Poultry- with varying degrees of fertilization

 While the weather was less than spring-y, the poultry still did their thing.  January 8 we found 10 healthy ducklings.  The younger breeding stock are all fully matured now so I can't tell if it was Big Mama who hatched the first successful batch of the year or not.  Whoever it was, she did well.

 Then February 13, we welcomed another batch of 12.  We gave 1 to a friend, one mysteriously died after a few days but the remaining 10 were moved to a dilapidated chicken pen outside once they outgrew the rabbit pen in the porch.

 I secured the pen's sides from escapees, but it had to reliable roof.  I put the top portion of Angel's dog house (that she refuses to use) inside which gave them good shelter and protection.

Once the batch from Jan 8 were big enough to not be trampled by goats, I moved them into the pasture.  They kept slipping through the fence and getting chased by Angel so I left the pen the had vacated empty for a few days so that midnight escapees could be sheltered from the perpetual-herder until she had appropriately trained them to stay in the pasture.

One day I came home to find that a roving goat had eaten the last of our collard greens, baby duck carcasses littering the yard and a completely vacant pen.  It took a while to piece together the events that must have transpired.  What is now assumed is that the ducks discovered  a small hole in the pen.  That hole may have been created by a curious puppy nose as it does dent inward.  The ducks, never missing an opportunity to play follow-the-leader, ALL squeezed through the hole into the wide world they were unprepared for.  Angel then herded them into the pasture... and some over the rainbow bridge.  In the end, 5 babies were dead and 5 were retrieved alive and well from the pasture.

I had high hopes for a nest of 15 that another duck was sitting on.  Then a cold snap came through at the beginning of March.  The next time I checked the nest it was down to 6 eggs.  Mama ducks know if the baby within has died and they remove it from the nest.  A few days later 3 of those eggs were partially hatched, all dead and the mother had moved on.  I think the cold was too much for them, despite their mother's vigilance all the way to the end.  I have found no other nests at this time, but there are ample hiding places out there and they usually do a fabulous job of hiding them from me.

Back in the first week of September a shipment of chicks arrived. Remember the snake attack?  Well those that survived the rat snake all reached maturity and we were anxiously waiting for our first eggs.  Early in the morning of January 18, I was awoken by the most distressing sound- Cock-A-Doodle-DOOOOOO!!!  Out of nowhere.  No pubescent crackles to indicate a rooster had found its way into our pen of carefully sexed pullets.  It was very surprising!  It would not be so distressing if not for the fact that our neighbors are quite close to us.  And we'd like to think that we are NOT the reason that it just so happens that every single house that borders our property line is for sale.  So we had to deal with the rooster promptly.  Now I see that when they give you a "free rare breed chick" with every order, you can most certainly guarantee that bird is a rooster.  Next time I'll say, no thanks to the "free offer".

January 30th the first eggs started coming.  We have 14 Red Stars and 3 Americaunas along with 11 Golden Nuggets that are still cranking enough to keep feeding them.

We have an abundance of eggs right now, but I'm freezing our excess for the lean times of winter.  I beat together about 8 eggs as if they were to be scrambled and pour them into an ice cube tray.  For our size ice cubes, 2 cubes = 1 egg.  The thawed consistency is not quite the same so we don't use them for scrambled eggs, but they work in smoothies, baking or quiche.

Duck update

Did you think I gave up the blog?  Sorry, still here and still have grand intentions.  Just struggling to find my groove I guess.                                                            So anyway, March 1, I went out to check that nest I mentioned eons ago and found this.  18 little ducklings.  (4 days later we got our 4th child through the foster care system... hence why its been 6 months since I've blogged). Later that day we collected most of them and moved them to a pen.  We let Mama (now known as Big Mama) raise 4, but frankly, the pasture is a dangerous place.  One drowned in their duck bath.  A couple weeks later another was trampled to death in the barn.  We then rescued the remaining 2 and raised them with the others.

