Follow-up Friday: The Boys Have Left Us

At long last, we've found a good, permanent home for Honey's twin bucklings.  (I suppose since we fitted them last week with castration bands, we should actually call them wethers now rather than bucklings.)  

In the pic above, they're getting acclimated to their new pen and meeting all their new friends.  These are the first goats we've voluntarily parted with, and it's a little weird; but they will be living happy lives as pets just up the road from us.  

It didn't make much sense for us to keep them.  In a dairy operation, bucks serve basically one purpose.  But, these twins are too closely related to our gals, so we couldn't use them as breeders.  It just makes sense for us to move them along.  And, they're sweet boys, so they'll make great pets for their new family.

Lovins from Star

I told you this goat loves me!

I really like this pic John took the other night.  I'd like it more, I think, if I didn't have my eyes closed.  Somehow that just seems to take the moment over the top. Regardless, though, I'm glad to have a good pic of me and my Star Baby sharing a moment. :)

Follow-up Friday: Star Baby

Razz is my #1 gal out in the field.  We've got this whole herd out there, but she's our only milker right now, so that definitely sets her apart.  She is well-behaved on the milk stand, has a nice udder, and gives a good amount of milk.  Since these traits are largely hereditary, we were so thankful that her baby this past spring was a girl that we named First Star.  

Hopefully, in a couple years, Star will become the first great milker to have been  born on our farm.  So, she's pretty special because of the high hopes we have for her.  But, she's turned out to be pretty special in other ways, too.

Star is the one at left.

First of all, she's gorgeous.  Her mostly pink nose gives her a feminine look, and her light-colored coat with roaning is just plain stunning.

And, maybe most importantly, Star is special because she thinks we're pretty special.  This goat LOVES us!  In fact, it was hard for me to get a pic of her because she pretty much stays right up on me when I'm out in the field.  

She stays right by my side, hoping for a good petting.  

Most Nubians don't care for having their ears messed with.  That was a pretty upsetting discovery for me because their floppy ears are so cute, they're just begging to be scratched!  Star is the only one of our goats who doesn't mind it a bit, though, if you give her ears some attention.  So long as you're petting her, she's a happy girl!  

She's getting pretty big and needs to be weaned soon.  Right now, she spends the day with her Momma Razz, nursing and grazing.  At night, she is separated from Momma so that Razz can be milked in the morning.  Soon, though, we'll separate them full time and milk Razz both morning and evening.  It's about time, too.  They look kind of silly together when Star is nursing -- she's gotten so big, she can barely get underneath her Momma anymore.

To Sell or Not to Sell

Honey, the large red doe at center, was from the start my favorite goat.  She loved me and would give me kisses, and who doesn't like to be adored?  

She gave birth to the twin boys this spring, and we attempted to milk her  . . . only to discover that she had poorly placed,tiny teats and terrible behavior on the milk stand.  Eventually, we gave up on milking her.

Another local breeder paid a visit to our farm the other day and, liking Honey's bloodlines, offered us a pretty penny for her.  

A good farmer would sell her.  After all, what good is she to us?  We can't milk her, so she's nothing more than a strain on our resources.  

Turns out, I may not be a good farmer.  I told Girl 1, who's spending the week at her grandparents', about the offer when I talked to her on the phone.  "What?!  If Dad sold Honey before I even got home to say goodbye, I'd just have to stay here awhile until I could get over it enough to come home!  What are we gonna do?  Are we gonna have a family meeting and vote on it?"  It seems she may not be a good farmer either.  

There's a chance she'll settle down a little and be better behaved on the milk stand next year.  It's not likely her anatomy will get much better, though, so she'd still be difficult to milk.  The breeder who made us the offer has a milk machine, so a less-than-ideal udder is really not a big deal to her.  

So . . . what to do, what to do.  Maybe we will put it to a vote once Girl 1 gets home.  

Suggestions?  Insight?

Happy Slaughter Day

We took advantage of John's day off yesterday and took care of some business in the backyard.  Specifically, 8 chickens made the transition from backyard to freezer.  

I'm pretty sure they'd overheard us discussing our 4th of July slaughter plans, because for the past several days their crows have sounded eerily like they're screaming "THE FOURTH OF JULY!"  (Just try saying it aloud and making it fit the traditional er-ER-er-er-ER sound that roosters make and you'll see what I'm talking about).

Aren't they pretty? 

