Farm log 10/20/12

This post is more for me than you.  I've tried to keep a log book before but I end up looking up old FB or blog posts anyhow to figure out what I did when.

Sonny- weight taped at 105lbs, dosed with ivermectin (wormer), given CD/T vaccine, BoSe shot, hooves trimmed and iodined.  Sonny has a goiter we noticed a week ago that has been shrinking with the addition of Thorvin kelp free choice every evening.  In a week, I want to reworm him and see if I can give him some RedCell (I'm slightly concerned his "goiter" is actually bottle jaw so I'm treating for both just in case).  In a month he needs hoof trimming and his second CD/T as well as copper bolus.

York- weight taped at 180, dosed with ivermectin and CD/T.  Hooves trimmed and iodined.  I'll probably reworm him along with Sonny and he also needs hoof trimming and his second CD/T as well as copper bolus.

Pictures 10/7/12

'I only have eyes.....for yoouuuuu'  Sonny, now a year old and currently in rut

"Angel"- our currently broody Ameracuana x Wyandotte cross from last fall's hatch. Ironically she's quite mean and will peck your hand off.

The boys, Sonny and York.  Poor York has to deal with stinky Sonny.

The blue slate turkeys....1 jake and 4 hens (are they called something different at this age?)  

Free range hens.  They really like to roost in the pine trees.

duck duck duck goose goose :)  The gosling girls are about 3/4 of our grown gander's size now

this rooster is one of the "school" leghorns, he's just a white leghorn but LOOK at that tail! I've never seen a leghorn with such a fancy tail and none of the other roos have it.  Too bad we aren't trying to keep leghorn roos.

Early Fall.  From my dining room window.

October '12 update

It feels like fall!  We had such a hot, dry summer that I'm not ashamed to say that I was glad to see it go.

I'd love to tell you that so much has happened in the last month, but really it's nothing too exciting.  We lost a duck, one of the girls from the spring hatch.  She disappeared one evening without a trace and we still have not seen any sign of her.  She may have went broody and we'll see her later this month with a bunch of ducklings of her own.  She may have been picked up by a predator, however this theory puzzles me since the only airborne predator I've seen lately is too small to carry away a duck of her size.

Which brings me to the airborne predator in question, the Cooper's hawk.  For a few days we had a Cooper's hawk scoping out our flock and our African geese were so kind as to alert every living creature around that it was nearby.  I believe that hawk has moved on and I don't think it caught a meal here.  Have I mentioned how much I love our geese?  Low maintenance, easy keepers, hearty flock protection.  I can't wait to see the goslings next year.  We've never had goose meat but we are looking forward to trying it.  I was browsing around for prices on goose...wow!  I mean the low end I found was $8/lb and the high end nearing $12/lb for whole goose.  If we weren't raising it, I can't imagine we'd ever afford it.

The goats.  Well, they stink to high heaven right now.  Sonny is in rutt and if we are lucky they he didn't just pee all over his head just before we have to handle him.  Boy goats are gross!

The human kids are doing great.  The new baby was 10lbs, 9.5 oz today at the doc's office :)  My son has taken a liking to jigsaw puzzles.  I have no idea what skill level he should be at with puzzles but the last couple puzzles were probably too easy at 24 pcs.

With all these animals we raise for meat, it had me thinking about our menu.  If we grew all of our own meats our menu would include: chicken, duck, turkey, goose, goat, with rabbit and pork as later additions.  I don't know about you but I grew up with the typical beef, pork, chicken, fish, turkey diet....none of which were grown on pasture like we're doing here.  So it really is going to require me to branch out my cooking skills.  I've never cooked goat or goose or rabbit.

September update

This might be the only update I get to this month.  I've been happily busy with this cutie pie.  She might be the prettiest newborn I've ever laid eyes on.....but then again, I'm biased.  She arrived August 1st so now she's officially a month old.

I had a c-section, which normally I recover fast and easily from surgery and I started out that way, but I developed a seroma which reopened my incision so this recovery has been quite hard.  I'm still recovering and I have a feeling I'm still weeks away from normal.  I also have a nerve in my leg that's making me crazy that I have to get looked at so when you combine the two....I'm just not quite up to being myself yet.  Luckily I have this snuggly, warm newborn to keep me anchored in a seat so it's easy to take it easy.  

So let me share one more picture of my kiddos before I move on to the barnyard.  My son loves her so much.  He's always asking to hold her, kiss her, and he always wants to be near her.  Wasn't exactly what I expected him to do.  I really thought he'd be so jealous he'd have a hard time adjusting but really he's done well.  

So the barnyard, honestly...not much new has happened.  All the spring babies look like mini-adults.  They all have done so well, they forage well and we've been getting a steady stream of eggs from the girls (albeit a smaller amount of eggs than we probably should be getting).  We have about 10 roosters and 3 ducks that need to find their way into our freezer, but with everything going on around here we haven't gotten to it.

