Saturday, July 26, 2008
Chickens in South Georgia
Well, we had another hatching last month. One of our Buff Orpingtons comes into the carport every day to lay an egg in a flowerpot, and decided to start setting there. We went out and got 9 eggs to put under her and very patiently waited the required 3 weeks. We were thrilled to find 3 chicks, 1 black and 2 yellow on the appropriate day. We waited and waited and waited for the other 6 eggs to hatch, but after a day decided they weren't going to hatch. When we went out in the morning, we found Mama had smothered her little black chick. We were devastated, but we had to take care of business and get rid of the supposed now rotting eggs. So, my wonderful husband goes out and transfers Mama and her 2 remaining yellow chicks to a cage to protect them from the magically multiplying cats. Imagine his surprise when he found 5 black chicks buried in the dirt of the flower pot. I have never in my life heard of a chicken behaving this way, but it appears that we have a chicken that knows her colors.  |
Sunday, April 13, 2008
All that worry for nothing
 Well, after all the worrying about what Brownie did or didn't do, Bessie Mae his mama finally went into heat. We called the AI Guy, Geronimo (yes, his real name) and he came out this morning to check her out. He thinks we were too late, but we used a straw anyway. We should know in about a month if it took. I'm really hoping so, because I am so ready for my Dutch Belted cows! This calf will be half jersey/half Dutch Belted, which she'll be registered as. I'm assuming and hoping for a girl obviously. Then her calf will be bred back to another Dutch Belted bull, which will make her calf (again hopefully a heifer) 3/4 DB, 1/4 jersey, and so on until we have what's considered a pure bred. This is a breeding up program, which is a great way to get a breed you want if you don't want to buy and haul a cow from 3 states away. Stay tuned for pregnancy tests! |
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The Fatted Calf
 Well, maybe the not so fatted calf, either way he's gone to the butcher. DH hauled him away 2 weeks ago. I don't know if y'all remember my shenanigans with our bull calf last summer when I was heavily pregnant. If you don't, you can go back and read it. It's well worth the read for the mental picture it will produce, but I digress. Brownie our jersey bull calf has gone to become our suppers for the foreseeable future. He was really not very heavy after a lean winter, but since he was a bull and not a steer we needed to get him out of the pasture. I have big plans for my heifers and cow. They're going to be artificially inseminated, or AI'd, with Dutch Belted semen. It should be mortifying to write about semen in a public venue, but I'm so excited about this I don't even care. Everyone has been cycling regularly, right up until the day the tank liquid nitrogen cooled semen arrived. Everything came to a stand still, so now we're stuck wondering, "What did Brownie do? Surely not that!?" I'll keep you updated on that front. Speaking of babies, our bobtail cat Snow White is due to have kitties any day now. After that she and Midnight (our other kitten) will go get their fix at the vet. We didn't know how young cats matured until a couple of toms came over a few months ago. I had no idea anyone had cats nearby, but they came out of the woodwork (or woods rather) awfully fast! I'll add pictures to this later, when I upload them from the camera. |
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Mama!!!
 We've had chicks before, but we've never hatched them ourselves. Well, I guess we didn't have a whole lot to do with this hatching either. We had a Buff Orpington sitting on a clutch of eggs for about 10 days. One day while she was off for her daily poop/eat/drink, Raoul checked on the eggs. While he was checking on them the hen in the other nest who was laying her egg for the day got quite upset with him. When he left, she hopped up, laid an egg in the Buff's nest, and has been sitting there ever since. Well, today we had 2 chicks hatch. It's the cutest thing to watch them with mama. I've been having a blast going out to check on them. The little brown one especially likes to be tucked up under her breast. In case you noticed her comb, many of our hens are sporting a similar look compliments of one of the roosters. |
Monday, October 8, 2007
Charlotte
I found this gorgeous spider in between the barn and some tractor equipment. I've named her Charlotte. Aren't we original?  |
Saturday, September 15, 2007
More chickens?
