Critter Report

With every new critter added to the collection comes the need for accommodations. After several hours contructing 2 lovely rabbit houses, and attaching 2"x4" wire as caging, we placed the rabbits inside their new houses, only to watch them squeeze quite easily through the wire. So the next day the project continued, but this time we put on 1"x1" caging. That kept them in. The bunnies keep growing and daily they flip over their feed container, wasting as many pellets as they eat. Maybe tomorrow Ill get that fixed haha. A set of laying hens in bad need of some rehab were added to the collection. They were in with 4 beautiful banty roosters but they rode the ladies steady (that's why the one little hen has very few feathers.) Now on their own Im hoping they'll get the reprieve they need, and still lay some eggs for me in the meantime. That was what made me take them - in hopes of getting eggs now! Plus the 2"x4" wire is being repurposed for the laying hens house and it wont go to waste. We also built them a little hut for protection from the elements and it can double as a nest box hopefully. I guess I better limit myself soon of Ill have the whole countries chicken culls in my backyard...

Toil With Soil

The garden is coming along wonderfully, but I continue to hold my breath, because the only pestilence I fight with is unending weeds. Six hours one day, four hours the next - but progress is being made! I finally got my tomato cages up as well as my pea fence. Ive been enjoying some fresh radishes when I need a little garden snack, but so far that's it. The lettuce is growing well, peas should soon be setting pods and the beans are growing well. The corn is up about 4 inches and the potatoes that got in late are all popped up. The raspberries will bear wonderfully this year if I can beat the birds to them. The bushes are just loaded. There is so much excitement in looking ahead to all the food that the garden could produce this summer.

The Holly-Cow Report

After a couple weeks of good brush-downs, Hollys dandruff has cleared up. Her winter coat has shed off and she looks like a different cow. Her colour is really changing, as you can see in the pictures. Shes happy as a lark, playing with the other calves where she boards. I like to think that eventually she'll be home instead of boarding, but we'd have a ways to go before we'd be able to accommodate her. For now its a happy arrangement - few chores aside from feeding, watering and scooping poop. She wont be bred for another 10 to 12 months probably, but after she has a calf that's when the real chores begin. Milking daily and caring for a calf. But I can wait for that, Ive got my days full enough as is!

The Great Chicken Adventure: Week 10

The birds continue to grow everyday, and I continue to enjoy their entertaining personalities. I have such a full understanding of the term now, if I were to call someone a chicken! They still thoroughly enjoy it if I whistle to them, sometimes they sing a bit back. Another rooster (one of the indistinguishable purebred Buff Orpington roosters) is challenging Bernie's well mastered cock-a-doodle-doo with a long drawn out squawk. Bernie continues to lead the flock in bravery and boldness. His newest trick is to sit on my shoulder and peer down at everyone else. But I guess if you give them an inch they'll take a mile... The other day when I bent down to get the water pail, Bernie proceeded to perch atop my head! Id say that is taking it a little far. With all the summer chores starting in the garden ie. weeding, weeding, weeding - I don't have much time to watch the birds, but I listen to them every morning, and Im completely satisfied knowing that theyre there!

The Great Chicken Adventure: Week 9

Now that the chickens are on their "grower" feed - I have been noticing that they are eating a lot more. Theyre getting about 2kg of food per day, and that means Im going through a 20kg bag in 10 days. Its popular stuff! Theyre also getting a pile of grass every morning and weeds from the garden. Ive converted them from the auto feed waterers to 4L pails. Its so much simpler to fill the pails and much easier to keep clean. As far as growth goes, the birds have definitely grown in the last two weeks. Bernie is still the solo crower, none of the other roosters have started. Racingstripe and Rob's tail feathers are turning a beautiful dark emerald shade - probably the biggest chicken dream come true for me (especially since that isn't apt to happen). Their temperament continues to be good, Rob gets quite jealous if I have another chicken sitting on my knee, and he has to jump up on my other knee. They haven't been too impressed with the rain lately, and far prefer to be inside than out those days. Every day I change my mind on whose male and whose female - its incredibly hard to tell. Based on the comparison from Google images, Ive only got 3 males... wouldn't that be an anomaly of nature! And that would mean no Sunday fried chicken in the winter. Good thing Im getting 15 meat birds as insurance.

 <-- Rob the Rooster

When a Cow Gets Dandruff...

