Experimental Station: Food Access Leaders
Plus livestock protector dogs, with adorable puppy pix
In This Issue:
• Experimental Station’s Food Access Leadership
• Gretta’s Goats’ Farm Dogs: Stalwart Protectors, Fluffy Companions (more pix below)
• Take a Quiz
Today’s Chicago Region Farmers Markets
LaGrange Farmers Market, 53 S. LaGrange Rd., LaGrange
7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Lincoln Square Thursday Market, W. Leland & N. Lincoln Aves., Chicago
3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Growing Home Wood Street Farm Stand, 5814 S. Wood, Chicago
Noon to 6 p.m.
Weather.com Forecast: Sunny, high 62(!)
Accuweather Forecast: Sunny, high 63(!)
Experimental Station’s Food Access Leadership
The Experimental Station nonprofit organization and its 61st Street Farmers Market are standout community leaders in enabling underserved individuals and families gain increased access to healthy, locally produced food. They now have a new colleague at the front lines of this effort: Rachel Mallinga, the new Program Manager of Experimental Station’s Link Up Illinois.
Rachel holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Studies from DePaul University and a Master’s degree in Nonprofit Management from the University of Oregon. Her experience addressing inequities in our food systems and community engagement has included outreach in Nicaragua addressing the needs of rural peasant women farmworkers and work on projects addressing food access in the Black community of Portland, Oregon. These experiences led her to join Experimental Station’s team to work on the Link Up IL program.
According to Experimental Station’s 2020 Increasing Food Access Report, Link Up Illinois — a 10-year-old partnership with Wholesome Wave and the Illinois Farmers Market Association — provides farmers markets, other direct-to-consumer venues, food co-operatives, and small grocers across the state with funding to implement the Link Match programs for recipients of Illinois Link (federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits), along with consulting, training, technical assistance, marketing and promotion for sellers.
The report explains that Link Up Illinois “was created to combat urban and rural food deserts, support local small and mid-size farms, offer lasting health benefits to vulnerable Illinoisians, and advocate for policy change on the state and federal level.”
Link Up Illinois has also initiated programs to increase access to healthy food at corner and grocery stores.
The 61st Street Farmers Market — whose 2020 opening was delayed six weeks by the pandemic — kicks off its 2021 season on time this Saturday (May 15) from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The market, located at 6100 S. Blackstone Ave., accepts SNAP/Link and matches Link purchases to provide up to $25 per week of fresh fruits and vegetables for recipients.
Local Food Forum welcomes Rachel and looks forward to working with her and the rest of the Experimental Station team to advance the urgent issue of healthy food access for all.
Gretta’s Goats’ Farm Dogs: Stalwart Guardians, Fluffy Companions
A Seasons of Change series story
In May 2013, very early in my development as a local food writer and advocate, Barb and I accepted an invitation to visit the Prairie Crossing Farm Business Development Center, a farmer training program at the Prairie Crossing conservation community in Grayslake, Illinois. It was there that we met one of our favorite people, Gretta Winkelbauer, who was raising goats to produce milk for soaps under the Gretta’s Goats brand.
It was also the first time that we experienced the joy that are baby goats. We sat with Gretta watching these beautiful little balls of energy manically bound over, around and into each other. We got to hold them and one nuzzled Barb’s neck so hard we called it a hickey.
A couple of years later, Gretta and husband Eric Strong bought their own place (Short Leg Farm) in Pecatonica, Illinois, about 100 miles northwest of Chicago and 16 miles due west from Rockford, building a creamery to add goat cheese to their product lineup. I have been there twice, once with Barb and again with two FamilyFarmed colleagues in 2017. In those visits we got to meet their full-grown Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dogs, Bernice and Hazel.
When I conceived of the Seasons of Change farmer reports for Local Food Forum, I immediately thought of Gretta as an excellent candidate for the series. And when photos of her beautiful next-gen Great Pyrenees guardian dogs, Vivian and Trudy, appeared on social media, I knew the first story I’d ask for.
Enjoy Gretta’s delightful and informative essay on the important role played by livestock guardian dogs. Unless otherwise identified, the photos (including the one at the top of fast-growing pup Trudy in full gallop) were provided by Gretta.
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Gretta’s Goats consists of 25 sustainably farmed acres, beehives, 50 goats, numerous chickens, five dogs, two cats, and two super-cute miniature donkeys. Our farm is proud to be Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) by A Greener World.
