Tag Archives: hobby farming

Happy 5th Birthday to the Big Angry Trev Blog!

April 21, 2021 Big Angry Trev Leave a comment

Rejoice lovers of free speech and insane rambling everywhere, for here we are – the 5^th anniversary of the Big Angry Trev blog!

Who would have thought bigangrytrev.com would still be running strong after half a decade eh! Does it mean I am a talented writer whose turn of phrase brings literary delight to you all, or simply that you all are gluttons for punishment – the jury is still out on that one.

It’s been a fun 5 years and a great creative outlet for yours truly. There have been times where I couldn’t stop blogging and other times I would struggle to come up with one post a month. Likewise there have been times where the site has had thousands of hits in a day, yet other times the traffic has been so slow it might as well have been Rylstone on a Tuesday afternoon. However the site has continued to grow and expand from a few different topics to a dozen categories – be it Hobby Farming, Meat Consumption or Transformer Talk, with there now being hundreds upon hundreds of posts for your reading and viewing pleasure.

The ultimate reviewer of meats in action!

The blog has had some great successes. The story about a Redback Spider killing a Blind Snake (which turned out to be a legless lizard) was picked up by local Victorian newspapers and even the television news! Some of my Transformer reviews have been picked up and shared by the major TF sites overseas such as TFW2005 and Seibertron. For a while there I was receiving free merchandise from Hasbro to review regarding the Transformers Trading Card Game and even given a few world exclusive card reveals! Ah, free Transformer merchandise – if only that had extended to toys we would have probably paid off our mortgage by now.

One of several reveals exclusive to BigAngryTrev.com courtesy of Hasbro and WOTC

Of course it’s not been all high’s. I’ve had people vehemently disagree with my blog, despite it’s relatively non-offensive content. I’ve had people completely misconstrue my meaning so they think I’m supporting what I am actually mocking (satire is a foreign concept to some). There have been several cyber-attacks which necessitated the purchase of some high-level malware and spam protection. For a while I couldn’t share links to the blog on Social Media due to Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Morrison having a spat. I’ve even had one threat of litigation; despite my lawyer saying I was legally safe he also said it probably wasn’t worth the headache to fight. As Ricky Gervais says: ‘no matter what you say, it’s going to offend somebody somewhere’.

The average reaction of your modern day internet user when reading something that doesn’t 100% gel with their world view

So I’d like to thank all the thousands of people who have read my blog over the past 5 years. Whether you’ve been reading about the idiocy of my youth in Tales of the Trev, checking out my latest Transformer Toy Reviews and Fan Interviews or simply enjoyed one of my infrequent videos, its been wonderful to have an international audience to share the bubbling mess that is my inner thought processes with. But there are also some specific people I need to thank:

*Thanks to my in-laws Matt & Jo for suggesting starting a blog in the first place.

*Thanks to Ozformers and its founder Griffin for letting me continue to post links on his site

*Thanks to fellow blogs TetsToys as well as the wonderful Lisamaree and her blog Life… With Sprogs! for the cross-promotion.

Thanks to Hasbro for the freebies to review (I’d like some more please!).

*Thanks most of all to my wife who has been kind enough to keep the kids out of my hair long enough in order to put finger to keyboard on occasion. She also kindly overlooks the fact that in order to keep advertising off my site the blog is a sinkhole for money rather than a cash cow. Who knows, maybe if I increase my readership by 500% it might be worth putting up an ad or two – get your friends to start reading so I can quit my job and do this full time! Who knows – might even get around to writing that novel the missus has been telling me to for years.

‘I could totally stay home and be an author – I’ve already got the self-satisfied pretension down to a fine art!

So many thanks everyone and to you dear readers – here’s to the next 5 years! If ever there is something new you would like featured on this site don’t hesitate to post a comment about it – I’m always looking for something new to talk about. If you’ve got an Ask Trev question on any topic or just an issue you’d like to hear a Random Rant about don’t be shy. Keep up to date with when new posts are put up by joining the Facebook sites Big Angry Trev! & Big Angry Trev’s Transformatorium, or simply create an account here to keep you update!. And don’t forget during those times I have writers block you can still catch me on the Big DJ Trev Show on Krrfm.org.au to get your weekly dose of warped Trev logic, insane rants and good tunes!

