The farm - raising livestock

In those days, almost every farm had livestock. Livestock consumed the crops they raised on the farm and in turn provided things that society needed—meat, eggs, wool, etc. It was a source of income for the farm family, and kept everyone on the farm very busy doing chores.

On May, 1937 Mom and Dad bought 100 California lambs for $5.92 per 100 lbs. At times in the early 40’s, they had 500 lambs on feed. Lambs were purchased from out West, brought to the farm, sheared for their wool, and fed corn, hay and protein until they were marketed as fat lambs. This took 3-6 months.


They bought western lambs for 8-9 cents per lb, sold fat lambs for 9-10 cents per lbs, sold wool for 20-30 cents per lb—this was very important for our WWII soldiers—as wool is fireproof. Corn was 40-50 cents per bushel during this time.
Hogs were often called the “mortgage lifters” because if the farmer worked hard and raised hogs, he could often make a steady profit and pay off the mortgage on the farm. They raised and sold pigs every year from 1935 to 1967. In January, 1947, Dad was nominated for the Minnesota Swine Honor Roll. He went to a ceremony on January 16, 1947 at the University of Minnesota and received a medal.



Baby chicks were purchased every spring and put in a brooder house. There the chicks were kept warm under a gas brooder. When the weather warmed in the summer, the young chickens were moved to the “roosting shed” out in a field north of the farm place.

I have memories of going to the feed store in Alpha, Minnesota. The chicken feed was held in large cloth sacks sewn shut. Mom told me to pick out the feed sack I liked best. Usually the one I liked was on the bottom of the pile. I was partial to the color blue. The sacks of feed were loaded up, taken home, opened up and fed to the chickens. The empty cloth sacks were taken in the house and washed. Mom then cut up the cloth sacks and sewed it into a shirt. A new blue shirt!! Perfect!

The pullets (young female chickens) out in the field were growing fast. In early fall they began to lay a few eggs. Later on a dark autumn night, we drove the tractor and a caged wagon to the roosting house and caught all the chickens and hauled them to the chicken house. Here they would spend the rest of their life laying eggs. Most hens laid one egg per day.

The eggs were gathered daily and taken to the basement of the house where they were cleaned and packed in special egg cases (held 144 eggs each /12 dozen eggs) and taken to town and sold. Sometimes when Mom sold eggs, she got $30.00 a week. This was a lot of money in those days. Mom used the money to buy groceries and other things she needed. It gave Mom and other farm women a degree of independence that they needed.

Feeding cattle was also a part of the farm scene. Feeder cattle were bought from out West and brought to the farm to be fattened. Each fall, corn silage was made. A special machine chopped the entire corn plant, from there it was “blown” into an upright silo or horizontal bunker silo where in a nearly oxygen free environment the silage fermented. The finished product was a sweet smelling feed that the cattle really liked to eat. The cattle were fed corn silage, corn, and protein and would gain over two pounds per day. Sometimes the cattle were taken to Jackson and loaded on train cars and taken to Chicago to be marketed.
-Kent