I've decided I'm going to throttle my chickens.  Usually they're at the farm, but I have three over at my house for R&R.  Today they found their way through the hanging screen door and were in the house when I came home. I shooed them out, and then stepped in chicken poop in the middle of my rug.  Aaargh!

A couple of days ago I had my plants outside, and brought them in at night. I missed one, a flat of oriental greens, just at the right stage for picking and eating.  It rained the next day, and by the time I remembered them, the slugs had them half eaten.  I brought them in and nurtured them until today, when I put them outside again.  When I was watering my plants this afternoon, I discovered that the chickens had found them as tasty as the slugs.

I think I'm going to have to throttle my chickens.

Oh, did I mention that they pushed their way through the hanging screen door again?  Apparently they don't know that it means "keep out".  I was in the kitchen cleaning up, when I heard little clucks at the door.  Turning, I found they were not outside looking in, as I'd supposed, but had pushed their way through.  I had to close the glass door, because they just don't get the hit.

I really do think I'm going to have to throttle my chickens.

Sorrow

My beautiful Maine Coon cat, Jethro, has disappeared.  I let him out a couple of mornings ago, and he never came back.  There's so many reasons I can think of--coyotes, Great Horned Owls, bobcats (though I haven't heard any for a long time), an occasional wolf.  So many dangers, but perhaps he wandered into someone's yard and decided to stay.  i can only hope that's the case, and that I'll see him again.

Life (and death) on the farm

Life and death occur together, and nowhere is a microcosm so apt to show itself as on a farm.  I have two hens setting, one an Araucana bantam and the other a Buff Orpington.  The Banty is setting on about 9 eggs, the Orpington on about 15.  I snuck a few extras under each of them.  My Silkie rooster now thinks he's the Cock of the Walk, because he happily struts his stuff in the coop where the hens are setting, happy as a clam.

On a less happy note, when I closed up the chickens tonight, one of the other hens was in distress, wheezing and making odd noises as if moaning.  I checked her for egg impaction, but that's not the problem.  Birds are so much harder to diagnose and treat than mammals!  My homeopathic poultry book wasn't handy, and I don't know where I put it.  I don't think it's going to matter, though; I think she'll be gone tomorrow morning when I get there.  Birds get sick so fast, and fail so quickly, that it's hard to save them.  Injuries they recover from, but illness--seldom.

I took out the hen that I think is breaking and eating eggs, too.  If I'm right, then she'll be the next to go.  I have 6 or 7 hens laying out of 17.  When these two go, it'll be 4 or 5 out of 15.  By the time winter comes, though, I'll have a slew of new hens to replace them, and perhaps some meat birds as well.  They should hatch by the end of May, and will be laying by the end of October.

Family pictures

This morning was cool but sunny, and by midday, everyone (that is, all the animals) were out roaming around, at pasture.  Beatrice and the other two goats had called a truce, and they were now allowed to sniff Heartbreak.  By afternoon, they were out in the pasture, having broken out when I wasn't looking, but they were so enjoying themselves that I let them stay.

The horses were resting, though Magic, of course, was interested in everything that was going on around her.

As I headed back to the barn, the geese hissed and honked, protecting the six goslings.  It was amazing to see how they hustled them along, surrounding them, protecting them from...me.

First day out

Beatrice has been teaching me.  I tried to get her and her new kid out a couple of days ago, but Bea wasn't having any of it.  I was premature, obviously.  The kid was still learning to use her legs.  Given the opportunity, she took her kid right back to the stall and asked me to close the door.

Yesterday, she decided it was okay to go as far as the barn aisle.  Little Heartbreak was now able to jump and run, and loved exploring, but Bea didn't want her going too far.   I knew that something had shifted when she came out of her stall last night to milk and left her doeling lying comfortably in the stall, no hesitation.

And today, Day 5, was Introduce the Kid to the Herd Day.  Within a few minutes of coming out of the stall, the doeling was hopping onto the milking stanchion, and after Bea was milked, they were out the door and over at the fence, where the other goats were able to check out the kid safely.  An hour later, I let Emily in with them.  Heads butted!  Bea was not going to let Emily near her kid.  It took a couple of hours, but by afternoon, they were hanging out together in the small pasture, Emily keeping a respectful distance, but still close enough to observe.  She eventually decided she'd spent enough time away from the large pasture and asked to go out.

Bea headed back to the barn, where her kid found the horse's round tub was a perfect size for a nap--if only Mom would let her sleep!

