Seedlings started.

I must admit I have been dragging my feet about the garden this spring. You see the chickens have invaded the raised garden beds and are in them daily scratching about. This is actually great for the soil but unless I come up with a way to keep them out I won't be able to grow anything in them!

I finally decided I needed to get some of my seeds going if I hoped to grow my own starts this year. So, today I potted up my tomatoes and peppers. 128 seedling pots are now sitting on the kitchen table under their covers waiting for the magic to happen.

In the kitchen I had to admit defeat with my sourdough. I have successfully had my sourdough starter what would have been a year this month. Unfortunately, the past six weeks I have been so busy (note the lack of blogging) that I didn't notice that the starter got left out after I last used it. I discovered it under a pile of papers and toys on the side counter. When I opened the lid I was sad to see that a mold had firmly taken hold. I had no choice but to through it out and start over. After sterilizing my sourdough crock I put in a cup of white flour and a cup of water (run through our Pur water filter) and set it aside to see if it would catch again.

Egg Incubator

Well, here it is the end of March and I still don't have any eggs hatching out. The chickens I separated out are laying but not setting. The turkeys are laying but not setting. The ducks have laid nests full of eggs and have also been setting but at some of them should have hatched by now... but it hasn't happened. My goose finally found a safe place to lay her eggs (our LGD Emmie was eating them every day) and is now setting on them too so maybe I will have some goslings by the end of April.

Anyway, I have had multiple inquires about chicks and ducklings for sale with nothing to offer. I have even had several people ask about reserving a turkey for thanksgiving but until I get poults on the ground I don't want to do that either. So, this week I took the plunge and invested in an egg incubator. Just a small still-air incubator that holds 41 eggs. I have spent the last few days with it set up trying to adjust the temperature. This morning I set eggs in it. I put some of the Maren, Barred Rock, Welsummer and a few eggs from the Easter Eggers in there. This is the first time I have ever incubated eggs so I am hoping my hatch rate is at least 50% this first run.

It would be nice to have some baby birds here at last!

Ruler of the Roost

What is it about boys... when it comes to girls?

I went in to feed the poultry (chickens, ducks and turkeys) this morning and discovered the tom turkey and the drake duck were fighting. The drake's head was all bloody and blood dripped out of his nostrils. The tom had blood all over the front of him, although I am pretty sure it is the drake's blood not his.

These two boys have peacfully coexisted for almost a year now. What has changed? The girls. They are now laying eggs and a few of them are setting. I am sure the boys are all puffed up with pride and feel they need to be top male in the poultry yard.

So, with a lack of any other space to seperate them I put all five turkeys (the tom and four hens) in the hoop house. I had to move a nest of eggs and I hope the hen continues to set on them in their new location.

I guess by default the drake duck will be the ruler of the roost for now.

I also noticed as I went about chores this morning that we lost the top of the old dead tree out in the pasture in the wind we had last night. Neil and I have been watching it for awhile, worried that it might fall before we got a chance to cut it down. We it fell first and luckily none of the animals got hurt in the process. It sure does change the look of the skyline in that little grove of trees in the pasture. It also made quite a mess on the ground for us to clean up. More firewood!

I sold four dozen eggs today!

New Etsy Farm Store

Well I finally did it...

I have been hearing a lot about a new website Etsy for over a year now. (Etsy like in Betsy without the B.) It is a multiple storefront site developed to promote and sell handmade items and the supplies to create handmade items. The site has been getting great reviews so I figured it was time to get a presence on there too.

You can find our storefront here at http://www.thanesneckfarm.etsy.com/ . You can also get to the storefront by clicking on the Widget in the right hand column of this blog. I have only begun to put things up but my goal is to get two new items listed every week, one material item and one handcrafted item.

I guess I need to get crafting!

Productive day abruptly ended.

I was feeling really motivated today to clean up the farmyard. You know all that stuff that tends to pile up over the winter when you don't feel like dealing with it. I brought more of the cut firewood out of the woods and stacked it under the deck. I moved and restacked some metal roofing that was left by the previous owners. The roofing had gotten blown around the yard a few days ago in a huge windstorm we had. I took advantage of having to move it anyway and made my new stack a bit more out of the way. This helped clear some space near the kid’s playground area. I found homes for items left around like some gas cans and the pop up shade tent. I moved a bunch of the kid’s toys back under the deck and picked up some trash items that had blown into the yard.

I was feeling really productive... that is until I started moving some bits and pieces of welded wire fencing that we have used in various places around the farm. We had just been throwing the small rolls over the drive-thru gate behind the chicken coop and I was tired of having them sprawled all over. I figured I would just move them 40 feet or so on the other side of the goat barn where no one ever goes or can see. This too was going well and I was pleased with the way it was looking when I stepped into a pile of leaves and drove two nails into the bottom of my foot! Ouch!