When we first started our goat farm on leased land in the Chicago suburbs, we had to protect our goats with electric netting and secure them each evening in a portable goat house. While this arrangement brought about peace of mind, it was less than efficient and required a great deal of our time to be sure that our goats were safe.
When we were able to purchase our own farm, one of the first moves we made was to buy two Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dogs (LGDs).
Great Pyrenees were bred centuries ago to work with shepherds and herding dogs in the snowy Pyrenees mountains, the natural border between France and Spain. Hazel and Bernice, our original LGDs, sleep most of the day and patrol the pasture at night.
They always have access to a warm barn if they want it. Even with bitter cold in the winter they prefer to be outside, curled up in a snow drift. The Pyrenees’ coat is amazingly thick and weatherproof. They have a long outer coat with a soft undercoat.
We don’t ever shave them in the summer as the coat helps to cool them and shade them from the sun. They do need to be groomed and nail care is a must! We joke that we should spin their wool into sweaters! They even have double dew claws.
We have had great success with Hazel and Bernice working on our farm over the past seven years. Ideally, you want to obtain LGDs before you have an issue with predators on your farm, but we knew that we had a coyote presence on our farm when we moved here. We also had concerns about random and stray dogs that could wander onto the property and attack the herd. We routinely see and hear bald eagles, bobcats and foxes and they can also be a threat to goat kids and chickens.
The role of the LGD is to keep the predator threats outside the perimeter of your farm through their scent and loud booming bark. Having a pair of LGDs is necessary. If you have a pack of coyotes that end up entering your pastures the dogs will be able to work together to ward off the pack. One dog could not do this as the coyotes would work the dog from several angles.
We have found that a pair of dogs will also have each other to play with and this in turn will burn off some of that awesome dog energy! Hopefully then they will have less energy to chase the goats.
I spent a lot of time correcting Hazel and Bernice in the beginning to not chase the goats. This is the hardest when the goat kids are born! Bouncing baby goat kids are a huge temptation to the pups! Almost impossible to resist!
We have made it a top priority for our LGDs to be raised around “their” herd from puppyhood. This helps to create a lasting bond between the dogs and their herd. It also helps to create a strong bond from the goats’ perspective as well.
There is nothing more beautiful than seeing your LDG completely clean off a newborn kid for a goat mama with multiple kids or let 20 baby goats climb all over them and never once growl or flinch. I have seen Bernice lay next to sick goats as if to comfort them. It truly is one of nature’s most beautiful and selfless relationships.
I recently read about a LGD that was used to protect penguins on an island that were being killed by foxes. The LGD stopped it. These amazing dogs smell, hear and see things at a distance that you as the farmer can’t always detect. You can’t be there with the herd 24/7 either.
And no, we are not considering getting penguins!
We’ve had visitors in the past ask if our LGDs are herding dogs. Herding dogs are quite different than a LGD. Herding dogs will help you move your animals from place to place. The herding dogs move in the same style as a predator. The obvious difference is that they would not harm the animals in the process.
LDGs are completely non-predatory in their behavior. Their brains are wired differently from most dogs in this way. Their instinct is to be a calm presence unless of course there is a threat. We’ve watched Hazel and Bernice go from a sound nap to sprinting to the other end of the pasture if a predator threat is present.
Over the winter we added two LDG pups, Vivian and Trudy, to the farm. They have started their training with short introductions to Hazel and Bernice outside of a fence. They will begin working with them in an area that the older two do not think of as “their territory” — more of a neutral territory. After several more weeks we hope to incorporate them into the herd.
They also need slow introductions with gentle older goats to learn how to behave around them. No chasing or nipping! It’s a gradual process that requires patience but it is beyond worth it to have a loyal and confident guardian you can count on for 8 - 10 years to watch over your farm.
There are lots of opportunities to visit the farm this season to meet Vivian, Trudy, Hazel and Bernice and the rest of the farm crew! You can purchase tickets on our website for goat hikes, baby goat snuggle sessions, and cheese and soap making classes. We also offer overnight stays in our farmstay.
Check out www.grettasgoats.com for more information and click on events and classes.
If you can’t get to Pecatonica, you can buy Gretta’s Goats products online at her Etsy shop and at the stores listed here.
Take a Quiz
Which of the following animals are goats NOT related to?
a) Deer
b) Antelope
c) Cattle
d) Bison
Answer: a) Goats, antelopes, cattle and bison are all members of the family Bovidae. Deer are members of the family Cervidae.