Love to you all

Big Angry Trev

Related Article:

The Blog Turns 1 Year Old!

Hobby Farming

Capturing Wild Animals: Feral Goats

February 15, 2019 Big Angry Trev Leave a comment

Feral Goats. Bane of natural forests.

Here in Australia they are classed as an Invasive Animal Species and official pest. Responsible for financial losses totaling $225 million per year, they cause land degradation and compete with native species for both food and rock shelter.

We’ve had a big pack of feral goats that turn up periodically on our farm from the forest it backs onto. Except for the odd bit of damage to a boundary fence, it hasn’t been not too much of a nuisance in the past as we currently have no herds of grazing animals.

But now they have discovered our two pet does – twin-sisters Milly and Molly.

Because the Billy’s in particular have such an interest in our two nannies, and indeed twice we have had to go find our goats (who are free range) because they have taken off with the pack, we decided to do something about it.

Not owning a gun, capture was the next best option. And, especially during a drought, it’s surprisingly easy! Here is how:

Billy Goats are like 18 year old boys

*Its truer than you think. They smell bad, they’re constantly hungry and they are constantly horny (pun partially intended). So if you think like a teenage boy then you can lure them in.

*My does are both on heat and have been putting their scent out on the wind. So we have had all the local feral Billy’s showing up, making it easy to capture one. First I left the back gate to the does pen open (which I do most days as they free range and come back themselves of an evening).

*Then I made sure there was a salt-lick in their yard and their water trough was full. During drought goats, like most creatures, are in constant search of water sources.

*I made sure there was some fresh Lucerne in their yard.

*Now think like a teenage boy and think what the scents on the wind are telling the Billy Goat. They are saying ‘Hey! You know what? I know this place we can go! There is tons to eat! There is tons to drink! And there are twin-sisters that are hot to trot big time!’

*So with the promise of free food, free drink and a couple of hotties who are gagging for it, like the 18 year old human male, the Billy Goat cannot resist. They turn up and quite quickly make their way into the pen. I’ve caught two 100+kg Billy Goats with this technique this month alone!

Capture is easy – containment is hard.

The trouble containing feral goats is that they will throw themselves at the fences, charging full pelt with horns down, trying to escape. I have enough fencing skill that I’ve put up a few around the farm, but they are certainly not of a professional standard. The one I built around my goat pen is strong enough to contain our does and proved strong enough to withstand the punishment of a Feral Billy until it gives up and accept its lot in life. However we encountered a problem…

… a competing Billy Goat.

According to my mother-in-law (I was at work at the time) a white Billy turned up and had a big fight through the fence with the one I had captured. With two 100+kg Billy’s throwing themselves full force head first at the same part of the fence, it wasn’t long until it gave and the Billy escaped.

However that afternoon he was quickly replaced. A 3^rd Billy (a black one this time) turned up and I was able to catch him using the aforementioned technique. However as I had only had time to do a slapdash repair on the fence, it was not strong enough and with enough full-force attacks he was able to batter over the damaged fence and escape.

So, hopefully I can get the fence repaired properly before my does go out of heat and try and capture some more. All I have to do…

…is think like an 18 year old boy.

Got any goat-trapping tips yourself? Pop them in the comments section below!

Related Article:

Raising Goats as Pets

Hobby Farming

How to Save a Premature Duckling

January 30, 2019 Big Angry Trev 12 Comments

How to Save a Premature Duckling

Though not as popular as chooks, more people are starting to keep ducks. Some just as pets, some as livestock, or maybe like us to sell the Organic Free-Range Duck Eggs they produce. And for anyone that keeps poultry, breeding your birds is great but can lead to problems.

For the most part, mother nature can look after itself. And I’ve learned the hard way over the years that human interference can often cause more harm than good. Many’s the time I thought I was helping with the birth of one of our ducks and, through a misguided sense to do good, actually caused the death of a hatching duckling rather than save it.