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I mentioned our inappropriate ration of hens to roosters a few days ago. Well, at our last homeschool co-op I met a mother new to our group. Amazingly enough they have 300 chickens from about 8 weeks old to 18 weeks. We went out earlier this week and bought 20 pullets (females not yet laying) and 1 rooster. The pullets are evenly split between Buff Orpingtons and Rhode Island Reds, and the rooster is a Buff Orpington. That gives a total of 40 females and 5 roosters, which is exactly right. Raoul is outside now adding new roosts to the hen house, so they won't roost in the nest boxes. One of our Buff Orpingtons has gone broody, so in 3 weeks or so we could have chicks! Our eggs have been looking pitted for the past few days, so we bought some crushed granite for them today. I hope they enjoy it and start laying prettier eggs soon. I know I need to add some pics. I'll try to do that soon.  |
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Chasing Cows
 We've been adding fences gradually as we have time, so at the moment we have 3 pastures. When we built our second pasture we had to move the cows into it, and somehow Raoul and my dad neglected to build a gate. So, it was my dad's idea (while Raoul was at his niece's wedding) to let the cows completely out and try to block them from going down the road. Well, Milky Way didn't agree and took off down the driveway. We managed to get her back with a lot of running around. Then Bessie Mae didn't want to leave her calf, but I managed to coax her out. That left Brownie in the field by himself. He did not want to go through the gate at all. We spent 2 hours out there chasing him around. I was 8 months pregnant at the time. Can you imagine this heavily pregnant woman lumbering after a calf. The kids were out there and Pop would chase the cow towards the gate. The kids were supposed to prevent him from going the opposite direction, but as soon as he would come their way they'd hop out of his way and let him through. My dad is not the most patient of men so Sissy (9) was bawilng and finally went into the house. She was adamant about not helping any more. We finally gave up. Then 2 hours later my dad says, "Well, its time to put the cows back into the first pasture." It's a good thing we didn't have any loaded guns. I think I might have shot him. When I asked just why we worked so long to get Brownie out when we were just going to put him back in again he said, "I wanted to show him who's the boss."Well, I guess we found out didn't we? |
Friday, September 7, 2007
Here a Cow, There a Cow
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I had a really long post written about how we got our cows, but my computer ate it. So, here's the highlights. We have a Belted Galloway heifer, a Highland heifer, a Jersey cow, and a Jersey bull calf. We're planning on breeding the Jersey to a Dutch Belted bull and the heifers to a Belted Galloway via AI. We're most interested in grass fed cattle, so we've chosen breeds that do well on grass alone.  |
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Welcome!
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After a lifetime of dreaming of homesteading, we finally reached a point financially and geographically to buy the farm. Unfortunately the piece of land we settled on is not set up for animals, so we've been slowly adding fences and all the other good stuff that goes along with livestock. We started our menagerie with chickens from Murray McMurray . After much careful consideration we ended up with 5 different breeds. That's what happens when you have 5 people with 5 different priorities. My chickens are Lakenvelders. They're an old Dutch breed with black on either end and a white stripe in the middle, much like the belted cows you've seen other places. In fact the Dutch Belted breed of cattle is also known as Lakenvelder, more on cows tomorrow. My husband chose Barred Plymouth Rocks, because they're pretty... well not entirely. See this is our second round with chickens. We had chickens at our last place, but my husband was laid off right before they started laying. He found a new job easily, but it required a move across 2 states and a 2 month stay in a hotel while we found a house. We didn't think the hotel would look kindly on us getting a room for the hens, so we sold them to another homeschooling/homesteading family after we got exactly 2 eggs. Anyway, he had chosen Barred Rocks for his chickens there, and liked their personality better than any others we had. We ended up with 4 hens and a rooster. We have 4 roosters altogether, but this is the gentlest. He's quite the gentleman with the ladies as well, unlike the other 3 who may find a pot soon. My oldest daughter picked Buff Orpingtons, which is what I chose for Chickens: Round 1. She adopted one of mine in North Carolina, and started training her to recognize her name. So, she wanted another gentle giant of her own. I really love this lovely breed. We're about to let one of our hens start setting on a clutch. I'm interested to see how she does. Let's see, next is my son. He chose Egyptian Fayoumis, as we were studying Ancient Egypt at the time. We have a rooster and 4 hens, and they're the wildest of our flock. They're also the smallest with the smallest eggs. Lastly was my middle daughter (we didn't let the 1 year old get a vote). She chose Ameracaunas (the Easter Egg Chicken) for the 2nd time. With our first batch we lost 2 of her pullets (hens who haven't yet laid an egg) because of severely curved beaks. They weren't able to pick up food because of their hawk-like beaks. We tried trimming them, but they still ended up starving. It was no fun. So this time around I tried to keep a sharp eye on them watching for the beak problems. We fortunately only had one with a problem this time. Her beak was not only curved it was crossed as well, so the top beak didn't meet the bottom beak. We lost her and the other 3 hens. We're not sure what happened to the other 3. Two just keeled over in the night. They had no evidence of violence on their bodies, they were just dead. The rooster survived. He's not a terribly nice rooster, but he's not evil either. So, we've got an Americana, but no pretty eggs. Then there's the "odd man out". McMurray will send an extra chick with your order if you request it, but you don't get a choice in what it is and they don't tell you what it is. It's kind of a neat process to watch the chick grow up, and try to guess what it is. We noticed our guy had fat toes, and when those toes started to grow feathers we knew we had a feather-footed variety. He's our fourth rooster and is a Silver-Laced Cochin. He's probably the worst of our roosters, but even he's great with the kids. My problem with the roosters is simply that we have too many of them or not enough hens, so the hens get worn out. We're planning on getting another batch of hens, but that will take a while to raise. We thought about hatching eggs, but that will give us even more roosters. We've decided to let one of the Buffs hatch a clutch and we'll raise them until we know what's what. The roosters will go into the freezer and the hens will live a long happy life. Next up on Tallent Store... Cows on the Farm. |