Our nubian buck, Sonny, is now registered as Wyatt's Pride Sun King *B and he just turned a year old.  He's a handsome boy but he is beginning to feel his testosterone so we use a pretty reasonable amount of caution with him.  Now, we just need a few good does to breed to him :)

So for now, that's my update.  I know it's not much but we've really been quite wrapped up with the new baby and a lot of our outdoor activities have been on hold.  This farming thing is much easier with two people.

Gobble, Gobble! 

Fire! (Luckily, not a bad one)

I like to think of us a being prepared to deal with almost anything.  So when something comes up I'm not prepared for, after things have died down I replay everything in my head.  Where could I have done better?  What could I do to prepare better next time?  Yesterday we had a brooder/barn fire.  Nothing terribly serious, actually I think I may have personally gotten the worst of it.

We had a brooder lamp set up to keep the barn babies warm (goslings, ducklings and chicks) while they get their feathers.  The chicks are nearly old enough to go without it but the waterbabies aren't....although they don't need it much.  Anyhow, the lamp fell into the bedding and started a fire....I'm guessing by the damage it was a pretty slow fire.  The babies were all huddled under the open barn window away from the fire, which probably saved them.  The fire damaged the adjoining stall wall and a portion of the brooder wall, some dishes and of course some bedding.  We were out on a church picnic, when we got home, I went to the barn to let the goats out.  Of course I find smoke and fire so I got the goats out right away to  the pasture, when I returned I could hear the barn babies (I'd pretty much at first assumed they were lost) so I grabbed a water hose and aimed through the barn window to put the fire out.  Once I thought it was out I ran in and unplugged the lamp at the outlet and ran back outside to get some air....very smoky!  The neighbor's daughter was out so I recruited her to help me run the babies out....the fire was mostly out but it was still pretty smokey.  Once everyone was out I used the hose some more and went to grab my husband (why didn't I get him first?  I don't know....in the moment I just wanted to get everyone out)  He helped me get the rest of the smolders out, water everyone and evaluate the damage.

I ended up inhaling some smoke, nothing life threatening but it was enough to trigger some asthma so I went the ER for a breathing treatment.  I probably wouldn't have went if I weren't pregnant but better safe than sorry right?  Anyhow, I felt a lot better after that and other than I was beat when it was all said and done....really no one was hurt.

I'm trying to think of something nice to do for our neighbor's daughter....I want to say she's 16 or 17, maybe a Starbucks card and a Thank You note?

Getting ready for baby (some personal notes on baby stuff)

This one obviously isn't farm-y related, it's baby/parenting related.  I know, and you probably thought all I cared about were critters.

I'm starting to get really excited about this baby.  I'm nearly 30 weeks along, complete with all the discomforts and fetal movements that seem to dictate a lot of my life right now.  My body just doesn't feel much like my own right now.  I'm not trying to complain, but being pregnant is just weird.  I am though really grateful that we've had an easier go at it this time than in times past.  I'm still on my feet, which is amazing since I was on bedrest starting 23 weeks along with my son.  So far my worst complications have been deficiencies (iron and calcium mostly) and cellulitis from my injection sites so I'm hoping that things will stay pretty smooth for the duration.

We thought we had her named, but now we are having second thoughts on our chosen name.  So I have a couple of really good names and chances are we'll have to look at her to know what her name is.  That wasn't the case with my son but we found such a great name for him it made it easy....girl names are sooooo much harder if you ask me.

Speaking of my son, he has a lot of changes ahead too.  I'm so very aware of this right now.  Not just the baby coming but we still need to get him transitioned to a toddler bed and he's been kind of sort of potty training himself....I'm not pushing the potty training since I keep hearing that he'll regress when the new baby arrives.  We'll see.

Lately I've been seeing a lot of posts on Facebook about breastfeeding and vaccines and all the other hot topics when it comes to babies.  Geesh!  I'll just say I'm going to do what works for us, vaccinate (*gasp* on schedule) and nurse the baby and I don't expect anyone to give me grief about it, nor do I dole out grief to anyone else for their choices.  It just seems like no matter what you do, someone has something to say about how to raise kids.  The Time magazine article recently on attachment parenting was a good example of how fired up people get about this stuff.  I'm not an attachment parent, however I do love a good sling....talk about convenient!

So that's what was on my mind.  We have around 10 weeks remaining until we get to meet the new little one so it's very exciting.

Babies on the farm

My favorite baby, my now 3 year old son :)

Blue Slate turkey poults- just a few days old

a closer look at the turkey poult

3 week old mutt ducklings (pekin x crested mutt)

11 2 week old leghorn chicks + 1 mystery black chick = cute pile of sleepy fluff

a few days old African gosling with Rouen ducklings of the same age

Dinner time!  (they are all in the same brooder)

mingling around the water cooler

Sonny at 9 months old

Freya at 4 months old

The pictures tell the story right?  On May 4th we received a bunch of chicks from a local school; leghorns, a barred rock and a mystery black chick with black legs and puffed cheeks.  There were some rare breed bantams in the bunch too but we were able to pass those babies along to someone who really wanted them, rather than us who have no use for them.  Then this week the ducklings and goslings arrived as well as the turkey poults, so they are all less than a week old.  

My son turned 3 this month.  Where did the time go?  He's getting so big!