are here for a purpose, whether it’s wool, cheese or meat.
“They’re not pets,” he said, “and you wouldn’t have them if it wasn’t for a purpose. … You either deal with that or you don’t.”
Joyce Keyser, Jeff’s wife, admitted it can be hard to not get attached to the lambs, especially when they end up in your kitchen for some extra love and care. She wishes they could build more of a breeding market, but it’s a difficult market to break into, she said.
But the Keyser’s are also big on educating the public about where their food comes from. In September, the barn is filled with the sounds of local schoolchildren who get the chance to feed the sheep and see where wool comes from with a shearing demonstration.
“It’s amazing, to see it click for them: ‘Oh, that’s where my clothes come from,’ ” Joyce Keyser said.
For Tom Osborne, teaching people is part of owning a chain of agricultural stores – and making sure animals are well-taken care of. He remembers when people used to buy chicks for pets around Easter, something he said doesn’t occur as much ever since legislation was introduced in the state that said at least 12 chicks had to be purchased at a time. That law has since been repealed, he said, but Osborne’s still keeps the limit.
But while baby chicks as a child’s gift may have gone away, the popularity of owning your own chickens has surged, Osborne said. He tied the chickening movement in with the “buy local” movement that has several people growing both animals and vegetables.
“We certainly benefit from that bandwagon, as do local marketplaces that want to provide people with local food,” he said.
But don’t expect to save money by raising your own chickens, at least not at first, Osborne said. Starting up a flock is relatively cheap: Laying chicks are usually around $2.99 a bird, and $15 to $20 will get you a heat lamp. Another $5 to $10 will get you a water dispenser and a feeder and chicks can be corralled by a good-sized cardboard box when they’re young.
But eventually, the birds have to hit the yard – and while a repurposed shed can shelter birds from the cold and predators, Osborne said the chicken coops he sells can go for $600 to $1,000. Ideally, the birds would have a fenced-in place to roam, to be better protected from cars and opportunistic animals on the ground and in the sky. That’s another $40 to $50 for a bail of wire mesh, depending on the size of your enclosure. Then you gotta feed the critters; Osborne said six birds can live off a 50-pound bag of feed costing around $13 for about three weeks.
“We really want people to understand what they’re getting into,” Osborne said, “because you can’t return a bird.”
He later added: “You won’t be saving money on your grocery bill, but you’ll get to know where your food comes from; you can feel good about that.”