"Store" milk and eggs as hay and grain.

Winter feed for the homestead animals is a vital consideration for their health and well-being. When the harvest is complete and you inventory your gleaming rows of glass jars filled with the produce the of your garden and hours of labor; the bins and barrels of root crops in the cellar; and the freezer filled to capacity, don't forget to include your baystack.

Whether you anticipate producing meat, milk and eggs during the bitter months or merely intend to overwinter your breeding stock, winter feed is an important part of your homestead operation.

Milk and eggs, being so perishable, are usually produced on a year-round basis: in effect you "store" milk and eggs in the form of hay and grain. Meat, notably rabbit, that can be butchered at regular intervals and used fresh, also constitutes a form of winter storage.

However, winter poses some special problems for livestock raisers in northern zones and an ample supply of feed may actually be wasted without good management.

For example, the decrease in production of laying hens in winter is well-known, even though it's less pronounced today in the commercial market with egg factories and concentrated production. Egg prices have traditionally been higher in the winter, simply because hens lay fewer of them. This is true with many homestead flocks today.

The reason is that, in nature, egg-laying is a springtime phenomenon. The purpose of egg laying is reproduction, not omelets, and no bird in its right mind (if it had the choice) would lay an egg in the waning days of autumn or the freezing winter weather in expectations of hatching it.

Egg-laying is connected to the pituitary gland which relates to the length of day. In nature, this is triggered by the lengthening of the day in the springtime.

If it were up to nature, fried eggs would be only a springtime delicacy for us predatory humans, but as part of our survival instinct we have learned to stretch the season. Through genetics, we have developed chickens that lay more eggs, and more regularly throughout the year. We have learned to manage their rations, to approximate the natural spring fare. And we have learned the importance of light.

To ensure a winter supply of eggs, the first step is to have a strain of layers that is capable of sustained production. Then, the diet must be regulated so the birds' bodies have the wherewithal to produce eggs: we provide the elements naturally available in springtime's bugs and young grasses by balancing amino acids and other factors of diet during the period when these would not be available in a natural environment. And then we influence the pituitary through the manipulation of daylight, using artificial light.

Autumn is the normal molting period for fowl, the time when they shed their worn-out feathers for fluffy, warm new coats. This too is accompanied by a natural reduction in laying. But once the molt is over, an optimum period of 14 hours of light will induce the birds to lay at their greatest capacity.

High quality protein is essential for egg-laying. In the spring, wild or free-ranging birds obtain this protein from tender young grasses and buds and succulent insects and worms. When these are not available, as in winter, the caretaker must provide substitutes in order to realize the greatest efficiency from the flock. Grains alone are not sufficient. Protein meals, including those of animal origin, are essential for best performance.

A similar situation exists in dairy animals, especially goats, because of their seasonal breeding pattern.

Milk is produced, not for our yogurt and cheese and drinking needs, but to sustain the offspring of the mother. Most goats are born in the spring. The lactation curve, therefore, begins at parturition, rises to a peak about a month later, and tapers off as the demands of the young lessen due to the ability to eat other foods.

Not incidentally, according to the natural plan, the doe's nutritional needs are met by the changing seasons. The young, succulent browse available in the spring and early summer is particularly suited to the bodily demands of the milking doe, and in temperate climates the greatest availability of the most proteinaceous pasture coincides with the greatest demands on the doe's milk production. As pastures become more coarse and sparse, the goat's milk production decreases, while at the same time, the requirements of the young for milk decrease.

But again, we humans are not content to benefit from dairy products in the spring, potatoes in the fall, and Lord-knows-what during the winter. We have manipulated nature to our own ends as a matter of survival.

How? Through breeding, again. Genetic selection rates as a top priority in our manipulation of nature. Through selection, any goat worth keeping gives a far greater amount of milk than would be required for the survival and maintenance of her offspring.

Diet comes second. Through scientific feeding, we can simulate the kind of diet a goat would find in nature in spring, virtually throughout the year. Instead of going through the procession of succulent young grasses, tougher and dried grasses, dried forage, winter boughs and bark, and near-starvation at winter's end, we can provide leafy leguminous hay, grains, minerals and protein supplements in a regular pattern.

Although it's less pronounced because of their year-round breeding ability, cows fall into somewhat the same pattern. Milk flow increases in the spring with the availability of pasture and green chop. While this too has been somewhat leveled out with the use of silage and high-moisture feeds, the natural cycle has not been completely eliminated, and there is always more milk in the summer than in the winter.