Berk strikes again!

Sigh... there is another chicken in the sick ward.

Earlier I was standing on the porch looking out over the pasture as the alpaca girls were grazing over on the shady end of the pasture. One of the girls, Celtie, went loping off to the barn to get some water. As she neared the barn, Berk, our male Anatolian Shepard, jumped at her and growled! Something that is very bad for him to do and that I have not seen him do before. It stopped Celtie in her tracks as she had not known Berk to act this way either. I quickly slid my boots on and went down to the barn.

What I found was my little Hill Roamer hen (yes the mate to the stuck chicken a few days ago) lying down near the barn with her backside all wet and feathers missing. Obviously Berk was playing with her earlier but when Celtie had come down to the barn I could clearly see Berk laying near the barn and he had not been chewing on anything. So, was Berk now protecting his snack from Celtie OR was he protecting the hurt chicken from Celtie? I may never know for sure at this point.

Anyway, I scooped up "Cookie", the name I have given the little hen, and gave her a quick once over before heading to the chicken coop with her. I could see right away that she had a good-sized wound on her back behind her right wing. The feathers were missing and there was a hole through the skin so I could see the breast meat clearly. Otherwise she looked alert just a bit scruffy. I put her in the brooder pen with some medicated water and food. I also treated her wound with a topical antibiotic. When I left her she lay right where I placed her.

We will have to see how she does over night. Meanwhile... what do to about Berk?

Doing the bunny hop.

Our two American Chinchilla rabbits are about 9 months old now. They have been ready to breed for a few months but I felt that it has been too darn hot here for that this summer. Now that the temps have dropped I figured it was time to let them have their fun! The hutches I have them in were here when we moved in. I believe they were actually built for poultry breeding not rabbits but they are working out ok. The doors into the hutches are small which means I can only reach in with one arm at a time and there are still areas of the hutch I can't reach. Luckily, the hutches have pass through doors in them from one to the other. I just opened up that door and let them mingle. Although this would be the first time for both of them it didn't take Sasaparilla long before he was interested in dancing with Parslane. I left them together for about an hour or so. If they managed to do things correctly Parslane should kindle her kits on October 18th. Only time will tell...

Good day on the farm.

Today was a good day. Weather was beautiful at high 70's with the changing leaves all around us. Today just had a good feel to it from the start.

Both Neil and I were up early and motivated to get some things done. First off I needed to do chores but I also wanted to shear some of the fiber off of our llama, Neffi, and I knew that would be easiest to do in the cool morning while she was eating. So, I told Neil my plan and we both headed out to the barn before breakfast.

The first thing I do now in my chores is getting Cherry Blossom up on the milking stanchion and she has come to expect this already so she was waiting for me. Once on the stanchion I gave her a quick brush over. Then this morning I took our milking training to the next step and washed and massaged her udder with a hot wet towel. This not only cleans the udder and teats but it causes her to "let down" her milk. I had also brought the milking pail with me this morning just to introduce the pail to the equation. Well, the hot towel did the trick. Cherry Blossom was much easier to express milk from the morning! I got about 1/4 cup in the pail. What I learned was that I need to work on my aim again! But I am encouraged that I might get a little milk soon to supplement the store bought. We go through 1-2 gallons a day here so it will be a while before we work up to that amount... even after Riona calves this fall.

After the cows were feed and sent out to the pasture I took a moment to give the donkeys their morning cookies. I always give them two cookies each in the morning and in the evening since they don't get anything else but pasture to eat. It is a bonding time too and on most mornings I spend a few minutes to give them scratches all over.... but not this morning. It was off to feed the alpacas next.

I got the grain ready for Gigi (our new mom as of two days ago) as she is in her own paddock with her new cria. Then I got the grain for the rest of the alpacas, Neffi and the food for the LGDs. As the dogs and the alpacas were eating we rounded Neffi up into the catch pen and got her tied up the post. Yesterday we went and borrowed shears from our closest neighboring alpaca farmer at http://www.daydawnalpacas.com/. This was my first time shearing a camelid of any type but it was very similar to sheep, which I have some experience with. Neffi wasn't into the shearing thing at all at first and it was surprising how strong she was. But after a few minutes she cushed down and I was able to give her a descent "barrel cut" in about ten minutes. It is getting cooler at night now so I didn't want to give her a complete cut but just wanted to get some of the heavy fiber off her blanket area. I didn't turn out half bad considering it was my first attempt.
Once we cleaned up after Neffi's shearing I finished up the chores by feeding the goats and then the rabbits and then all the poultry.

Once back inside I made homemade banana pancakes for breakfast... yummy!