And here they are at slaughter size.  Just before we slaughtered the first batch, Big Mama hatched out another clutch of 10.  We raised them basically just like the chickens, but we also provide a big shallow pan of water for bathing in. 

From the 1st batch we saved out 4 females to add to the breeding stock.  We've had many requests to purchase ducks so figured we could always sell off extra ducklings.  We also slaughtered Big Mama's sister who never could even figure out how to lay her eggs together in a safe place.  I know these new ducks are laying now because I find eggs laying about, but Big Mama always lays now in a hollowed out palm tree that's been felled.  I'm hoping the young ones get their acts together and lay well come spring.  Big Mama has a nest of 8 eggs she's sitting on now.  I assume they'll hatch somewhere near the end of September.

As for caring for these breeding stock, we do very little.  We dump them some chicken grain (as some old, leftover grass seed) once a day and keep a bath filled with water.  They do the rest.  And Angel, the dog, is scary enough to keep predators at bay. 

Duck Sitting Take 2

Look hard.  See that pile of scrub that looks like toppled trees that have sat decomposing for 4 years???  Ok, right at the top edge of the shadow caused by the rare tree that wasn't toppled, there's a tiny speck of white.  Ya see it?  That's a duck.  And under her is a nest.  She's been sitting on that nest for 20 days.  Muscovies take 35 days to hatch.

This has been an interesting progression.  Last fall, the 2 remaining hens laid a nest in the bachelor pad and sat on it for about 2 weeks before abandoning it.  Slowly the abandoned eggs disappeared.  We tried in vain to keep the ducks contained within the bachelor pad where the guardian Angel has patrol of 3 of its sides.  No luck.  We finally gave up and moved them all into the south paddock, where the females insisted on going, so the eggs that were being laid in this nest stood a decent chance of being fertilized.  And I must say its nice to not have to physically inface with the drake twice daily feeding and watering Copper.  He's the meanest thing we have here.  Some people are scared of the dog.  Little do they know the duck would just as soon rip the skin off your ankles.

So, here this nest sits.  And a 2nd nest is being laid and intermittenly sat upon.  Its a bit nerve-racking as if something, like the family of racoons that live in the woods immediately beside our house and pasture, were to get into that paddock, there's absolutely nothing there to protect them.  Angel can't go there.  And the ducks don't make noise so Angel may not even notice a prowler way back there in the dark of night.  Even if she did, by the time we'd wake up, get the flashlight and go through the 2 sets of gates to even get into that paddock, the damage would long be done. 

But we've tried everything else.  Complete lack of invovlement is ironically a last ditch effort.  If we don't get babies from them this spring, we're rehoming them to the retention pond where wild muscovies thrive.  If they do manage to breed something of note, we'll just continue to hope the racoons never realize the limited range of the big, barking dog.

Heeeeere, Ducky Ducky Ducky

Ducks are not very obedient.  Scold all you want, they just don't listen.

After loosing all but 1 drake (male duck) to some odd leg problem (possibly caused by a show of force of the dominant drake), we were down to 4 hens and the 1 drake.  We opened them up to roam the pasture, but locked them up at night... a feat that got more difficult as their independence grew.

One day I was late letting them out.  Lo and behold there was an egg on the floor of the pen!  I then watched where they went and upon later inspection discovered the pictured nest deep into the pasture in a little hole they had created in a pile of scrub.

Of course I thought I could reform natural instincts.  I created a little nest in a dog dish, put the eggs in there and set it up inside the pen where it would be protected from raccoons or wayward goat feet.

I even added a tote to provide shade and further protection.

They didn't care.  They continued to lay in the old nest, on the floor of the pen or, best of all, right in the middle of the barn.

Nothing would get them to sit on that nest either.  And the eggs were just disappearing too.  I presume they were getting broken and something was eating up the evidence.

