Yesterday was a day of new arrivals at the farm. First thing in the morning, my hubby and Farm Girl went into the city to rescue two mistreated chinchillas from a backyard breeder. The poor things, they were skinny and had matty coats with clumps of hair missing in parts of their body particularly the tales. One was so timid and frightened it hasn't left the sanctuary of the little hut I placed in there for their comfort (she's the one hiding behind the other in the picture below). She cried almost non stop for the entire day. Today thankfully, she has finally stopped crying. Later in the afternoon, Farm Girl and I took a road trip to pick up a new addition to the farm, and while we were gone, someone dropped off this friendly guy. He`s a chinese swan goose...or so I`m told, I`m not an expert on geese breeds. His story is unknown to me other than he was found dirty and with a head injury. The woman patched him up but needed to find a new home for him as she couldn`t keep him in the city. Oldest was home to accept him and told me the woman who brought him to the farm was so pleased with our property and repeatedly stated how happy she was to have him living here. She followed up with an email thanking me once again saying, "I'm glad there is someone out there that cares for animals like you". That was such a nice thing to say. I don't consider myself anywhere near to being a rescue farm, but certainly me and the family love animals and are only too happy to be able to help out where possible. The new addition I mentioned earlier that took us on a small road trip, isn`t necessarily a rescue story but rather a case of rehoming. As in a lot of situations, folks often get seduced by the lure of owning a pet that differs from the conventional dog or cat. Pigs are often the victim to this. Why people bring pigs to the city, I`ll never know. Anyway, it hadn`t taken the owner of this little piglet to realize his mistake. Thankfully, he realized early on and quickly set out to find her a more appropriate home. After Lizzie, I swore I'd never own another pig again. But this little gal is so dang cute! She's a teacup potbelly pig rather than a standard potbelly pig so won't grow to be as big as Lizzie. At the moment, she is Jewel's size. (FYI, Jewel is the golden retriever we kept back from Emma's last litter. She's about 10lbs.) She's small enough for us to pick her up and cuddle....though we may not want to. Have you ever heard a pig squeal? It's the most ear-piercing sound. So now we are the owners of two additional chinchillas, who we have named Mabel and Myrtle, a chinese swan goose who we thought Rocky was an appropriate name for this tough little guy, and a teacup piglet who we have named Charlotte...naturally. :)
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Life living on our farm is like a zoo. Indeed, so many people have referred to our farm as the zoo and asking what new additions they were to our zoo. And I loved telling them! My favourite subject is my animals. Get me started talking about them and there is no shutting me up. Farm Girl is the same way. We can have lengthy discussions about the animals. One of the reasons I started this blog was to show off my animals and to blab about them without restrictions. I simply love them. I haven`t posted much lately but there has been alot of additions to the farm. So let me introduce you. I think I have already introduced you to Dreamer---who we don`t think is pregnant---but possibly was before we took her because no mare has an udder as big as hers who wasn`t either about due or nursing. That large udder has since receded. And you met Pixie---we adore our Pretty Pony Pixie! Now the thing about miniature horses is that they are addictive. Meet Willow. And her son, Tex. Then I met Meadow and couldn't say no to this beauty. Not only does she have looks but she has a personality to match. Our shopping for horses didn't stop at the miniatures. Nope, Farm Girl bought her first completely unbroke greener than green young filly named Sierra. She will be her first horse to break. We were very lucky to find just the guy to help us too! We hired someone to trailer.Sierra home but he sent a "friend" instead. Turns out that friend is an expert in raising and breaking horses and is one of the coordinators of the local rodeo. And lives not far from us. How perfect is that! Can't wait for spring when they begin breaking her in. The explosion of population in the barn continues with Heathcliffe, an absolutely adorable and lovable babydoll lamb. And Clyde, the cutest little pygmy EVER! Two geese who are nameless at the moment. A pair of white Silkies. A huge number of rabbits both pet and meat quality...and some of those rabbits had rabbits. And lastly, one of our favourite new additions are these two Chinchillas. We also had some new additions that it was inevitable we'd say goodbye. And even had a visit from an old family addition. This is Emma with one of her pups from her last litter. He looks so much like his dad. We also lost some zoo members which is always sad. (Snickers, the guinea pig---not the boy.) Our two favourite ducks, Donald and Ben! As well as Jack. It was a sad morning that day when we woke to find all three male ducks had been killed in the middle of the night, leaving our two females left alone to defend themselves. Gracie also left us when she finally lost her battle to survive and succumbed to Goat Polio. Now I know you all think my addiction has really gotten out of hand with all these new additions, but truthfully, there is a purpose behind all this madness which simply allows me to exploit my addiction. Since this post is long enough, I will explain all in the next post.
