John Janney
Livestock
The Janney family raised a variety of livestock:
Cows
Horses
Steers
Pigs
Sheep
Chicken
Geese
Horses & Cows
The Janneys had good stables for the horses and a small ten-foot barn. Cows and steers were left in the pasture during the summer and in the barnyard during the winter. The small barn was used on occasion to house the cows.
Sheep
The sheep were left out in the field year round and were fed the tops of corn stalks twice a day.
Hogs
The hogs were left out in the fields and woods. Earmarks were used to identify the family pigs if they wandered onto another farm. The Janney earmark was a full crop off the right ear with two slits and a half a crop off the left ear. Janney writes that it was his job to feed the hogs and sheep.
The hogs were fed ears of corn and would come running from the woods when called.
Fowl
The Janney family had chickens, geese and turkeys. Fowl were never penned up and fed. They would roam the farmsite and feed on wheat and corn seeds. Every so often the family would pen up some geese to fatten them up for market. In the spring, the family would round up the geese and pluck the quills and use them for pens or to stuff pillows and mattresses.
Bees
Janney writes that most farmers in the area had built small beehives out of rough backboards. When the honey was ready, they burned some sulfur inside the hive to kill the bees. One hive would produce a few pounds of honey.