So, we decided to really put Angel (the guard dog) to the test.  We moved all the ducks to the bachelor pad to run free with Copper, the buck.  Angel has access to 3 sides of the bachelor pad, the 4th being a shared fence with the pasture.  We figured if the ducks were kept in there, its a small enough area that its unlikely a malevolent critter would first get by Angel, then Copper, then that ferocious drake (really, he's the scariest animal on the property), to harm a hen or her nest.  And so far so good.

Except that one duck is still managing to squeeze through an unknown hole and lays eggs in the barn.  She had a nest of 6 which then got trampled during a rainstorm when all the animals huddle in the barn.  We're down to 2 intact eggs and she just quit going there.  The other hens laid a nest of 9 as of 2 days ago.  Then Dulci (who's supposed to be pregnant) acted like she was in heat so I put her into the bachelor pad.  I guess the chasing Copper did was too much for the nest as 6 eggs were scattered and 2 were missing.  Today only 3 remain intact and they are not together in a nest.  And then a hen up and died.  Chilly night and I went out in the morning to find her dead in a sleeping position.  No idea what that's about.

All in all, we're still hopeful some semblance of instinct will kick in and these ducks will manage to reproduce.  Husbandman thinks it will take until spring until they get it figured out.  I'm thinking of building a little hut I can pop over whatever nest they build to protect it from undiscerning goat feet. 

Picking Up Speed

The title of this post is not referring to any new drug use, though I'm sure that would be momentarily helpful.  No, instead I'm seeing our fall whizzing toward us at break-neck speed and I'm scrambling to be ready when in slams into my hot summer pace.

Not that summer has been lazy.  Just still working on summer stuff, that's all.

Sometime in July and August (see, I told you I was behind), I finished picking the last of our grapes.  Got about 10 gallons this year.  I fired up the canner to make jelly, but instead of creating a sauna inside, Husbandman set me up reeeeaaaallll nice.  And you have to read the rest of the post in a true southern drawl to get the full effect.

We recently acqured a large 2-burner gas stove, mainly for this very pupose but also for any pesky hurricanes that take out our power for any length of time.  This burner easily held my water bath canner and my pot of grape jelly.  I also did watermelon rind jelly since everything was fired up and crankin'.  And I had a nice shadey spot to work while still keeping an eye on the rugrats in the pool or swing set.  Everyone was happy... until a wet bottom found its way onto my Countryside magazine while I was up stirring the brew.  Anyway, about half my grape jelly turned out just fine.  The other half and the watermelon stuff didn't set so at some point I'll reopen those jars and try again.  More pectin, more sugar, more cooking and stirring.  One day I'll learn how to get it right the first time around.

I registered farmer girl and "Thumper" for the county fair last week.  Now we get to figure out the proper positioning and handling of a rabbit, not to mention getting her tattooed. (The bunny, not the girl).  A friend suggested waltzing into our local tattoo parlor, "Bad Azz Tattoo" with our fur ball and suggested a nice barb wire tat around the bicep.  Tempting... but we're obligated to letters and numbers in the left ear.  Later today, we're moving Thumper and Dumplin (because farm boy 1 won't be left out) into the porch for easier access for practicing.  And I also get to make matching outfits for the girl and her bunny.  Not really sure how, or why I'm happy about that, or even what possessed me to think of entering her into that contest, but I did.  And ya know, the smile on her face will be worth it, I'm sure.  The girl, not the bunny.  Not sure the bunny will be too thrilled on the notion.

We slaughtered our first ducks on Saturday.  We're having a rough go.  We started with 10 around Easter.  One died we think from internal injuries suffered at the paw of Angel.  Another turned sick-looking a while later and died.  Another just a couple weeks ago started limping and went quite lame.  He was one we slaughtered and by Saturday he was down to nothing.  He must have been starving for a week and a half, unable to walk enough to eat and drink.  Another had a large cyst/tumor thing on its face.  We culled them both and one is due for the oven momentarily.  The other (the skinny one) will be made into soup on a fine autumn day.  And now, yet another is acting lame.   We now have 1 good male, 4 females and a lame male.  Good for breeding stock which is what we wanted, but I'm nervous whatever has happened already will end up happening to our last remaining drake.  Unless its male competition that's doing it.