Last time we slaughtered big birds I found that one whole chicken was WAY too big for just our family, so this time, before freezing, I decided to go ahead and cut up each chicken into the parts I use most frequently.

Each chicken was split up into three bags:  breasts, legs and thighs, and everything else (used for chicken stock).

We have 6 more smaller hens to "process" on Saturday, but I will probably leave them whole.

In other news, the goats survived our neighbor's fireworks display, though it was touch and go there for awhile.  The neighbors were launching them at an angle so that they were actually exploding right over the milking shed.  Even Girl 2 was terrified and hiding her head under the covers in our bed:  "They're just so close!"  I could hear commotion coming from the shed, and when I went out to check, Razz and Honey looked like they were having seizures -- wild eyed, they were throwing themselves around the pen as if possessed.  When they started slamming their bodies against the sides of the barn, I got really worried.  But, when I brought it up during this morning's milking, they didn't want to talk about it and both acted like nothing had even happened.  ;)  It seems they were embarrassed by their ridiculous antics.

Living with Goats

"You need humility  . . . to live with goats -- and you need a good sense of humor.  Goats, . . . are the same size and weight as us.  They can stand on two feet at our height, and even their eyes remind us of a version of ourselves; and if they like you they'll lick your face and if they don't -- watch out. "
                                                  From Brad Kessler's Goat Song

When I stood in the field with the goats and pulled the Mimosa branch low enough for them to reach more blooming goodness, they were definitely loving me . . . and, humbling me as they stood, hoofs on my chest, using me to get a leg-up to higher branches!

Follow-up Friday: Bucky Boys

Seriously, aren't they cute? 

Unfortunately, the three bucklings have been acting increasingly buck-like lately.  I'll spare you the graphic details, but suffice it to say they were doing horrendous things to Star, our little doeling who is still a year and a half from being ready for breeding. 

The twins (center and right, above) are now old enough to be weaned from their momma, and Oreo (left)  has long been big enough for weaning from his bottle, so it's off to the buck pen for the three of them.

You may recall that about 8 weeks ago we had to administer a wormer to our milkers that had mixed reviews for lactating animals.  Though there's disagreement, some vets claim it makes the milk unsafe for human consumption for a period of time.  We decided to play it safe and only used the milk to feed our bottle buckling during that recommended 8 week period.

But, as seen above, the wait is over!  The buckling is now being weaned and no longer needs the milk, and we've made it past our 8-week waiting period.  This jar is our first batch of pasteurized milk this season!

(More on the debate over raw vs. pasteurized milk in a later post.  It's been a debate even here at our household.)

Organic Pest Control

The garden is in full swing!

This means, of course that it's prime season for my arch enemies, the squash bugs, and other garden pests. 

Luckily, though, we've got the organic gardener's best friend -- a chicken tractor!

Pictured at left, the chicken tractor gets moved daily from one 4'x8' plot of land to the next.  Currently, John has it slowly circling the garden.  The chickens love to eat any type of bug they can get their beaks on, so they are doing a pretty good job of keeping garden pests to a minimum. 

Last year, we kept the goats in the pen inside the yard quite a bit. We saw a couple of ticks on the goats, so John started moving the chicken tractor around the goat pen, and we never saw another one.

We quit using pesticides on our lawn several years ago.  Since then, the front yard has become basically overgrown with weeds.  The backyard, however, is mostly lush, green grass.  That's because not only are the chickens great at munching pests, they also love most weeds.  So, with each new patch of ground they encounter, they are munching weeds and fertilizing the grass -- not a bad deal at all!

Lots of folks keep chickens in a stationary pen.  I'm sure this has lots of benefits.  But, we love our chicken tractor because it always keeps the hens on fresh grass and does wonders for the yard and garden all at the same time!

Ever Seen a Goat Walk on Two Legs?

I hope this entertains you as much as it did us!

We have a Mimosa tree that overhangs the back field, and it seems that Dallas (who, I say this lovingly, is usually as dumb as a brick) has figured out how to balance well enough to enjoy a snack.  :)

Follow-up Friday: The Cock Has Crowed

Remember these little guys?

They're not so little anymore.  In fact, this morning, we heard their first adolescent, squeaky-voiced crows.  John says we're within a couple weeks of slaughter.

