Adventures With Porcine

Yesterday evening B discovered that Penelope was lame.  She had cut her foot on a piece of glass.  The interesting thing about living on the farm, is that there is a tremendous amount of history buried around the place.  Much of what the girls have rooted up has been bits of metal buckles and the occasional glass that looks much like sea glass.  Yesterday Penelope found what appeared to be a very old bottleneck that was much too perfectly preserved, as it had not dulled at all.

Thankfully, we have access to what is needed to treat minor problems, yet as it is not what B does day to day, it was a learning experience and the first Ag animal procedure that I was involved with since he was in vet school.....uh when that bull with the open abdomen decided to head butt me :)

She did very well, yet we learned that the sedatives wear off very quickly on pigs, and her somewhat oafy pen mate need be no where near her.

It went relatively uneventfully, yet not something we want to do with any frequency.  Oh, and she got her bandage off even before the sedation wore completely off, so no access outside, clean straw and a few antibiotic injections will be the course of treatment.

Just another day on the homestead.

Spring on the Farm & Visitors

In the last ten days or so I have spent time with an amazing group of women for a weekend of  laughing, sharing, practicing yoga and pampering ourselves.  This was quickly followed by family arriving for a busy week of catching up.  It is spring after all and even when we have other things going on, we must pay attention to the farm, even if it is in short bursts.  Over time we have found that these bursts can be concentrated bits of energy where we get a ton done in a short amount of time.  It leaves us feeling very accomplished and quite sore.

We did some minor repairs to our chicken tractor and moved it to a new location for the season. The ducklings and goslings have quadrupled in size and we were thrilled to move them from the indoor brooding area outside to the chicken tractor.

The pigs are growing by leaps and bounds and really behave like big dogs.  It is so fun to watch them run around and play.  As I mentioned they were fast friends and virtually inseparable.  They sleep together, play together, and have taken to grooming one another.  The year we moved in we lost a giant willow tree.  The logs have been piled behind the granary since then.  As this is now part of the pig enclosure, we moved all of the logs to the newly cleared out bonfire pit, and left lots of new rooting space for Mabel and Penelope.

The cool weather growing season is well under way!  B added compost to and broad forked several beds preparing them for planting.  We have lettuces in the cold frame that are absolutely gorgeous, and only a few weeks from harvest.  The asparagus has begun to emerge, onion sets are in the ground, radishes beginning to get little bulbs, and the cabbage/broccoli/cauliflower bed is looking robust.  We're off to the races!

Fowl Everywhere

There is never a dull moment when it comes to raising fowl.  Right now we have them everywhere in various stages of development.  The one above looks a little bit like he is giving me what for, but I think it is just a little quack of thanks to have their new large fenced in meadow to play in.  As this is our first experience with ducks, it is a lot of fun to see how they differ from chickens.  I do not think that our new herding baby boy (who we pick up later this week), will have any problem learning.  These ducks are inseparable and always travel as a tight group.

Our adult girls are enjoying the moderate weather.  It is forever fascinating to see them interact with one another and with us.  They have such personalities and are wonderful egg producers for us.  We are adding five more Araucanas to the mix this season, they are in that awkward teenage faze right now and will join the rest of the ladies later this summer.

Speaking of the teenagers, they look terrible right now.  They are growing, but losing their down as their real feathers come in so look rather homely.  They were moved out into the upper level of the chicken tractor yesterday, the ducks are below.  They will remain inside for several days to adjust, then be introduced to their forage and play area.  We fenced off about a third of the orchard with special electric chicken fencing, which won't effect the chickens but should keep any predators out.  The ones that have colorful feathers developing are the Araucanas and will be our egg layers.  The black ones are Jersey Giants and are our first go at meat chickens.  These "teenagers" are a month old.

In the basement are our 27 chicks that are two weeks old.   See how fast they grow!?  They are in what we call their brood boxes and they have grown enough that I have just removed the heating lamp. They love to cheep and sleep.  They will begin playing with each other soon.  These will also be meat birds for us and we will move them out to the chicken tractor and forage yard in another 2-3 weeks.  These are also Jersey Giants with an equal number of Plymouth Barred Rock's.

We end where we began with the ducks.  As you can see they are in the bottom half of the chicken tractor and love their new swimming pool.  They are the same age as the chickens that we just moved outside.  As you can see they grow tremendously fast.  They are three times the size of the chickens and moved outside almost 2 weeks ago!  Ducks come in what is called a straight run, they are more difficult to sex as babies, so they may be a mix of boys and girls.  We got three varieties of ducks and we are hoping the the runner ducks, which we plan to keep, will be egg layers... well and maybe one Drake for breeding purposes.  An interesting fact we learned with the ducks...they cheep like the chicks, but higher pitched.  I never expected that...however their voices are just beginning to change and when they get really excited I can hear an occasional and true quack slip out.