Summertime!

I can't say this summer hasn't been interesting so far.Last post I talked about our predator problem.I started setting a trap and have caught 2 raccoons so far.One was full grown,the other was just a little guy but I'm sure if he could have got to my dog like he wanted to he would have torn her up. I wasn't sure what to do with the first one when I found it. My husband had left for work so I had no car to take it anywhere.If I owned a gun I might have shot it,but as it wasn't my trap and I didn't have a gun ,that was out. I did think about drowning it in the duck barrel but couldn't do it even though we had lost 3 chicks,3 ducks and a turkey to these little monsters.I decided to wait until my husband came home and then we could release it at the nearby national forest.I will keep setting the traps every night until our new puppy gets big enough to take them on.

 

Raccoon #1
We had thought about getting a guard dog and when the coons started showing up I started looking. The best LGD breeds around here are the Kuvasz,Great Pyrenees and the Anatolian Shepherd. To get a dog that is already trained in livestock or a good puppy raised with LGD parents is expensive,anywhere  from $100-300,not in our budget.We ended up finding a beautiful little female Shepard/Pere mix.We named her Fallyn(Irish for "in charge"),she already shows signs of being a good livestock dog.

This is going to be  BIG DOG!
Besides Fallyn we have added 2 Pekin ducklings and 4 Copper Maran chicks,hope to have 3 more ducklings hatch today.These ducklings are the last fertile eggs from our big male Pekin the the damn raccoons killed.I had some hens wanting to set so I put the eggs under them and hoped for the best,so far so good!

Still on the agenda for the summer is to clear the land where the garden will be next year,redo the girls room and craft room,paint the walls and decoupage the floors.We will see if it all gets done.
What are your summer plans this year?





Blessed Be!

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!