Just yesterday Holly (the Jersey heifer) had a couple patches of hair missing on her neck. There was a lot of flaking skin around the areas too. I wasn't too concerned about it until I looked up why a cow would be loosing hair in patches. I found things like, mange, lice, ringworm, photosensitivity etc. Then I got nervous. I tried to rule out ringworm - the enemy of the cattle farmer - because it is very dry here and the fungus thrives in a damp dark environment. I couldn't rule out lice because I hadn't taken a close enough look to see if there were any bugs. Well my worrying was in vain, the vet came out to castrate some other cows on the farm and he took a look at Holly. He said that it was only dry skin, and that she should be brushed an hour everyday. I don't mind the extra chore time I have to put in, its an easy remedy compared to the cost and effort to rid the entire herd of ringworm or lice! (Chances are that if one cow has symptoms, more than just one would be affected). In retrospect it makes sense that Holly's loosing hair. She has a very thick coat for a Jersey - probably because she was kept in a very cold barn before we had her. Now she shedding that winter coat. No doubt mosquito and black fly bites caused her to rub on posts, making the patches of hair come out. Fortunately Holly doesn't mind being brushed, and today she stood still for the majority of the hour, so I could brush her. Im going to look into getting a natural moisturizer for her skin, because its just like a bad case of dandruff, flaking everywhere! 

Not One, Not Two But Seven Rabbits!!

A very unorganized evening produced the increase of my "flock" of critters, with rabbits! I got seven rabbits at 5 and 7 dollars apiece (depending on size) and brought them home in a laundry hamper. There are 4 black ones that are a California/Chinchilla cross, 2 brown ones that are New Zealand/Californian cross and one white one that is pure Californian. The ride home was uneventful, and I decided they would stay in the garage for the first couple of days while I introduce grass into their diets. They are on pellets right now, so if I put the grass right to them they would get diarrhea. I had a dog crate that's bars were about 2"x4" that I thought I would use for keeping them until they were ready to go out, but I clearly underestimated their size, based on their fur. I got them all in then took a count and I was one short, one had escaped right through the bars! So some temporary  modifications were made until we got a proper rabbit cage (fortunately that was within an hour of getting the rabbits). They settled in just fine, playing together, snuggling and eating hay like its going out of style. They have two small animal water bottles that they were already used to drinking from. Oh, I forgot to mention, these are all meat rabbits - and destined for dinner (in 3 months)!

Putting in the Garden

As soon as the weather is nice, the rush is on to start planting. Early this week I started planting and every day I planted some more. Now Im all done and I couldn't be more satisfied (that is, until I can watch the plants start popping up!). This year I planted my salad bowl (greens/radishes etc). I planted some onions, dill, turnip, carrots, kohlrabi, cabbage, green and yellow beans, kidney beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupes, zucchini, pumpkins, popcorn, regular corn, 4 types of squash and Im sure Ive forgotten something. My biggest challenge was hardening my tomato plants, who got sunburnt and wind tossed the second I put them out. Next year I will harden them in the shade for the first little while. I worked so hard to get everything planted and then for a whole week we hadn't got rain, and nothing except some faithful turnips popped up. After a seemingly long wait, it finally started raining, and I don't have to be worried. Im looking forward to the days ahead where I can watch my plants start growing!

The Great Chicken Adventure: Week 7

In two weeks, so much has gone on and been developed in the chicken house! This week we accomplished lots of things that should have been done a while ago - but alas they are finally done. We spent a whole day building the outdoor chicken pen. Now they can go outside as they please and rip and tear as much as they like. We made the chicken run 10'x15'. We dug holes and used cedar posts every 5 feet. Then we made a frame at the top to affix the chicken wire to. We used 2"x4" corn crib fencing around the bottom 4 feet of the chicken run and 1" chicken wire on the remaining area above. We used chicken wire across the top of the run making it completely fenced in, so no turkey vultures can snatch up one of my birdies. Last we put cedar posts split in half along the bottom of the entire chicken run, so nothing can really dig in or out. When we let the chickens out the first time, they were entirely thrilled! The second structural improvement we did was install roosts for the birds. We notched lengths of a tree that we took down - cut in the width of the building, and braced them with a block of wood to the coop wall. We did one at 5ft high, 3 1/2 ft high and 1 ft high, staggered like steps. At first the birds were hesitant to go near the roosts but that night, here they were all lined up on the highest roost! And a very exciting development with the birds is that Bernie the rooster is proudly crowing from 6:30AM to 11:30AM in the mornings. And the last addition we made was putting cage wire (1"x1") over the windows. The birds were starting to fly up to the window sills to perch up there.
Heres some pictures of the rapidly growing birds!