Nina is unwittingly enjoying her last meal.  I called a friend on a whim to see if he was interested in swapping a sheep for some beef.  He is, but wants it in meat form, minus the hoof.  So, sweet Nina is leaving us.  I haven't broken it to the girl child yet, but I don't think it will be a huge issue.  She's more keen on Daisy now anyway because Daisy is smaller.  She's never taken slaughtering real hard.  My mom was over while we killed the ducks and she expected a traumatic reaction from her granddaughter.  To her surprise, farm girl very bluntly and calmly explained the whole process to her and ended with, "And that's yummy MEAT!"  Yes, she's our sweet little carnivore.

We have re-acquired Doby.  You may remember Helen's baby... who had a baby... and we sold to some friends to get them started in dairying?  Well, they've decided farm-livin' is not exactly the life for them.  At least not with a triple digit heat index that go on for months at a time.  So we have her back and we're happy.  She's so sweet.  The farm girl is learning to milk on her (she's the only one who doesn't protest).  We initially only wanted 3 total dairy goats, but we're going to run with it.  4 isn't too different.  Especially since we decided to only keep Zuma and Valentino for breeding sheep.

We put Dulci in with Copper a week or so ago since its about time for her heats to start.  And sure enough, she got him all riled up. (Don't forget that southern drawl).  She escaped on Saturday while we were gone.  We put her in with the rest of the ladies until we could fix the fence.  Sunday Husbandman could tell she was in heat and Copper was just beside himself.  So we put her back in despite the fact that the fence wasn't shored up.  Sunday night she was out again and we put her in with the ladies.  Monday morning Copper was out... and he had circumcized himself in his escapades.  We put them both together and immediately went to fence fixing... at 7:30am.  At this Husbandman remarked that "we watch more goat sex before breakfast than most people see in a lifetime."  And yes, bloody and injured though it be, Copper took his one and only job very seriously and did it thoroughly job right before our very eyes.  The kids were inside watching a dinosaur documentary just in case you were concerned for their innocense.  He's calmed significantly today, but I have not ventured close enough to get a full accounting of his injury.  The bleeding has stopped and he's acting normal so I'll probably just let him be.  I mean, I do know the injury was, um, flushed.

And since I may not get blogging again for another month, let me comment on the state of our bee hives.  We suspect that both of our hives swarmed and that we checked one hive at just the wrong time and caused the new queen to fly off in fear.  So we put a frame of eggs (we think) and larvae from the other hive into the queenless hive.  And next week is the moment of truth.  Hopefully they're doing their thing.
I've got radishes, squash, and mustard greens ready to go in the ground.  The jelly melon is finally producing... like mad.  Picked our first one today just to determine how to know when its ripe.  We've got a busy week lined up with not a stitch of gardening in it so next week will have to border on insanity. 

Especially since the kiddie pool bit it this weekend.  That marks the official end of summer.

Impulse Ducks

Remember those muscovy ducklings I mentioned?  Well, yesterday after spending a full day at the Orlando Science Center, coming home and building/painting bee boxes, we decided at 6:30pm to jaunt another 35 miles away to bring home some ducklings.  The sellers were going to a farm swap this morning so I was nervous they wouldn't have any left.  So while Husbandman did a slightly early evening milking, I loaded up the kids and drove through Chic-Fil-A for dinner.  (cringe!)  Not only were we acting impulsively, especially since we didn't even have any game bird starter on hand to feed these guys, but we didn't even have time to flop together some pbj's for dinner (we already had PB&J's for lunch at a park in Orlando).

