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.