A lot of farmers are aware that many ungulates are prone to urinary calculi. These are stones, kidney and bladder stones, that can potentially clog the urinary tract. The risk is greater in male animals due to their more petite urinary tract, compared to the females’. It’s said that intact males fair better than males castrated young, as they are able to develop larger tracts, but it seems like most of the horror stories I’ve…
Category: DIY Medicine
These stories are more than just examples of using healing herbs; they’re also about dealing with medical emergencies and complications from home. My intent is to share experience and perspective to help illustrate what doctoring a body by yourself looks like. These stories do not tell you how to properly handle a certain situation, but rather they share what it is we did in a given scenario and to what degree of success we had. I hope you find these anecdotes helpful someday, if you should encounter a similar injury or medical emergency of your own.
“Baby Goats Have Arrived!”
BABY GOATS! After 5 months of eager anticipation (the last 2 months of which were even more eager once we stopped milking in late January and instantly began missing fresh cheese), we have beautiful baby goaters! Tisl birthed first, 48 hours later than her technical due date. She was stealth-preggers, barely showing any baby bulge right up to birthing. I expected only 1 kid out of her. But she produced 2 beautiful kids. I had…
“Broken Chicken Feet”
If you live on a farm with chickens and any other livestock over 200lbs, chances are sooner or later you’ll see a limping chicken with a munched foot. Pigs, mules, horses, and even very large goats can easily crush a chicken’s foot with one step. Most of the time they are oblivious to the chicken’s thrashing screams and might not lift their foot right away. When the large livestock is being grained, and thus the…
“A Post About Today: February 1st, 2021”
It’s a bright, sunny Monday morning. My orders are in the post and I’m now hiding in front of the computer. The thermometer says it’s 38ºF in the greenhouse. The top of our greenhouse today will likely reach 50ºF, whilst the draw below the cabin is likely in the teens or single-digits. It’s a comfy 70ºF inside after a busy morning of frying up sausage, pancakes, and onions. Why am I indoors in front of…
“Herbal Guide: Coral Root”
I wanted to talk a little bit about the medicinal herb Coral Root. Members of the Corallorhiza family are many, and most of them are endangered. In our forest we’re lucky to have a variety of coral root that is not state or nationally endangered. Coral root is an orchid. It’s entirely parasitic. It produces no leaves and contains no chlorophyl. It survives by leeching nutrients from the roots of the plants around it, as…
“How Herbal Healing Became and Interest”
People: “How did you get into herbal medicine?” Me: “I cut my achilles tendon open.” Yeah, it was horrible. I hate that it happened. But it did. I should say, actually, “someone’s bicycle cut my achilles tendon open.”… So I had this cut into the back of my foot, parallel with the bottom of my foot, making a 1” flap of my heel, cut straight through, that could open up like a mouth. I was…
“The Goat Ripped Her Teat Open”
I put Ruma on the stanchion one morning, as per usual, and knelt down to milk. “Wait- blood? Fresh blood? Where is it- oh wow… Ew.” She had somehow snagged her teat on something and tore it clean open, nearly 2 inches long. A very unsettling mixture of blood and milk was weeping out of the gash. Gross. Super gross. So I milked out her good side, trying not to look at the wound too…
“Aspen’s Story: Broken Turkey Legs”
Aspen was a black Spanish turkey I purchased. She was an adult and had grown up semi-wild. She had very little trust in me. As turkey hens do, Aspen went broody in her first spring with me. She chose a large wooden cupboard for her nest. And as turkey toms do, Pip the tom started to get restless after all of the hens disappeared to sit nests. To my dismay, he found Aspen in her…
“I Put a Bone in My Foot…”
Yep. I was on a steep slope, unfolding a large sheet of greenhouse plastic, and I stepped on what looked like plain dirt only to hear a grotesque juicy crunch and a surge of pain in the arch of my foot. I sat/fell down and proceeded to uproot a small -something- sticking up out of the dirt. It was the tip of a buried jagged, gnarly chunk of dog-chewed deer vertebrae with old black gristle…
“Stitches the Chicken”
Before moving to an area with frigidly cold winters and an extended cold season, I kept turkens. Turkens are a breed of chicken that lack feathering on their head and necks. I love turkens, they’re fantastic, and I wish I could raise them here on the mountain but that would be cruel to the half-naked birds. So one day I head out into my bird yard to put the birds up for the night and…