 But off we went and successfully put 10 little ducklings into our dog crate.  Then I started asking the seller about pigs.  He took us out to see all his pigs of various sizes.  By the time we came back into where the chicks and ducklings were, we discovered the little puffballs had all escaped!

 So then we got to scurry around his garage and catch them again.  He gave us a box to bring them home in and suggested we wrap the bottom half of the crate in saran wrap to keep them in.  So once we got home, we put the already snoozing kids in bed, and got to work on the ducks' new home.

We put them in the porch so Angel is less likely to pull the saran wrap off.  I thought we had a red lightbulb for heat, but we can't find it so the ducks are plenty warm but lit up bright.  We got a small scoop of game bird starter from the sellers and we'll pick up a bag from the local hardware store (who's number I have on speed dail) who assured me they had it in stock.

And my beeswax is probably melted by now so I can prep the bee frames.  Here's to a busy yet highly predictable day! (hopefully...)

Flash Farming

Husbandman and I may not be known to let grass grow under our feet, but we do usually do things rather methodically, calculated, planned, over-planned and almost always over-researched.

But this year seems to be different.  Without meaning to, it seems as though we're blitzkrieging on new enterprises.

So Mona spontaneously got bred.  And we spontaneously brought home Brownie, another rabbit for breeding, when some friends offered her to us.  This leaves us with 2 filled rabbit hutches, neither with a nest box, neither with enough room for the mother and her 6-week old weened young and no suitable pen for said young.  With Mona due in just over a week, I have ordered three 20"x26"x6" wash basins for nest boxes (because I don't have time to build something).  It gives us about 7 weeks to build a pen large enough for the weened young.  We intended to breed Brownie pretty soon, but that may be put on hold for a bit now. (whew!)

Then Doby kidded last night.  I wasn't expecting her to kid until May or June, but a couple days ago I realized her time was immanent.  I was quite nervous for her as she's just over a year old and still rather small.  That she was bred to a dwarf goat eased my mind only slightly.  But my worries were for naught.  She birthed about midnight last night without a peep.  I knew what happened only by Angel making some odd confusing noises and figured she was baffled by the "miraculous" appearance of a new charge.  She stood vigilantly by them the entire night though.  So now, in the midst of everything else, I'm milking a new goat 4 times a day.  She's not great on the stand yet.  More nervous than interested in food.  To narrow through the hips to make udder access easy.  Just all around, not that fun right now.  I'm also not sure how long we'll be without milk in the next year as the 3 present milkers dry off and we appropriately space their lactations now that the buck's "services" can be planned and prevented.

A couple days ago, the people we bought our bee hives from came by to give us a tutorial and check on the hives.  Turns out they've gone gangbusters in there and are already busting out of the original boxes.  We need to add a box to each hive pronto... meaning we need to build them first!  So tomorrow morning, Husbandman will ferociously build, tomorrow afternoon I will ferociously paint and Saturday we will quietly and calmly install.

A few days ago friends asked if we wanted some new chicks.  We did the math and decided,yes we could use some fresh layers to see us through the lean time this winter when daylight and molting could bring us to less than a half dozen a week.  So now we need to figure out which pen will be our brooder and then hold our growing birds... which means no pen is available to even buy some time with the young bunnies.

Then today, I popped on Craig's list (hoping to see a rabbit hutch for sale to save us the time and energy to build one) and found muscovy ducklings for sale locally.  I've never seen muscovy ducklings for sale!  Hatcheries require a huge order and a pretty penny each.  I asked the people selling if this was something they would likely keep on hand.  No such luck.  They're only available a couple times a year from hatcheries and they grabbed these on a whim.  So, this means we're probably going to be bringing home muscovies again rather soon.  We'll brood them in the dog crate until their ready for the old turkey pen outside in the pasture.  And one of those rabbit nest boxes I ordered will probably wind up a duck bath.

