Baby Chicks!

We tried to hatch another clutch of eggs again this year.  We just have not had good results with our incubator.  We don't know what the difficulty is.  This year we only had 2 survivors.

Ethan built a very nice, sturdy brooder for us that we can use out in the garage.  It has been wonderful to not have the smell of the brooder coming into the living room from the porch like last year.

It has a lid with sturdy boards across the top so that the cats can sit on it and observe the chicks and nice, high sides to protect from the winds that blow straight into the garage.

We had 2 orphaned chicks given to us and bought 20 Barred Rock and 20 Buff Orpington chicks from someone on craigslist to keep our 2 hatched chicks company.

It's a grand brooder!  It will serve us well and Ethan did such a great job on it!

Several of our hens went broody but only one hen was faithful enough to keep coming back to her nest.  The others would forget or get confused and start a new nest somewhere else.  

This is Eglantine.  She was allowed to keep her nest of eggs because she was so faithful.  She even took in a nearby nest that another hen abandoned and rolled each egg over to her own nest and sat on them.

We let the chicks stay with her until they were nicely fluffed up and then we took them and added them to the ones in the brooder.  We wanted to let her have them and raise them but a couple died and we decided they might be better off in the brooder.  So far she has hatched us about 16 chicks.  A much better rate than we got from the incubator!

The Not-So-Ugly Bucklings

Our lives have changed since living out in the country.  We do strange things like pick up animals as impulse buys.

Wee, wee, wee, all the way home

We got another couple of piglets for the freezer.  Two girls, or guilts they are called.

Noah will be caring for the piggies this time around.

Like most of the livestock that arrive at our farm, have come home in the tardis, er, the faithful, old blue dog crate.

Last time we hefted the dog crate all the way across our yard from the barnyard to where we wanted them and then had an impromptu pig rodeo.  This time we watched how the farmer did it and imitated him, though he carried one pig in each hand, by one hindfoot.

Emily took one and Ethan took the other.  So much easier!

The plan is to give them less grain this time around since there is plenty of lovely, lush, green grass to be grazing upon.  

We've been working on taking down some of the old fence line and replacing it with goat proof fencing and we have recycled the old field fencing material by putting it back up in the wooded area we have slated for "Pig Alley"

We are fencing a series of several small paddocks that run the width of our property and end in the area of woods that we have lots of Oak trees in.  The plan is that the hogs will end in that last paddock and use the acorns to fatten up on.

We were told that pastured pork would not need rings in their snouts if they have plenty of grazing, but it must be a learned behavior.  Our pigs began gleefully rooting from the start so we will need to put rings in their snouts to prevent them from tilling everywhere they are put as we don't want them to ruin all the wonderful grasses we have back in the wooded area they are going to.

Unfortunately they've already turned their area to mud while we've been trying to get a fence up.  We ran into a difficulty, or rather quite a few difficulties.

Black Locust Trees.

Wicked trees.

The trunk is covered in thorns and the whole tree is thorny.  And the thorns are venomous.  The tree is poisonous to livestock and humans and it's no fun being stuck or scratched by them, which has happened to us countless times while we've been trying to clear the trees out.  The scratches stay angry, red, welted and tender for weeks.

This unusual tree is very invasive.  It has three ways of reproducing; by putting out new growth near the base, by seeds that drop and by sending out runners.  Cutting them down causes them to send out new runners vigorously.  You must cut down all the new growth the same growing season.  There is no way to eradicate them and control is an ongoing battle.

No fun at all.

So while we battle the Black Locust Trees, the piggies wait in their pen, surrounded by all the green grass.  Poor piggies.  Hopefully we will get it finished soon and move them to Pig Alley.  For now they are enjoying all of our scraps and milk waste.  They are quite happy with that!

If I'd a cow that made such milk...

We have been watching craigslist for months and contacting individuals and writing to all the dairies within a 3 hour drive from us searching for a family milk cow for months now.  

Quite a few of our weekends have been taken up with going to look at a cow and discussing it and making a decision.   

We just brought home our new family milk cow.  Our neighbor was kind enough to haul her for us.  It's such a blessing to have good neighbors!  She doesn't have a name yet, but she is ours now and she is home at last.