First the good, our snowy call duck Daisy`s eggs finally hatched! Ty passes his natural instinct test and is given the go ahead to begin training. The bad, Ella fails her natural instinct test. The ugly, enterotoxemia and goat polio hit the barn and I loose two lambs and a goat. None of these posts should be fly-by posts (especially the last one) and I will write a more detailed blog entry for each. But for now, wanted to update my blog about the newest events occurring at the farm. I would have wrote about the above event sooner but to be truthful, my blog was the last thing on my mind. But I will be writing a post about my experience if not for anything else then to help educate and perhaps save a lamb or goats life.
Our snowy call duck, Daisy, had been missing from the boys off and on for the past several weeks. Then yesterday, I noticed her missing most of the day so went out looking for her. I knew she hadn't fallen victim to a prey and most likely had finally started to sit on her nest wherever that might be. And I figured that she wouldn't be too far from the boys who were keeping watch over her. Sure enough, I found her sitting on a nest in the front flower bed.
The male estrogen levels are high here at the farm. They must be because everytime I turn around our tom turkey, Skeeter is in a huge combat with our muscovy drake, Sir Quacksalot. And I'll be honest, the battle has me watching in awe at these two big magnificent birds going at it that I completely forget to grab the camera. When I do remember and rush outside to catch this remarkable image on film (sort of speak) they immediately break up the fight. But the evidence is left behind. Can you see the ring of blood around Skeeter's neck and chest? I tried to take a photo of Sir Quacksalot's battle scars, but for some reason they were in no mood for a photo op. That's blood on Sir Quacksalots face and Skeeter's feathers in his mouth. Not sure who's blood it is but it's always a flying when they go at it, and thus far we don't have a winner or a loser or I'd assume the battle would have come to a conclusion by now. But whenever Skeeter gets a bit too close to Sir Quacksalot (and I'm thinking on purpose) away they go! In other male news, we got a new rooster. I named him Frank. Just because. Okay, truth be told I'm running out of great name ideas. He's a barred rock, a HUGE barred rock. And this spring's hatch. He's going to reproduce me some huge babies. That's the plan at least.
The thermometer dropped below freezing overnight and we woke to a frozen countryside. Our pond was a sheet of ice. Ducks, I discovered, react funny in winter. The snow yesterday made them hesitate for only a few minutes before venturing out into it. It didn't take them long to start foraging beneath it. The below zero temperatures, however, had my ducks unaware of what to do. We've been housing them in the greenhouse which is right next to the pond, as seen above, since we never got around to building a duck house for the winter. The greenhouse works as it provides warmth and plenty of sunshine for them. It also provides me with great fertiziler for the spring.
When I let them out this morning, a few headed right for the pond and proceeded to do a cartoon-like reenactment of a duck skating on ice. Kind of funny. I attempted to break the pond at the shallow end so that they could get some water to drink and bathe (the greenhouse can get pretty dusty) but within ten minutes it had frozen over again. Then instead of heading out and foraging, they all went into a kind of hibernating state right there on my deck. So I filled some feed into a bucket inside the greenhouse, added a tub of water, then went about "waking" the ducks and trying to herd them back into the greenhouse. Some woke immediately and flew inside, others seemed unable to move due to frozen wings, and a few reacted in what I could only describe as "playing dead". They'd proceed to quack in alarm as I approached then literally fell over onto their sides as if they were dead. At least it made it easier for me to pick them up and return them to the greenhouse. The good news is if the below temperatures continue, I may be able to build that ice rink for the boy after all. With the mild temperatures for most of the winter thus far, I feared we wouldn't be able to. Yesterday, I gave the local arena a call with this thought in mind to see about joining him up for their learn to skate program. Holly smokes, they wanted $230 for just one night a week for only 3 months, PLUS an additional $100 for fund raising (or raise the money in other ways). I just want the boy to learn to skate, for pete's sake! So my fingers are crossed the temperature stays cold. It's mating season for ducks and my pond is alive with plenty of activity. Contrary to my previous post, not all my decisions are impulse deciisiions. I actually do think things through. Like what has been working and not working for me here on the farm. As I mentioned here, I had decided that the Rouen ducks were not working. So far I enjoy the Muscovy ducks accept I need to find them a new pond as their poop on my deck is driving me crazy. And the call ducks are pets and aren't going anywhere. My chickens are also another critter on the farm that are not going anywhere. I love my chickens and the eggs they provide for me. We started off with 20 chickens and since then we lost three to death and four were roosters so I definitely had room to grow. I had seen somewhere (not sure where) someone had blogged an image of their rainbow full egg cartons and I knew then that was what I wanted. So the chickens I have selected I aimed for colourful eggs. In the death of two of my chickens I was loosing two wonderful colours so knew replacing them would be a priority, however thought finding any hens close to the age of my own would be next to impossible. Cause really, who would sell their young laying hens?! Well yesterday I found an advertisement for a woman who was downsizing her