Predators

   Day before yesterday I went out to feed and check on our animals like I do every morning,as I got to the ckicks in the grow out pen I noticed one little banty not moving and I realized that something had grabbed her sometime during the night and killed her.I found out two others were missing,one of them being my smallest silkie.I was so mad! I thought they were safe in this pen,that nothing could get into it,never thought of something could pull them out.I suspect a opossum but it could have been a skunk. This was the first time we have had to deal with a predator here on our farm and I am looking for ways to stop them from getting my birds again.

 In our area the main predators are dogs,cats,opossums,raccoons,skunks,hawks,snakes,fox,coyotes, and the occasional wolf or bobcat.I found some great information on predators on Fresh Eggs Daily,she has great articles on chickens and ducks.http://fresh-eggs-daily.blogspot.com/search/label/predators.
 At the moment I have our chicks,baby turkeys and ducklings in the little shed we are turning into a hen house.I will move them to the old hen house when we are done with this one as they are not quite big enough to go in with the big girls.I think I need to be done with babies for awhile! Hopefully by next spring when we get more I will have better brooder boxes and grow out pens for them.
  Losing animals is part of farm life but it is a little harder when you thought you had done everything you could to keep them safe and something still gets to them,:(



  Blessed Be,

Spring has sprung and Babies abound!

   Well things are trucking along here on the farm. We have had chicks and bunnies born here in the last month! Two sister hens were setting at the same time on about 20 eggs.It was funny to watch them take eggs from each others nests and switch nests often. The problem was they would also take eggs the other hens had laid and add them to the nests. Out of all those eggs they only hatched 2 a piece before walking off the nests.I didn't have an incubator to put the rest in so we lost them all. I made the suggestion to the girls and their friend that they should autopsy the remaining eggs,to my surprise they did! Several were duds,several were not far enough along to hatch anytime soon,and about 4(including 2 duck eggs) had just needed a few more days. The two hens tried to coparent the chicks that had hatched but kept fussing at each other,we found one dead one morning so we took the remaining chicks and put them in a brooder cage.I felt bad for the hens but I really wanted these chicks to survive.Lesson learned is that as soon as you are sure a hen is broody get her in a separate place from the other hens so there will be no other eggs added to the nests.

Our baby bunnies were born around the end of April and Dovie is a really good momma. She had 5,4 black and 1 brown,they sure are fat little bunnies! Zoe thinks we either have 2 girls and 3 boys or the other way around,need to wait a couple of more weeks to be sure.We plan on borrowing a friends Jersey Woolly male to breed Dovie to next,We will then have Jersey Woolly Lops,lol

 The big chicks are doing fine. We took the 6 biggest ones last night and slipped them into the flock,they seem to be doing fine so far. We are down to 3 1/2 silkies. 1 died I think because it was just to small,and one was sat on by Angel who is twice as big as the other chicks her age.The 1/2 comes from one that was supposed to be purebred but is a mix of some kind.

Mixed Silkie,looks like a raven with a Top hat!

Hi!

Blue Splash Silkie

White Silkie

With the addition of all the chicks we will have outgrown our hen house so I plan on remodeling a shed for a bigger hen house.Friends are coming over next week to help with that.I can't wait to get everyone into their new home with an easier feeding and watering system.




Blessed Be!

Life on the farm....

  The last couple of months have been a little busy around here. What with having hardly any winter(2 days of lt. snow) and quite a few warm days we have been able to get more things done outside. We now have 2 rabbits,the Lion head(Ninja) and a Holland Dwarf(Dovie) and a Painted Desert ramling(Boomerang). What with the chickens,ducks,rabbits,lamb,dogs and cats around here we are starting to look like a real farm.A new shed had been put up so we can make the old one into a bigger hen house,the old hen house will be cleaned up for the lamb who now sleeps in a dog house.Does that make sense? LOL
 We have been planting flowers and clearing areas for more garden beds. Last year's garden didn't do very well due to bugs,poor soil and the heat,I hope this years will be better. Fayetteville had a Dig In Festival earlier this month. There were classes on beekeeping,seedsaving,gardening,chickens,cooking,bugs in your garden,and several others. Local organic eateries brought in wonderful treats for us and there were movies playing several times during the day. All in all it was a great learning experience and I am thankful to have the opportunity to learn from others.
 Piper and Zoe had their birthdays this month,they are now 11 and 13. I asked them if they wanted a trampoline or animals for their birthdays,they chose animals. Zoe wanted a lamb and rabbits,Piper wanted chicks.We will be getting bantams for her this week. We have 8 laying hens at the moment and 6 new hen chicks but 11 roosters(poor hens),nine of the roos we have now separated into a different pen to be sold or maybe for the freezer.Because of the light winter we had everyone is worried about the bug population exploding,especially the ticks. My sister keeps telling me we need guineas, I don't like guineas,they are loud and obnoxious but I will probably get some because I dislike ticks even more!