In the meantime, we have a decision to make.  Our house is set up so that our guest room and master bedroom are on opposite ends of the house.  We have neighbors on our guest room side.  In the past, we've moved crowing birds to the neighborless/master bedroom side of the house to prevent ill will, but the 4:30am crowing just outside our bedroom window sent us toting our pillows to the guestroom.  I suspect, we'll be moving our bedside books to the guestroom for the next couple of weeks as we spare both ourselves and our neighbors the annoyance of early morning crowing. 

Thankfully, the arrangement won't last more than a couple of weeks, since we're that close to slaughter. 

 I was amazed on our last slaughter day to hear a chicken crow with its head detached, but I've never heard one crow from the freezer, so it'll be all good in no time!  :)

How to Be Tender

I'm currently reading Tamar Adler's captivating An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace.  It's full of wonderful nuggets, but this one is worth sharing:

"Of all the people who have had opinions about whether eating meat is an evolutionary inevitability or an ontological crime, none is so right as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who wrote a very big, comprehensive book called The River Cottage Meat Book. 

"He starts it by answering the question all of us who write recipes for meat should:  'It seems obvious to me that the morality of meat eating lies in the factual details of our relationships with the animals we kill for food.  It is what we do to them that counts.'

"It is.

"I've looked at animals raised amid the roiled and rich chaos of sun and dirt and barnyard.  I've watched exchanges on farms where things are slow and sensible:  between pig and pig, pig and soil, soil and sky.  I've watched children care for animals and learn a little bit about transience and wildness from it.  I've also peeked over the high walls of the factory farms behind which most meat is raised and seen how beastly we can be to the animals we eat.

"What we do to animals counts."

I couldn't agree more.  This is really what's behind our backyard broilers.  When we eat our chicken, we know how those chickens spent their days and that they were treated well, enjoyed their days in the sun, and were killed in the most humane way we know of.

Losing My Impatiens

Well, Milkshake may have been declared innocent in  The Mystery of the Murder in the Chicken Coop, but it's hard to see how she could be innocent this time.

I walked out onto the back patio to discover that the lovely Impatiens I'd planted in this pot had been strewn about, and you-know-who had made herself a little bed in the newly emptied pot.

See what I have to deal with around here? 

She's just nearly too cute to scold, though. 

Growing Chicks

Our baby chicks are growing up! 

And getting some pretty handsome feathers.  The males seem to be a bit darker feathered than the females. Both male and female are definitely prettier than the Cornish Crosses we raised last year and should fatten up enough for slaughter faster than the Buff Orpingtons. 

Goat Babies are Growing!

Two videos for you today:

One of the herd, showing how much they've grown.

And another, showing how Razz, the herd queen exerts her dominance and protects her owner from the annoying Oreo.  ;)

Love my goats!!!

The Mystery of the Murder in the Chicken Coop

Girl 1 has been obsessed with Nancy Drew books lately.  So, naturally, when we discovered the dead chickens in the coop, her first question was "What would Nancy Drew do?"  She then proceeded to gather evidence.

The first thing we noticed was that Milkshake appeared to be injured.  She was hobbling around on 3 legs and had some blood on her nose.  In the time she's lived here, this kind of thing had never happened before.  The chicken murder and Milkshake injury seemed to be linked somehow.  But how?

The intruder had pulled back the chicken wire from the door frame and snuck in. 

A close examination of the wire revealed some hair/fur that had gotten snagged on the wire at the point of entry.

It measured about 3 inches long and appeared to be a blonde, reddish color.

This was the evidence we needed to declare Milkshake a victim rather than the perpetrator.  Her similarly colored fur is only about 1 inch long.  Whew!!!

Could the opossum we've had hanging around here be to blame?  That's not likely since we know this attack occurred during daylight:  sometime between when John fed the chickens in the morning and when the kids went outside after dinner. 

Our conclusion:  we had a fox in the henhouse. 

That's pretty good detective work, I'd say. 

Now, how do we protect our hens from a repeat invasion?

Chicken Coop Break-In

Last week (on the day that our only car for our family of 5 was the farm truck), we lost 2 laying chickens.  We'd been gone most of the day, taking vehicles to be worked on.  After dinner, the kids ran out into the backyard to play a few minutes before we had to load up the wagon and head out for our evening activities.  They ran right back into the house, declaring, "I think some chickens are dead." 