flock. Actually, she wanted to sell her entire herd! In that herd were spring hatches! And as a bonus, she was in the next town! So we went over today to see what she had. We came home with six chickens and one duck. Most of her spring hatch were mixed easter eggers and since I already have enough of those, I passed on them, but she did have black Jersey Giants and Barred Rocks from her spring hatch. Those I took. Two of each. Accept the female barred rock decided to hide on us so I left the rooster behind until she came out of hiding at which time I'll bring them both home. She also advertised she had leghorns which were also on my wish list but hers were approximately two years old. I nearly passed on them but she told me they were her biggest producers and she was willing to give me a discount. So I brought four of them home. And boy am I glad I did. Look at this huge egg one of them already produced for me within hours of being home?! Who knew such a small chicken could produce such a big egg! And the duck? Well, sadly, I let our German Shepherd, Dakota, out last night from her dog run to stretch and mess. and while she was doing her business I went into the barn and got caught up cleaning stalls and completely forgot about her. When I did remember, we had another dead duck. The boy wasn't too happy about that. So when he saw this beautiful chocolate coloured muscovy he had to have her. I loved the colour so agreed. We've named her Cocoa. Hopefully, for her own safety, she has already learned to fly. Here she is meeting Sir Quacksalot. I'm sure they will fall madly in love and give us sweet little chocolate babies.
We have slaughtered our first animal. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, not that I actually performed the slaughter, I left that to the professionals! :) In reevaluating our farm, I decided that the Rouen ducks were not what I wanted. I had five, four of which were females and females, as we know, are the quackers. And Rouen's are loud quackers. Multiple that by four and good lord the barnyard got very roudy. So they were the first to go. It was actually not as hard as I had thought, though my hubby kept asking me if I felt guilty. Surprisingly, the answer was no. For years our ancestors before us had done this very deed though they didn't have the luxury of sending them to slaughter. My inlaws recall stories of their own childhood when they had to kill chickens and ducks on their farm growing up along with plucking all those feathers. It wasn't an easy job. So I am grateful that today's farmers are able to leave that part of the slaughter to others. I simply dropped off the ducks and the next morning I brought them back home. While there, many others were picking up their chickens and ducks. The place was hopping busy. Seeing all those chickens actually got my mind spinning. What a good little business it would be to raise chicken and sell them at market.
In other news, Pearl has sadly lost her battle. She has finally died. We had discussed ending her torture but I couldn't bring myself to it. Not only because the idea of killing was unappealing (see above) but because I was hoping for a miracle. She had held on for so long, fighting to the end. I still have no idea what killed her. Her eyes remained clear right up to her death. She lost strength in her entire body and stopped eating and drinking until finally she slipped away. I had thought about bringing her to the vet, but this may sound harsh to some so I apologize in advance, but really it came down to the fact it would cost far far less to replace her than to invest in vet bills to save her. Though I love all my animals on the farm, I have no problem separating which are pets and which ones are simply there to provide for me and the family. I've been slowly trying to introduce the ducks down to the watering hole in the horse's pasture ever since that first attempt with Sir Quacksalot and the Mrs. It hasn't been going very well. I finally was able to lure them down with food but just as soon as they were done, they'd head straight back up the hill and to the pond. Not that having ducks at my pond isn't nice, but having a poop covered deck isn't so nice. So frustrated, I thought I would have to buy some snow fence and erect it around the watering hole forcing the ducks to stay down there, another expense I didn't want. Then the other day my boy came running over to me to inform me that the ducks were heading down the pasture toward the watering hole on their own. We just had a huge storm the night before and the watering hole finally had water in it after a long drought. So I quickly snatched some feed up and ran down after them. I was met by the horses who thought duck feed tasted delicious. After spending some time and effort chasing them away, I finally was able to lure the ducks back. Then, with the horses no longer a threat, I sneaked back up the hill and watched from a distance. Guess what? The ducks stayed! This was monumental! Really, ever since my boy tracked duck poop onto my hardwood floor I've been yearning for this moment! Unable to resist, I sneaked back down to see what they were doing. A little bit of encouragement from Emma and they were in! Finally! I stayed and watched for a while longer until the horses returned, then I left the new roomies to get to know one another and went back up the hill. And they stayed! I climbed the pasture fence behind my backyard and peered down the hill and could still see them swimming in the watering hole (white speck in middle of photo). They hadn't followed me back! Of course, an hour later I look out my window and see the older ducks swimming in the pond. Guess when the horses eventually wandered off, the ducks took it as their opportunity to make a break for it. Oh well, at least they stayed longer this time. Besides, if the ducks were to permanently stay down at the watering hole, we'd miss out on these moments.
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