I slipped my boot off right away and already my sock was stained with blood at both sites. I put the boot back on and limped up to the house where I cleaned up the wounds and said some choice words to myself for being so careless! I can’t remember the last time I have had a Tetanus booster? I think it was entering into college so that makes it 20 years ago now! I guess I will go see a doctor in the morning and get a booster vaccine.

I rested my foot for a bit but it was soon time to get evening chores done. It took a bit longer then usual but I got through them ok.

The chickens that I had seperated out last night laid no eggs at all today. I guess they don't like the new digs. The free ranging girls left seven eggs for me.

Livestock in motion.

Well, it got cold again last night and it is supposed to stay cold all week. Since our rabbit Purslane kindled unexpectedly this week I was afraid that if I left the kits out in the cold I would loose another litter like I did last month. I needed to do something to keep them warm so I brought them into the house in one of our medium pet carriers. They are sitting on top of the washing machine behind the curtain in an attempt to reduce Purslane's stress level of being moved to a strange place. I am still concerned about the kits due to the move but am sure they will fair better here in the house then outside in the cold.

Out in the cow pasture today I discovered two more duck eggs in the hay the cows mulched down from the round bales. I put them with the egg I found yesterday in poultry hoop house. I will keep my eyes peeled for more hidden eggs now.

While out in the cow pasture I was visited by the goats. They almost always come to be with me when I am in the pastures. It is the result of being bottle-fed and doted on the first three months of their lives... I am their Mom and they love me! Well, our new goat, Gottaway, must have finally decided that he was missing out on something in the cow pasture and wiggled his way under the bar gate to get out of the alpaca pasture. Yeah! He has only been watching Gabby, Pepper and Little Joe for over a week doing this multiple times a day. He immediately set out to investigate everything on this side of the gate... the pasture, the new hay bale feeder, the cow stall in the barn and he sniffed at the goat barn door but didn't go in. Later on I saw him back in the alpaca pasture so I knew he had it figured out. Then tonight at feeding time Gabby, Pepper and Little Joe came tearing through the gate to get to the goat barn for their nightly ration of goat pellets. I lock the goats up in their barn at night so they will not eat the alpacas feed. I was hoping that Gottaway would follow them in but he did not. He wouldn't go back through the gate again. Oh well, it was a first step. Maybe over this week he will get it all figured out finally.

This evening I also got most of the hens separated out from the flock that I want to have purebred chicks from this spring. Chickens have the ability to store sperm for several weeks and from multiple roosters. If you want pure stock from hens that normally run with multiple roosters you need to separate them from the roosters for at least three weeks (although it has been documented that even seven weeks after removal hens have laid fertile eggs!). I pulled my four Cuckoo Marens and my Hill Roamer hen and put them in one of the brooder/breeding pens. Then I pulled five Plymouth Barred Rocks and my two Welsummer hens and put them in a second pen. I still need to pull two Buff Orpingtons and two New Hampshire Reds that I want to cross with my Dark Cornish Rooster for our meat birds. I will try to get that done later this week.

The hens laid 15 eggs today.

First Duck Egg?

I made a discovery this morning while doing my chores. The kiddy pool in the poultry run that is for the ducks had a large white egg sitting in the bottom of it this morning. Only one of my chickens lays a white egg and that is my Hill Roamer hen "Cookie". Cookie is close to a bantam sized bird so her eggs are very petite so I knew this wasn't from her. I have been waiting for the ducks to start laying and it appears that my wait is soon to be over.

I change the water in the pool every other day so this egg may have been there for up to 48 hours. I am 99% sure it is not a viable egg but I still put it into the hoop house in a nest of straw so the ducks (and maybe turkeys too) will realize that is where they should be laying eggs.

I am looking forward to having ducklings around the farm. They are just so cute!

The cows and donkey(s) have completely demolished the three round bales of hay that we got around the first of the year. They did pretty good about consuming most of the first two but by the time the third one got broken into they were walking up and over it, bedding down in it and generally just wasting hay. I figure we lost a good 10% out of the first two bales and more then 25% out of the third bale. So, today we headed up to Tractor Supply in South Boston, VA to purchase a round bale feeder ring. This is an 8' round ring that encloses the hay bale to prevent excess wasting of the hay. It was an investment at $125 but if they are going to be wasting 25% of our $40 bale then after 13 bales of hay it will have paid for itself.

The hens laid 12 eggs today.