However sometimes you do need to intervene. If you are a professional farmer of ducks, chances are you already know all the tricks and even have the right equipment to handle things (incubators and what have you). However if you are a backyard duck farmer like me, you have to rely on your wits and what is to hand.

First off, if the membrane and yolk sac are still intact – do NOT break them! Chances are there are still blood vessels attached to the duckling. Just let it keep doing its thing – it can take up to 24 hours for a duckling to emerge.

If the membrane and yolk sac are broken and the duckling seems unable to free itself, just sit tight for a few hours and keep checking on it. Again, it will probably get itself out.

Now worst case scenario. It’s been hours since the duckling broke through the egg shell, membrane, yolk etc and its still not getting out. Here is where you may have to intervene. Chances are it’s premature and it doesn’t have the strength on its own to break out. At our place this can be a real concern, as we live on a farm rife with tiny ants and I’ve lost more than one duckling to ants pouring into the hole of the shell. Here is what you do:

1: Take tweezers, or use fingers if you cant find any, and very carefully peel away the eggshell a tiny bit at a time.

2: Once the shell is peeled away, you should be presented with a very wet (and if premature quite small) duckling. As long as it’s breathing then come away. Being premature it should take longer than usual for them to get on their feet as it will be very weak. Keep checking back but try and let the mother duck take over.

3: If you come back and the duckling is still lying in relatively the same spot then it’s time to step it up. Once again, on our farm the ants are horrid so sometimes when I come back I’ll find a poor weak duckling unable to move and covered in tiny little sods all chowing down on both duckling and yolk.

4: Take the duckling inside and prepare somewhere warm. If you have the knowhow then you can try to set up a makeshift incubator with a warm light globe and a cardboard box and pop the duckling in. Otherwise body heat is perfect. Clean the duckling up as best you can, wrap it in a thin towel and cuddle it to your chest. If there is more than one person in the house then taking turns is a good idea, as you will need to do this for a while and let’s face it, who has a heart cold enough to refuse to cuddle a duckling?

5: Ducklings often don’t eat for the first 24 hours, but sometimes with premature ones they need some extra strength to make it through, especially if they hadn’t absorbed a lot of the egg yolk before hatching. What I have found works best is to start off with sugar water. Simply dissolve a little bit of sugar in room temperature water. Put this in something tiny and low and hold it under the ducklings beak. Hopefully it will drink something and provide it that little energy boost needed to make it through the coming hours.

6: If the duckling has managed to keep down some sugar water, then you can move on to use a similar technique with chick starter (tiny grey granules fed to young poultry). Grind these granules up even smaller and once again add to room temperature water. Once again, it may not eat and drink, but if it does the mix will be perfect for providing it that bit of extra nutrition to survive that it missed out on by emerging early.

7: Despite body heat being perfect, when it comes to bedtime do not take the duckling to bed with you, you might roll over and squash it! Instead take some towels and create a little nest in a cardboard box. Place the duckling inside and very gently lay a light tea towel over the nest. Ducklings sleep under their mothers wings for the first few weeks and this will be a good approximation. Having a dark, warm and soft place to rest hopefully should lull your duckling in to having a much needed sleep in order to build up its strength.

8: If your duckling is still alive in the morning, chances are it’s going to survive. Keep an eye on it for a few hours to make sure it is making noise, its feathers have fluffed out and it is eating and drinking. If so, great! You should have successfully turned your duckling from this:

To this:

Congratulations! You saved a duckling! Now perhaps the hardest part of all. You have to give this cute fuzzy little duckling back to its mother. The sooner you return the duckling the better. The longer you leave it, the harder it will be to reintegrate it to its family and the more attached it will be to you (and chances are you to it). But if all goes well, within a week the duckling should have caught up with its siblings in size and strength to the point you wont be able to tell them apart.

Now sit back and enjoy watching the cuteness abound.

Got any other tips for helping a premature duckling? Or want some extra advice? Pop it in the comments section below!

Related Articles:

Permaculture – Treating Mite Infestations in Chickens

Hobby Farming

Permaculture – Building a No-Dig garden

August 10, 2017 Big Angry Trev 2 Comments

Weeding – truly the bane of the gardeners existence! They steal the nutrients from the soil meant for your other plants, they grow prickles to sting you, spread fast and frankly are a pain in the posterior! On my last farm I had a 23m x 7m giant veggie patch and while it went great guns the first few years, I spent the last couple of years managing the weeds more than I grew food for my family.