Dovie

Oreo

Boomarang

Shadow Ninja

Elie and Plato

Raver

New chicks

So what's hatching,quacking,baaing,crowing or running around your farm?



Blessed Be!

The journey to the food we eat,

 
          

     "Farmers are the only indispensable people on the face of the earth."

  Lately we have had many discussions about what is actually in our food,where and how all that we eat is processed. Label reading happens with everything and discussions about what the ingredients actually are has become the norm lately.We watched the movie Fresh last night with our girls (10 and 12) http://www.freshthemovie.com/.%20This This  movie is about change, changing the way we raise the meat we eat and the food we grow. Now I have been talking about these ideas for awhile now and the kids listened with half an ear, thinking mom was on another health kick. Watching how the animals were treated in the movie last night and learning what was injected/fed to them must have really hit home, I could actually see the light bulb go on over their heads,lol. They asked where we could find meat that wasn't processed in the ways shown. They were really furious seeing how the chicks were thrown and crowded into the chicken houses. We talked about the pesticides that were sprayed on the crops and watched How stuff works in the food and beverages. We watched how corn, salt and wheat were processed, the spraying of chemicals on the corn and the genetic modification of both wheat and corn.

  There are several movies in our netflix queue for use to watch exploring more on this subject. Fed Up, What's on your plate, Ingredients and Food Matters are on the list. Tomorrow we will visit a local fresh bread store and a meat market, comparing prices and ingredients. This morning Piper looked at the ingredients for the granola cereal she was eating and asked why there was sugar,honey and dextrose in it. So we talked about what we wanted in our granola and plan on making some this weekend. Zoe was ranting(she tends to do that) about potato starch in the shredded cheese we had for dinner so we are going to learn about making cheese and why potato starch might be put in there.They have about decided that if they can't read or understand the ingredient when it is looked up then maybe it didn't need to be there. We are looking for different ideas for meals using the least amount of processed ingredients possible. I feel like they are coming to understand why gardening and raising our own animals are so important. It also helps that several of their friends parents are going thru the same process with their kids, I love listening to some of the conversations they have about the food that they are eating. The next read aloud book will be Animal,Vegatable,Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I want to explore how many of the foods we eat are grown close to home(50 to 100 miles).
 Somtimes I really feel that the girls aren't learning anything in our homeschooling journey and then there are times like this where I am drowning in the wave of information they are processing. Homeschooling Rocks!!

                               Blessed Be,      

Bloomin'Acres field trip

  Yesterday a group of our homeschoolers went on a field trip. We went to Bloomin"Acres Farm, they have Icelandic sheep. Zoe has been doing her research on sheep that she wants to raise. She decided on the Icelandic breed and we found a local farm that raises them so of course we had to go visit. We met Marilyn Miles who showed us around her beautiful farm. The kids(and moms) had a good time learning about this breed of sheep, meeting the guard donkey and Blossom the guard dog, watching the ducks run around and finding eggs in the hen house.

 Icelandic sheep are one of the oldest breeds on record, dating back over 1,100 years, and they still account for more than 25% of Iceland’s agricultural output.  This makes them one of the oldest and purest breeds in the world today. They are a mid-sized breed and an excellent choice for small or large farm operations.  Ewes typically average between 130 and 150 pounds, with rams weighing in between 175 and 200 pounds.  They have wonderful conformation and their stocky build makes them a great selection for meat, milk and wool production.

The ewes come into heat in late October and cycle through May, if they are not bred. Rams can begin breeding at 5-6 months of age.  Ewes begin breeding at 6-7 months and can lamb before they are a year old!  This is a very rapid return on investment.

• Gestation ranges from 142-144 days.
• Rams are mature by 6 months and can service 20 ewes.
• The Icelandic are excellent mothers with lots of milk and will nurse triplets without assistance.
• Icelandic have been known to be productive until 12-13 years of age.
• They have a good prolifically rate, averaging 175-225%.
• Lambs reach market size in 4-5 months on good pasture.

I think this will be a wonderful breed for us to raise along with the other fiber animals we find.

 

The trip was a great success and I hope to visit again soon(maybe to pick out our own!)

Bloomin'Acres Farm

http://www.bloominacresfarm.com/index.php

Blessed Be,

Information about Icelandic sheep on this page was found on the Bloomin'Acres website.

