Fall

It's a good thing I like being busy.

Our sheep have arrived, for those who don't follow us on facebook. We got four Icelandic sheep last month. A ram and three ewes, so far they have adjusted well. A couple of them have been limping, Dave tackled them and we had a look this morning, doesn't seem to be anything wrong, but I am no expert. We will see how the sheep fair over the winter and spring. We are testing the waters.

Our pigs are getting nice and big, our three weaners are going to market at the end of November, then we will be getting our new boar. Hopefully "Billy" and Trigger will play nice and have lots of happy healthy babies.

Triggers piglets have had setbacks, of the 11 she gave birth to, seven remain. We lost one the first night, and three five weeks later. Trigger must have picked something up during the move, and passed it onto the piglets. Over half have back leg problems, but they are getting better every day.

Our chickens that we bought as day olds back in May have finally started laying, along with the 12 ready to lay birds we got last month we are finally seeing some egg production. We have been locking them up until about noon, then let them forage for the afternoon. This has stopped the laying on shelves, in the hay mow, ect ect.

Now it's time to plan next years garden. I would like to see the ground turned by November, and maybe some garlic planted before the snow.

Trigger

Trigger started making her nest yesterday afternoon, I could have watched her all day, it was pretty cool. She was 4 days overdue.

After I fed them supper, and put the kids to bed I went out and she had found her place in her nest and was in labor. I ate supper and did some research on how long labor lasts for pigs. I figured I had at least 5 or 6 hours.

I checked her at 9 and at 10 then went to bed. I woke up at 1:30am and went out to see how she was progressing. All 11 piglets were wiggling around. I had missed everything. Trigger was snorting and content, she laid on her side and the piglets started to nurse. I found the ones going in the wrong direction, and made sure they all had a drink.

One pig didn't make the night, not sure what happened, he wasn't crushed, and was fairly big compared to the other pigs, guess he wandered too far away and couldn't make it back.

Trigger was still happy this morning and let me come in her pen to take some photos. All the piglets are black and white.

The long wait has been totally worth it. Can't wait for more farm animal babies :)

This and That May 9th.

Chickpeas sprouting.

A photo of the very yellow barred Plymouth rock, next to a dark one.
White rocks aren't going to win a beauty contest at this age, but they are loving their new home.

Playing in the sun.
Take 3. Winter and summer squash started. Some from saved seed, I wonder what will come up.

Why can't we all just get along?

Even though Micheal Jackson's "Black or White" was being played in the chicken house, there was racial tension. My white rocks (WR) and barred plymouth rocks (BPR) had reached a breaking point.


Yes, I should have listened to the warnings about mixing meat birds and layers.


I lost 15 birds today. Two were WR, the rest poor BPR. I feel like a fail farmer.


I put up a wall, divided the chicks by breed and hoped for the best. I should have done this a while ago, I should have recognized that the BPR were getting bullied by the WR that were twice their size.


Since putting up the wall a few hours ago there is a huge change in the chicken house. The BPR are calm, quiet, resting comfortably. The stress level is way down. I should have realized that if I get stressed in there, imagine what the chicks are feeling?


I learned something! Don't mix WR with anything!

New homestead chicken raiser, don't make the same mistake I did. Lets hope the deadstock numbers stop rising.

Farm Chat

I picked up a seeder. Dave assembled it and it looks pretty sweet. I can't wait to try it out. I have a bunch of seed to go into the ground this weekend.

We are trying to plan out our next couple years. I want to get organic certified started this year. I think I can get my head around it after talking with numerous people, and the nice lady at Pro-cert. I am hoping that with planning and some good luck we will get our 10 acre field at least turned over and sowed with an organic winter crop this year.

I would love to grow all the grain for our animals, and if it can be certified organic even better! I think it will be a lot of work, but that's how they used to do it back in the day, so we should be able to do it now. We are already getting some "good luck with that" snide remarks.

We found, what we think is an antique thresher in my parents barn. It's in pretty rough shape but it would suit us perfect.

My garden is having a slow start. Plants are reluctant to grow in this cold weather, and I don't blame them. We have some old windows to make some cold-frames so I might try that this year.

I'm annoyed that five of our turkeys died the first night. I should have kept them in the house. Live and learn, next year I won't be so foolish. The chickens are doing splendid, only one loss so far out of over 110. I forgot what crazy eaters the white rocks are, they will be out growing the brooder soon.

If this nagging head cold would screw off I would have a lot more done outside.

Happy Easter!

Tractors and Seeds

Here is the almost finished chicken tractor. We hope it will fit 50 birds. The roof can be extended if they need more shade/shelter. The door will be on the front, and a hatch at the back. Gotta build one more, then a hen house.

Here is the planting we did today. The rows are aprox 50' long. Peas, onions, carrots and parsnips are in. We hoped to get our wheat bed tilled and planted as well but the rains came. The seeds got a good soaking.

Our tractor is offically dead for the season. We are on the look out for a "new" one. Maybe by the end of summer. Until then, we will use our trusty rototiller (and by 'we' I mean Dave)

Sugarin'

Two weeks ago we tried our hand at making maple syrup. This is our elaborate setup. Three evaporator pans over a old oil tank (I think?) we boiled down aprox 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.

We hope to boil down upwards of 80 gallons of sap this weekend.