After breakfast, Neil started on his major project of the day... cleaning out part of the porch which included moving the old wood cook stove out. Once everything was cleaned off Neil took the tractor down to the tractor-trailer out back and picked up our refrigerator that we brought with us. It doesn't fit inside the kitchen right now so it will live out on the porch as an additional fridge while we continue to use the old fridge that was left here as our main refrigerator.
After that task was done we did a few other odds and ends about the place and then relaxed the rest of the afternoon. It was a good day and we got lots done to boot!

What an honor!

About six months ago while searching for more information on self-sufficiency I discovered the website of Patti Moreno, aka The GardenGirl. Her website, www.gardengirltv.com, is about Urban Sustainable Living. Patti lives with her family in Boston, MA where on her urban farmette she gardens, raises rabbits, chickens and fish. Patti is one of my inspirations! I love how she so intensively uses her urban land and hope to include some of her ideas here on the farm during our next growing season. The world needs more like her!

I encourage you to visit The GardenGirl site (which is in the process of being updated now... just wait and see what is to come). While you are there make sure you sign up for her e-newsletter to keep tabs on what Patti is doing now.

Speaking of her e-newsletter, this is where I became honored today! I received the latest issue in my e-mail box this morning and eager to see what it contained I opened it immediately. Patti is almost ready to launch some new videos and had several previews available to watch. After watching those and reading the rest of the contents I got to the bottom of the e-newsletter where Patti always lists a few links for her readers to check out that have inspired her. This time she had four listed. And guess what one of those links was too? That's right, our little patch of heaven here at Thane's Neck Farm! I was so shocked, excited and thrilled that I had goose bumps on my arms! Here is what Patti had to say about our farm, "In my fantasy world I live in the country on Thane's Neck Farm. The spinner in me is so jealous of all that Alpaca {fiber}! I am always looking at Sustainable Farms, a bit jealously, I admit and this is one of my favorites." Wow!

It's a girl!

I am thrilled to announce today's arrival of the first cria born here at Thane's Neck Farm!

A perfect medium fawn female that we are planning on naming Aberdeen. Abby is out of our older experienced dam Touch O' Gold and the legendary Kilimanjaro!

Her birth was wonderfully uneventful. Both Abby and her mom are doing great!

Abby is the fifth cria born under our farm name, only the second female and tragically only the third surviving. We are hopeful that all will continue to go smoothly as Aberdeen grows.

Farmyard comedy.

I enjoy the farm so much. I especially enjoy just leaning against the fence watching the animals.

This morning I was in the poultry run, which shares a fenceline with the cow pasture up to the barn. As I stood there filling the duck pool with fresh water I was laughing to myself over the antics of our little male goat "Little Joe". Little Joe is one of our almost 5 month old Nigerian Dwarf goat kids. He might weigh 25lbs tops. He was head butting and wrestling with our 5 month old Irish Dexter bull calf! The calf must weigh close to 200lbs! It was a very Mutt & Jeff wrestling match. Once the calf got bored of the game Little Joe moved on to our heifer, Riona, who head pressed with him a bit before she just started giving him a good head licking that all but knocked him over. Still, not done with his desire to play he went over to the donkeys and tried to get them to play with him. The donkeys don't play by head butting or pressing so they didn't have much interest in Little Joe's advances but he tried real hard.

How funny animals can be!

Stuck Chicken

I had just finished up my morning chores (which almost always ends in the chicken coop/run) when I noticed that the tarp over the outside hoop house poultry pen had come loose on one end and it was blowing in the wind a bit. I went back in the barn to grab some zip-ties to anchor the tarp back down. I had finished putting the zip-ties in and was about to turn to go back to the house when I noticed that my Hill Roamer rooster, "Chip", was lying along the other edge of the hoop house. Chip tends to be on the flighty side and thinks he is a big guy (which he is not really) so I thought it was odd that he was laying so still. As I walked around the back of the hoop house it quickly became clear that he was not resting inside the hoop house but had wedged himself between the hoop house and the no-climb fence of the chicken run. I tried to reach in to shoe him out but I could not reach him and he didn't even flinch, which due to his flightly nature was again odd.

So, I walked outside the chicken run along the fence until I got to him. He was stuck for sure! He was lying almost on his side with both wings stuck through the 2x4 no-climb fence. I had to straighten his wings out and the push them back through the fence to free him up. I gave him a little nudge to get him closer to the back of the hoop house so I could reach him from inside the fence. So, I walked back around inside the run to get him and picked him up without even a little complaint.

I put him into one of the brooder pens which I often use for isolation pens when needed. He looked pretty depressed, was limping on one leg and just looked sore all over. I put some food and water down for him and he went right for it. I figure he must have been stuck all night and continued to struggle until he lost his spirit totally. After he ate he tried to hop up onto the roost but fell back down to the ground again. As I left the coop I could see that he had finally settled down in a corner of the pen.

I figure a quiet 24 to 48 hours and he should be ready to go back out with the rest of the chickens again.