Raw Farming: No sugar coating this story

 It's been a rough few months. Financially and physically this whole year has seem to knock me down more times than I can count. The year started out hopeful and with renewed energy, but shortly after getting the pot belly pigs (which I wouldn't think of ever rehoming) life threw a curve ball and I feel that I've been struggling to keep up with grocery bills, utilities, feed, you name it.  Granted, this year I did add the pot belly pigs which don't eat much, four geese who are constantly hungry, another foster-turned-fail dog and another swarm of bees (which were free and only eat the honey they've stored in their hive). I've had decent sales of dog treats this year and average sales of fresh chicken. The laying chickens have been freeloading since about September when they dropped off laying eggs completely with only the occasional egg that has been pecked clean by another flock member. My attempts to discover the guilty party have gone without victory. The egg...

 A lot of farmers, myself included, love to paint the beautiful picture of our day-to-day lives with gorgeous photography of adorable pigs running around their pen, chickens happily gobbling up fresh vegetables, honey bees hurriedly flying with golden pollen tucked into their back legs and everything in the barns in its place.  Yes, this is the picture that we love to share with those who do not share our agriculture lifestyle. It's our favorite part of owning and living on a farm. That being said, there begs a question.  Why not tell the true story?  The story of waking one morning to find that eight of the eleven bantam chickens that were in a contained coop, were slaughtered by stray dogs. The story of losing money each day that a barn cat lived in the large chicken coop and greedily devoured eggs as fast as they were laid. Perhaps the story about the time that a newly hatched chick didn't make it into the coop with its mother one night and succumbed to the summer...