Lessons learned this year,

  I have been thinking about the lessons I have learned about homesteading since we bought this place almost two years ago. Some were very subtle, others hit you right between the eyes letting you know what you did was a dumb idea!
 1. Labradors do not belong on homesteads that have chickens! We had to find a home for our chocolate
lab Hershey because she liked our chickens as much as we do. Labs are wonderful dogs but it is their nature to hunt birds and small animals.
2. Plant a garden 3 times more as you think you might need, that way you might get at least some of the produce that the bugs don't eat!
3.Homesteading and living in the country is hard work! I did know this really, I just get reminded a lot.
4. Two vehicles are a must,with one of them hopefully being a truck. You will always find something on craigslist or freecycle that you need a truck for, but then again you also find just how much feed, hay or wood you can put in your car when the seats lay down. Note: big goats do not fit in the back of a car!
5. Grass and weeds grow faster than you can mow!
6. During the winter, when you think they will never get the road plowed, walk down and look at the road. It might be that the roads are clear as a bell and it's your long snowed in driveway that is keeping you from getting out. The two winters that we have been here have been the worst in the area, my husband has to stay in town for several days during the worst snows and we now park at the end of the driveway when the weather gets bad.
7.Dogs like to bring you gifts of dead things!
8.It takes 2 to 3 times longer to build something than you think it might.
9.Friends and family don't come to visit very often because they think you live in the boondocks, even though you tell them that you live on a paved road and 30min. isn't that long of a drive. Gas prices might have something to do with it also, :)
10. That no matter how hard homesteading is, it is a wonderful life and you wouldn't change a thing! (ok, maybe more money to get things done faster)

Happy Homesteading and Blessed Be!     

Goats for us!

  When we lived in the apartment we had dreamed about having our own place, raising our animals and feeding our family from the gardens. To cement this dream we created a vision board with everything we wanted on our land and for our family.

 We now have chickens, a garden in it's first evolution and as of last week we have 3 goats. The local animal shelter sometimes receives animals besides dogs and cats, these animals are given to good homes free of charge. My sister who works there called me to see if I wanted some goats they had found and which the owner when found no longer wanted. We brought home a Toggenburg billy, a pregnant Nubian doe and a younger billy which is I am pretty sure their offspring. The trip home was as quick as we could make it as it was 110 outside and I was afraid they would get heatstroke. I ended up putting them in our large chicken pen until we can get more fencing up. Within the first 2 hours of them being here they showed me where the weakest spot in the fence was! We go out every evening when it cools off to reinforce any weak spots that we see. I plan on selling/trading the older buck and the doe after she has her kid for some Nigerian goats. I want to end up raising Nigerians and mini La Manchas someday.  The girls want to keep the youngest billy who they have named Panda, I told them to work hard with him to make him friendly and easy to handle, then we'll see. I am very proud of my girls, they take turns watering the animals and both spend a lot of time with the goats gaining their trust.

Lilly

Panda

Jake

These next pictures are of the goats I hope to raise soon.

Nigerian(isn't this one pretty!) They come in all colors.

Pygora Goats for thier fiber.

and Mini La Manchas (I love thier elf ears)

Fiber Farms

  On a recent vacation to Denver Colorado while visiting my sister, we took a trip up to Loveland Co. to see some Alpaca farms. The first one we went to was Deer Valley Alpaca ranch. We were warmly welcomed by
Mick and Debbie Leighton  who showed us around their place. If you have never been to an alpaca ranch then you surely need to go! These beautiful animals will steal your heart and have you trying to figure out where to put some in your back yard. DVA had about 40 animals with two crias(babies) on the ground and more to come. Besides alpacas they have a pair of Paco-vicunas which are a daintier version of alpacas.

Paco Vicuna(internet pic)




  The Leighton's at one time did their own fiber processing and Debbie
showed us how the fleece went from shearing to ending up being yarn, roving and the end products that could be made from the fiber. It was very interesting. She had a wonderful assortment of yarns, fleece, roving and all kinds of interesting handmade things.They had two Great Pyrenees named Colt and Winchester which had replaced their last pair Smith and Wesson!:)
 



processed fleece



 

 We also stopped by Mountain Sky Ranch where we had the pleasure

of meeting Deb Dorband. She had a beautiful herd of alpacas and also

pygora goats.As I am very interested in raising fiber animals it was a treat to see the pygoras. Deb explained that even though there are quite

a few alpaca farms that provide fleece it is still unfortunately cheaper to import from Peru where the fleece you get might have other types of fiber mixed in. Deb and her husband are working hard to make alpaca fleece a commodity for the US

and have it sold in bales on the market.

Just try to resist me!

Pygora goats



Pygora males running to say hi.



 Most farms show their alpacas which sounds easier to do than for most show animals. They are not allowed to groom them at all, just pick the hay off of the animals coat. The alpacas are judged or you can just take the fleece for judging.

All in all it was a wonderful trip.  If you are ever in Colorado please ck out Deer Valley Alpacas and Mountain Sky Ranch. You will see some amazing country, meet some really nice people and find some creatures that might just steal your heart!

Deer Valley Alpacas

http://www.deervalleyalpaca.com/index.html

Mountain Sky Ranch

http://mountainskyranchllc.com/

Blessed Be!