And gosling makes three.

I was happy to see this morning that our new gosling was safe and sound. Our goose and gander are very good and VERY protective parents. They seem quite pleased with their new charge. I am happy that at least one of their eggs produced for them... otherwise it would have been a lot of work for naught.

Just so you can all see that my fear of the gosling becoming a tasty snack for one of our LGD was/is not unfounded...


This is Emmie our Anatolian Shepard LGD. She has been following behind the goose family quite interested in the new gosling. If she gets any closer the gander displays and goes after her. Hopefully, their guard will not falter and we can watch the gosling grow up.

Our American Chinchilla rabbit doe, Purslane, has been doing a great job of raising up this latest litter of 10 kits. Today they are 19 days old. Sadly, this morning I found one of the kits dead. It was out of the nest box (as was another kit) and I have to assume it died of cold exposure overnight as no other signs of trauma could be seen. I would have figured that at this stage it would have been fine out of the nest box (I mean really, it is May 1st in NC) .

I tipped the nest box on its side so the kits can leave the box but still huddle together for warmth easily. Plus, with the box on its side, Purslane is able to get up and away from the kits for a needed rest once in a while too. I was sure I was past the point of concern over fatalities but I guess you never know.

We had some other accountable losses today too.

While down by the goat barn this afternoon I noticed that our goose was not in the nest box on her eggs. She often leaves her nest once a day to get a drink and connect with our gander who goes wild when she returns to him. But, since she wasn't currently in the box I took advantage and went and peaked inside to see if I could see the goslings that I spotted two days ago.

At first peak I just saw a nest of eggs but with some digging around I found one dead gosling in the back corner. There were two duck eggs in there so I moved them under the duck in the neighboring nest box. I also found a turkey egg in there. That left six goose eggs. One of the eggs had pipped out quite a bit but it didn't make it. The remaining five eggs felt heavy and not "sloshy" so I wasn't sure what to do with them. It has been two days since I first noticed a gosling in the box but it may have been longer as it was under the goose where I couldn't see it. I made the decision to crack a "pipped" size hole in one to see what was going on inside. What I found was an almost fully developed dead gosling. It had not yet pulled in its yolk sac so it died just days before pipping out. I opened the other 4 only to find more partially developed embryos. So, with that I cleaned out the box and lined it with fresh straw.

It was just about then that the goose reappeared honking at me for being close to her nest. And there, waddling behind her, was a single gosling. She stuck her head in the nest box in search of her eggs and after finding none she settled down in front of the boxes and snuggled her lone gosling under her wing. She wouldn't be able to return to the box anyway as the gosling would never be able to climb up into it.

I worry about such a little thing wandering around the pasture as it would be a perfect snack size morsel for our livestock guardian dogs, but if anyone could keep it safe from the dogs it would be a pair of geese.

More fencing

I am pleased that Neil and I got the major run of cross fencing finished this weekend. The job included installing the last of the angled cross braces on the end posts, installing two 12' gates and run about another 100 feet of woven wire fencing. But we now have an additional pasture in which to purposefully separate our livestock! Yeah!

We also got a great start on installing the woven wire on the section of fence line that will split this new pasture we just formed into two pastures. There is only about another 150-200 of fencing on that run and a single four foot gate to install and I will have two pastures in which to put the animals.

The last bit of work we did for today was to get a watering system set up in the new pastures. In the large trash/junk pile out in the woods that we inherited with the farm has been an upside down cast iron tub. I wasn't sure what condition it was in but I had in mind to move it up to the pastures as a water trough. We got the tractor down to the pile and using chains moved it up to the shed to evaluate it. This was not the "loins foot" type but a newer style that would fit like a modern tub today. That meant that three sides were exposed and only one side had a face to it. But, besides being baby blue in color it was in perfect condition still. Not a chip on it. Neil installed a new drain for me so it would hold water again and I could easily drain in out to keep it clean. Once that was done we took it out to the pasture and set it up on some bricks to level it and keep the drain off the ground. For now I will have to fill it a few times a week from a 50 gallon drum that fits in the bucket of the tractor. In future we hope to get a gravity feed system worked out.

