Bad Chicky Mama

I messed up with the meaty chicks last night. They have been living in a rubbermaid bin under a grow light in the garage.

Before dinner, I gave them fresh litter, food and water. When I put the waterer back in, I failed to notice that there was a bit of an indentation in the litter where the water had been before. The stinkers piled up in that hole and smothered themselves. I lost 6 chicks. That's 9 down on this batch. I am really disappointed.

Just placed an order for 30 more directly from the hatchery. At least that way, if I lose any in the first 4 days, they'll reimburse me.

Honey Extractor

I was starting to wonder if UPS was going to make it, but they finally arrived with our honey extractor about 7:00 pm.

Look at all that packing paper! It looks like Hurricane Isaac stormed my foyer. Unfortunately, with the rain coming in the next couple days, I may not get to extract this week. Just more time for the bees to make honey, I suppose.

Low on Leche

In a perfect world, I would have all the milk everyone wanted and plenty for us to make yogurt, and cheeses, sour cream and kefir. Unfortunately, nature doesn't always cooperate.

Kat is drying up and is only giving about a pint a day now. Trixie is still a milk machine and Onyx is a first timer, so I can't expect too much from her, but she is holding her own with almost a quart (and that's from just one teat, good girl!). I will have much more milk after they freshen in the spring, but until then, I need to be freezing some milk for my family so I won't have to buy it *shudder*.

My friend Dave and his family came on Saturday and we implanted a CIDR in Kat to have her ready to breed in two weeks. That means kids around February 9!!! Love this handy goat gestation calendar I just found.

We are going to breed Onyx in October and Trixie in November so with a little luck, I'll always have someone milking. You can't milk a goat for the last 2 months of gestation because the kids need the energy to grow. I don't see our supply going up again until spring.

I am very, very sorry that I can't provide for all the families who have come to enjoy our milk. We may increase the herd to 4 goats next year. We are still learning. Thanks for growing with us.

Round Three

Poor Cloud, Poor Cole

We had a near disaster on the farm overnight. It was nearly 9:00pm last night when we finished dinner. Chase and I went out to lock up the critters by the light of an iPhone app.

Fast forward to this morning when Cole came inside nearly in tears. It seems his little silkie, Cloud, spent the night in the duck pond. She must have fallen in and gotten water-logged. Since it was dark when we locked up, Chase and I didn't notice her.

She was lethargic and shivering. We put her under a heat lamp and dried her feathers with the hairdryer. I'm happy to report that she seems to have made a full recovery! Looks like we have another step we need to add to our evening routine....check the pond for chickens.

Just Ducky

Clyde and Clay enjoyed their fresh water last night. And despite my son's comment, it had only been two days since I'd cleaned it.

Monday, we had to get out the door to a doctor's appointment. I was trying to get my hair dry and makeup on when Chase yelled, "Mom, the meaty birds are out". I looked out the window and sure enough, there was a flock of white chickens on the neighbor's side of the stream.

We rushed outside and followed the birds up to my neighbor's house. All the time I'm thinking the neighbors are going to love having my chickens tearing up their landscaping and pooping on their pool deck!

The birds beelined for their backyard. I had one of the kids go knock on the door in case they were home to explain why we were prowling in the backyard. About this time, I saw that the white birds had black on their wings. Check the picture a couple posts down- ours are all white. Then I saw the coop. We had just gone on a wild chicken chase after our neighbor's chickens!

We made it to our appointment on time, though I got to go with wet hair, and we learned a valuable lesson to go check the pen to make sure our birds are missing first!

Barn Raising

Our barn finally went up last week. It has been so rainy here that the contractors were delayed and kept putting us off. As it is, they worked in the rain one afternoon.

We still need to do a lot of build-out to make it what we want, but at least the goats no longer have to vie for shelter under the lean-to. We are planning to close in one end with a loft for feed, stalls for the goats and an area for milking. It will be really nice not to have to drag them through the rain to the driveway to milk!