I'm sparing you a photo of the chickens themselves as we found them in the chicken yard.  But, how the kids thought they just might be dead is beyond me.  Usually when an animal's intestines are outside its body, that's a good clue it's met its earthly end.  Whatever it was claimed the lives of two chickens and literally scared the eggs out of the rest of them (really, there were eggs just dropped all over the floor of the house instead of the laying boxes). 

John immediately set to work fixing the damage to the house that had been done by the intruder.  Apparently, the culprit had entered by pulling the chicken wire back from the door.

The two we lost look like this one.  They are such pretty birds!

The chickens were understandably skiddish following their traumatic day.

This is new to us.  We've not had wild intruders doing damage to our farm before.  Who's to blame?  And how can we better protect our gals in the future? 

Check back tomorrow to see how far we've gotten in solving the Mystery of the Murder in the Chicken Coop. 

To Cull or Not to Cull?

That is the question.

The chicks have been enjoying their time outside.  This little guy, though, seems to be having a problem.

He spends most of his day like this, squatted on the ground.  When he's frightened, he will try to move around.

It's a pretty awkward walk, but he can get around.  You can see here how his legs are splayed as he attempts to walk away from me.

Another look at his odd walk.

For now, though, he does seem to be growing.  He must be able to get at the food and water okay or he wouldn't still be kickin'. 

The bird is definitely a prime candidate for culling.  But, we've never made a conscious decision to end the life of any of our little farm critters, so we're not quite ready to make that call.  We'll keep an eye on him over the next couple of days.  John did do the research on how to do it easily and quickly if it comes to that.  He mimicked the motion, showing me how it's done, and I just shuddered.  It's hard to imagine choosing to end the life of one of these cute little chickadees! 

Any serious farmer would've done it at the first sign of a problem.  But, since our feed-to-slaughter-weight ratio is not our only consideration, we're going to play the waiting game on this one for a few days.  I'll let you know how it works out for the little guy.

Milkshake's Morning Routine

Milkshake (the small calico cat in the bottom right of the photo) LOVES milk! She loves it so much that when she was just a tiny kitten, she would climb up the leg of my overalls when I would milk, and sit on my knee, hoping for a taste of the yummy milk.  It was quite cute. 

As she's gotten older, though, she's gotten much more pushy about getting her morning milk.  She jumps up on the milk stand, trying to get a taste as the milk streams from teat to pail.  The goats are not exactly thrilled about having a kitty hanging around their feet during this whole process. 

So, Milkshake now spends milking time in the pet carrier that is right at the foot of the milking stand for this very purpose.

As soon as milking is complete, she's let out to run over to her bowl where she finally gets a taste of that much-sought-after milk!

You know, I've read lots of "homesteading" memoirs over the past couple of years.  It's become one of my favorite little subgenres -- the true tales of folks who've traded in their city lives for the older ways of living on the land.  In several of the books I've read, the authors have lamented, saying that many who visit their farms imagine that living there is idyllic in some way, full of days filled with sunshine and sweet tea and frolicking in the fields with baby lambs.  I'll be the first to admit that there are dark days on the farm.  Drought, disease, and death all come to mind.  But, there's something I love about seeing Milkshake happily lapping up that fresh milk in the milking shed.  I never tire of it, or grow immune to it.  It makes me smile every time I see her head plunge into the bowl.   Idyllic?  Absolutely.

Chicks Move Outside!

Our baby chicks are no longer babies.  They've transitioned fully into that awkward "tween" phase that in humans translates into knobby knees and new front teeth. While this may mean they're not currently at their cutest, it does mean that they're old enough to enjoy some sunshine! 

They've just about outgrown their little tub in the garage.

So, as it's supposed to be 80 degrees here today, they're ready for the big move out to the fresh air and green grass of the backyard.

All moved in!

Here they are, just chirpin' awa,y as they explore their new grassy digs!

Growing Chicks

This is what our spring chicks looked like last week.

And, this is what they look like this week.  They're getting their big-boy feathers (no, that's not the technical term)!  Starting with their wing-tips and tails, they're trading in their yellow fuzz for actual feathers.

It's hard to see in the pics, but they've gotten quite a bit bigger in just a week.  For some scale, here I am holding one.

As it has been cold the past couple of days, they seem pretty thankful for their heat lamp and spend a lot of time huddled directly beneath it. 

Once temps outside regulate a bit and they have a few more feathers, they'll be ready for some outside time.  I look forward to watching them explore the grass for the first time.  Hopefully we're only a week or two away from their big move to the great outdoors.