Tomorrow, Sanuba gets her turn while Emily stays out.  Slowly but surely, they'll all be integrated into the small herd.  It'll be a bit longer before she's allowed around the horses.  Magic is still too much of a wild thing to trust her with such a small kid.

Babies and babies

It's strange how motherhood can inspire.  Emily and Sanuba are fascinated by Bea's kid.  Bea, of course, hasn't yet let them near her, so I've let them and the horses go out to the pasture and closed the gate behind them.  Bea still won't come out.  She did come as far as the barn door, and little Heartbreak (for that's what she is) jumps and hops everywhere.  What a difference a few days makes!  She's so cute.  It breaks my heart that she's not breeding material.  It always seems worse when it's a doe.  I expect to cull the males. You can only have so many breeding males, but every female is a potential breeder.  This defect is genetic, and a hard decision has to be made eventually.

Beatrice has perked right up in the past few days.  Today she scarfed down a huge quantity of hay, and she's been gobbling any comfrey I offer her.  Carrots and sweet potato?  Yum, yum!  Her milk production is increasing.  Even with the kid nursing, she's giving me 1/2 gallon of milk per day.  It's a real challenge to milk with a kid jumping on and off the stanchion.

And then there are the geese.  One goose has been setting for most of the month, and hatched out 6 goslings the same day Heartbreak was born.  The other goose has been putzing around, laying eggs for two months, and ignoring them.  Every now and then I'd take a few so we didn't have a mountain of goose eggs sitting there, but she just wasn't interested in setting.  Until the first goose hatched those goslings.  Within two days, the other goose was setting.

I watched as the geese headed down to the little farm pond mid-pasture.  One gosline fell into a little hole and couldn't get out.  It wasn't very deep--maybe 6 inches or so, but he's only about 4 inches tall.  What a little trooper!  He kept jumping up until he finally made it to the top, and off they went.

The goats and horses are fascinated with those little balls of fuzz, and ignore all the hissing and wing beating and outstretched necks of the goose and ganders.  They're not like the geese that were on the farm when I was a child.  My grandmother's gander ran at us and bit...hard.  These geese are pikers compared to those.  No horse or goat would have come within yards of the goslings back then.

Beatrice kidded last night, one little doeling. Actually, one good sized doeling.  I weighed her this afternoon and she weighed nine pounds.

Around 11:30 yesterday, Beatrice wanted to go into her stall.  I let her in, took her out a while later and put her in the kidding stall, but she didn’t want to be there, so I put down fresh bedding in her regular stall and put her back in there.  Then I let the horses and yearlings out, and opened the stall gate for her.  She just looked at me and didn’t move. I closed the gate.  A while later she started moving around.  By 3:00 it was obvious she was going to kid soon.  Her udder was looking much fuller, she had deep cavities in front of her pelvic bones, and her ligaments had softened.   Around 4:30 I was sure she was going to kid in  an hour or less.   

At 6:30 I wondered what was happening, if anything.  She was definitely in labor, but it was slow going. Around that time, she presented a bubble, but it looked like a red bag delivery—red bag instead of grey.  Oh, no!  I went into the house and when I came back, the water had broken--whew!  Maybe it looked red, but not a red-bag delivery (placenta previa).  A while later, I went in the house againwhen I came out, Shawn said she’d pushed out two front feet and a nose.  Now there was nothing.  A few minutes later, I saw a hoof, then nothing.  This went on for the good part of an hour.  I went into the house again and washed my hands thoroughly, then came back out felt shallowly to see if I could feel a malpresentation.  I backed off after 2-3 inches, went back into the house, called two different neighbors with goats—both out. finally drove to my house to get the phone number of someone else.  The phone rang; things still weren’t progressing  I grabbed the phone number, called on the way: no answer.  I was just driving down the lane when the phone rang again.  "Yes?"  Shawn's voice said, “The feet and head are out, and everything’s going fast now.”  I parked the car and ran into the barn; there was the baby on the hay.  She’d been born about 45 seconds before. We checked the time he’d called and it was 8:04.  A strong doeling, she stood within 3 minutes.  And then I saw that she has an undershot jaw.  Parrot mouth. Bummer.

 

Bea lay down with her kid this afternoon, and though she got up a few times after that, most of her afternoon and evening was spent lying down. She ate alfalfa pellets willingly, and I gave her grain and herbal wormer as well, but she hasn't touched her hay.  I only milked out less than a quart.  The colostrum doesn’t seem as thick as last year, either, and her udder feels full—is it “meaty”?  Yet two other people thought she looked empty.  Baby is nursing well, jumping little hops, and getting stronger. She's cute in spite of her mouth problem.