With the fence done and water available the new pasture is now ready for some livestock. That will happen tomorrow.

What a beautiful day we had today. Temps in the low 80's, sunny skies with big puffy clouds floating overhead while we worked outside.

I finished mowing the lawn, planted my seed potatoes, mulched the asparagus beds, mucked out the alpaca barn, put weed block down around more of the raised garden beds and just enjoyed being outside.

Just a few updates

Well, just an update on a few things around the farm.

Purslane's (one of our American Chinchilla rabbits) litter of ten kits has been doing great so far! Today they are 10 days old. They are so big now, eyes open and looking like little miniature rabbits. They are starting to act like popcorn kernels and vaulting straight up into the air. As warm as it has been I am still nervous that they will vault out of the nest box overnight and get chilled and die (that happened to Purslane's first litter at 9 days old). Hopefully I will have some rabbits for sale in a month or so.

The remaining 13 chicks that hatched out in the incubator are still doing well. Yesterday I took them out of the brooder box and put them in with the chicks in the brooder pen that were hatched out under my Orpington hen over a week ago. I wasn't sure if the older chicks would pick on the little ones but so far everyone seems happy. One of the older chicks has a wry beak where the top and bottom beak do not align properly. It will need to be culled but for now it is growing well. If it continues to keep up with the others I will cull it at 10-16 weeks old.

The ducklings are growing quickly. I love the little ducks... they are so cute. Sadly, there are two ducklings that will also have to be culled. One has a malformed neck. The neck comes out of the body at about a 90 degree angle from front so it looks like there is an "S" curve in his neck. Otherwise it seems fine. The other duckling to be culled also has a wry beak. If they do well growing out they will be culled about 16 weeks old. The Pekin duckling we got at Southern States is twice the size of our Muscovy duckings. I don't know his age so it may be that it is just a week or so older. But it sticks out like a soar thumb being so big and yellow. McKayla loves it though and holds it whenever she can.

I am now pretty sure that both my Nigerian Dwarf does are pregnant from our new buck Gottaway. If so we will have kids sometime in July.

My tomato and pepper seedlings are growing strong. I may have to re-pot some of the tomatoes into larger pots before transplanting them into the garden. The garden... sigh... I don't know what to do about that. I need to figure out an attractive way to keep the poultry out of my raised boxes. Last year they were too young to come out to the garden but this year it has become a favorite place to scratch and dust bath. I can't plant anything in them until I get this figured out.

Finally, another one of the turkey hens is MIA today. I sure hope that they are setting on nests because if something is eating them at this rate I wouldn't have any turkeys by the end of the week.

Missing turkey hen

Our turkey count here on the farm is one tom and four hens. They all stick together like glue and it is very rare that you see one out of eyesite from the others.

Today I noticed that there are only three hens about. I looked around to see if I could locate her in the barn or the cow pasture but with no luck. So, I figure one of two things happened to her:

1) She got snatched by a fox or coyote during the night.
or
2) She is sitting on a nest of eggs hidden somewhere on the farm.

Since there are no signs of anything tramatic happening overnight I am really hoping for the latter. I guess I will only find out after another 28 days when any eggs would have hatched out. Maybe she was upset with me stealing her egg everyday. I would love to see her appear with a string of poults walking behind her.

Time for turkey... eggs that is.

Well, with the mild success of hatching eggs in the incubator I decided to set some turkey eggs in it today. I had been collecting turkey eggs for over a week now (usually two a day) with the thought that I would incubate them since none of my four turkey hens seem to care at all about setting on them. I hope to have at least 50% hatch rate as I have several people on my turkey poult waiting list and several other people wanting to be on my Thanksgiving turkey list.

If it works I hope to set several more batches of turkey eggs this spring/summer as well.

We had farm visitors today that stopped by to see the alpacas. I always enjoy talking alpacas and showing off the farm.