And those same friends that gave us Brownie, and asked if we wanted to order chicks with them also asked if we wanted a really nice Suffolk ewe.  Apparently this ewe has been shown at the county fair and has had 2 sets of twins in her 4 years of life.  Her present owners just want a good home for her.  So, we're now considering bringing on a new ewe that would have more likelihood of twinning and slaughtering both Nina and Daisy (knife to the heart twice!!!) this fall.  We don't want to overwinter 3 breeding ewes.  Should we take this ewe, we'd keep her and Esperanza for breeding (and of course Valentino too).

So guess what we're doing this weekend.

Write the Vision

And the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision and make it plain upon tablets, that he may run that readeth it.  Habakkuk 2:2

And so I write out our plans for our little homestead.

For 2011 (with approximate completion time):  will strike through when completed.

1) Fence in the pasture common area (February)
2) Install inhabited beehives (March)
3) Plant several blackberry bushes and one more grape vine (April)
4)  Install new shaded herb bed (April)
5) Build fly/maggot traps for chicken feed (May) Husbandman drew the line at farming flies.
6) The Bachelor Pad- a separate fenced area to house our goat buck (May)
7) Build pens and fill them with meat rabbits for breeding (June)
8)Add removable plywood walls on the barn (as opposed to the present billboard tarp walls)- (December)
9) Install hay storage area over pump house (whenever) Decided that wasn't such a good idea... they'd maul us at each feeding.
For years beyond:

1) Add another partition to the pasture, one each year of 2012 and 2013, including separating and burning felled branches in each paddock.
2) Develop a grain patch to grow some of our own goat or chicken grain. (2014?)
3) Install a geothermal AC/heater (2012?) Removed from to-do list.  Not cost effective.
4) Clear to southern property line (2012)
5) Install a southern "fence" and plant blackberries and grapes along it. (2013) May be rethought with plans for a tree house.
6) Add muscovy ducks and/or turkeys (2012)
7) Clear area for garden expansion, expanding about 10-15' each year beginning in 2013.

Poultry Praise and Problems

Slaughterfest VI went off without a hitch. All is great. And we remain very impressed with the Dixie Rainbow breed from S and G Poultry. They are a bit smaller than the cornish rocks, but the healthfulness of the bird is worth the small decrease in size. We'll still probably be able to get 2 main meals and a soup out of each bird... though maybe not once the Boy is eating more. Between the two of us, we were able to slaughter 6 birds per hour. We had a lengthy break for lunch and child-tending which meant it took all day, but one day's work to put up 6 months of food is a pretty good rate.

Now for the poultry problem... previously we had 3 muscovy ducks- Donald and Pretty Duck and Pretty Duck (the females were named by the Girl). Last week around Thursday, I noticed a pretty duck wasn't around. I hoped she had found a safe place to lay eggs and had gone broody. Previously if I didn't find eggs, crows, coons or anything else did... quickly. Then Monday morning I noticed Donald didn't come running for his bit of grain. I haven't seen him since either. We've had these ducks for about a year now with no problems with predators so we don't know if they've been eaten or have run off to greener pastures. There's a pond down the street, but I've checked there twice and found nothing. The other Pretty Duck is still here and we have 3 hopefully fertilized eggs sitting in the incubator... but at what point do you have mercy on the single remaining duck? Do we wait until after August 9th (the hatch date) and see if we have anything hatch and keep what does? Should we wait the 35 days from last Thursday to see if the missing ducks really are setting on some eggs (with Donald being the protector?) Or should we cut our losses and take Pretty Duck down to the muscovy haven pond a mile or so away where she'll have lots of friends and plenty of breeding opportunities? We got them for bug control... and they did wipe out the ant piles in our yard. But they aren't helping our fly problem... nor mosquitoes for that matter. I think we just don't have enough of them and I'm not sure we're willing to keep the size flock we'd need for that kind of insect control. I think we'd be better off with a bat box or two. But I don't want to leave a lone female muscovy vulnerable to an unseen, unknown predator either... Any suggestions?