So here on our new farm I’ve decided we are going to be weed free and to that end I am installing no-dig gardens. I’ve started with two plots for plants I am transplanting from my old farm that need to get in before spring – Asparagus and Comfrey. The whole idea of a no-dig garden is exactly how it sounds – no digging! No digging plots in the soil to plant in and no digging endless weeds out over the years.

Though time consuming, no-dig gardens are simple to create and they save a lot more time in the long run as well as providing a nutrient rich patch ready for planting. I have outlined the step-by-step process I went through below.

Note: This process goes through at minimum 5 layers. I like to do one layer a day. This means I can give each particular layer a good soaking which results in the new garden getting a good soaking 5 days straight. This aids immensely in it breaking down quicker.

Step 1: Choose your site. You can really build a no-dig garden anywhere (even on grass or concrete) but I chose a spot that was dirt and fairly bereft of weeds to begin with. Then your plants have the option of burrowing further if needed down the line.

*And thus we start with an almost barren wasteland*

Step 2: Cardboard and barriers.

*And this is why I hoard cardboard after a move*

A lot of people use newspaper but I prefer un-dyed cardboard. Firstly it is much thicker which means it is much harder for weeds to grow through from below, secondly it will take longer to disintegrate and thirdly there are less dyes and inks to seep into the ground. Lay your cardboard down in the shape you want your garden to be and then use logs or bricks to make some walls around it. Soak the cardboard.

Step 3: Put down a fairly thick layer of straw. Lucerne is best and pea straw isn’t bad. Personally I have acres of stubble so I just mowed a ton of that and stuck it in. Wet it down.

Step 4: Put in a layer of fertilizer.

*Until I can source some local animal bums I have to go back to store-bought*

Chicken manure is certainly the best as it has all the nutrients a new garden will need. I like to mix it up a bit with some cow manure as well. Put down a nice thick layer and once again water.

*Make sure you end up covering all of the straw by the end*

Step 5: A second layer of straw – this time a minimum of 20cm thick, 30 if you have the resources. Wet the straw down.

Step 6: Another layer of fertilizer.

At my last farm I had a never-ending supply of fresh animal dung but here I am having to buy it (until my goats and poultry drop enough for my gardening needs) so I went a cheaper route and mixed it with a bunch of potting mix specifically intended for raised garden beds. Once again water.

Step 7: Let all this break down. The longer the better. Personally I only had a week to let mine do so before my asparagus started coming back to life and needed to get into the ground. But even in that short period you will see the height of your no-dig garden lower as the straw starts to decompose and it will be ready for your plants.

And that’s it! If you would like to add more layers feel free – the more the merrier! Personally I will be adding some more potting mix around my plants when I put them in and then some straw around that to act as a mulch which will result in 7 layers all up. But to start off, simply follow the above instructions and you will have some nice new patches ready for planting. Once again, you can build anywhere you like and the best part is you don’t have to lift a shovel or pull your hair out over weeds down the line – happy gardening!

Got any other tips about no-dig gardens? Would love to read them in the comments section below!

Hobby Farming

Raising Goats as Pets

February 3, 2017 Big Angry Trev 1 Comment

Goats. Sheep with brains. Reputations for being grumpy, smelly, eating tin cans and destroying any plants they get near. Why would anyone want a goat as a pet?

Because, if raised correctly, they are intelligent, loving, playful and can become wonderful members of your family, that’s why!

We have two female Boer Goats – Milly and Molly – twin sisters. And they are the nicest animals you could ever hope to meet! They follow us around like dogs, eat from our hand, give little kisses and licks and love to climb trees with the kids. In fact they are wonderful with the children as whenever we go for a walk they tend to pick a child each and shadow them, walking three or four feet behind, just like they are their hairy protectors.

Of course, goats can be a lot of work and you need to have the right space set up for them. So here are some excellent tips for keeping goats as pets.

What Goats to Pick

*Hand-raised goats are a must. We’ve had friends who had goats as pets which were part of tamed flocks and while mostly docile were not above giving the odd butt or bite if in a bad mood. You want goats that have been bottle fed and have spent lots of time around children.

*If you have not raised the goats yourself, make sure you take ownership of them at around 6 months of age. Any later and they will not imprint on you to the extent that you want.

Habitat

*Have a tall fence. We have a 5 foot tall fence running around our little goat paddock. And even then twice Milly has decided she is going to jump it! Thankfully she seems to have forgotten she has that ability and has not done it since. A 6-foot fence is to be preferred but make sure it is at the least not lower than 5.

*Have adequate shelter. People laughed at me when I built my goats a little house. But here in the Mallee we get 45 degree days in the middle of summer and during the winter we even get the odd hail storm. And goats are smart, they are not going to stay out in horrible weather if they don’t have to. I made my goat house out of wood and painted it with a solar-reflecting paint in order to minimize the heat inside. Build it with corrugated iron and all you have done is make an oven for them.

Food and Drink

*Have adequate water. We have a big dam in our goat paddock so ours are fine but you may want a trough at the least and keep it topped up.

*Goats will not eat just anything. They will eat most things, and not all those things are good for them. We feed our goats the following (ration down when still young):

-Lamb pellets. Calf pellets will work as well. 2 cups per goat every second day.

-Lucerne. A small butt every second day (alternate with the pellets).

-Weeds. This is where your goats are useful! Anything you don’t wanna throw on the compost heap throw to your goats and the majority of the time they will love it! They love roses and rose trimmings in particular. They won’t eat all plants and if fed enough will happily shun what their instincts tell them is no good for them.

*Provide a salt lick. Not a major necessity if they have a good diet but I find having one in there gives me piece of mind, knowing the goats can go have some if anything in their diet is lacking.

Exercise

*Not what is usually meant by ‘kids playground’*

*Have materials for the goats to climb on and to wear their hooves down. Goats are smart and smart creatures need stuff to do. I propped up a fallen tree as well as built a tower out of old wooden palettes. These serve several functions. One is that goats love to jump and climb and it gives them exercises and lets them indulge their climbing instincts. The other is that if goats do not have hard surfaces to wear their hooves down on the hooves keep growing. This means they can in-grow and you need to clip them yourself which can be a real hassle.

*Take your goats for walks. As mentioned, our goats will follow us around like dogs and taking them for a walk means it breaks up their routine and you get some extra bonding time with them.

Other Tips & Troubleshooting

*Car theft by Goat: One of the lesser known crimes*

*Goats will ruin trees and plants. I had a few low trees around my dam, they are well and truly gone now. If the goats get into your garden they will try and eat everything.

*These goats will be your pets. This means you need to pat them and talk to them daily just like you would any other pet.

*Do not overfeed your goats. They will graze and you then supplement that with things like lucerne and pellets. If you give them a ton of pellets every day they will develop stomach issues.

*Be careful with little (human) kids. Be careful with your own eyes too. Unless you dehorn your goats it means they have two long big prongs sticking out of their forehead. If your goats are affectionate they will like to rub up against you. This means if your kids are small or you are bending over, there is a danger of a horn in the eye – not a pleasant experience.

*Be careful with other animals. Once goats are a certain size, unless it’s a pack of wild dogs nothing is going to bother them. Goats are more than capable of seeing off a fox or solitary dog. Sadly this can mean that your pet dog (we have a Shetland Sheepdog who is very submissive by nature) might end up on the wrong end a butting goat if it gets too close and is perceived as a threat.

*Goats really love to climb. Combine this with being naturally inquisitive and I’ve had to shoo them off the bonnet of my ute more times than I can count and even had them all over my kids play equipment and our patio table!

And that’s pretty much it. Goats can make beautiful, loving, well-natured pets and can be lots of fun! Just make sure you have enough space for them and know what you are getting in to before you bring those cute little kids home – they sure do grow!

*Love between man and goat – a lot more innocent than it sounds*

Got any comments or extra tips to add to the above? Would love to read them in the comments section below!

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