The Cornish Cross chicks at about 3 days old. 

Cornish Cross chick brooder. The chicks can regulate their own heat by moving closer to or farther away from the lamps. 

We have a perfectly good chicken coop in the barn. It has its own stall right next to the tack room for convenient access. That insures that it's very easy to feed the chickens that reside in the coop. Only our chickens don't stay in the coop. Every evening, when dusk comes, the call goes out. Roosters begin crowing from the barn calling all chickens to bed. Watching, you don't see any movement directly to the barn. A peck in this direction, a scratch there. Imperceptibly the chickens SLOWLY move towards the barn. Looking for any last bit of grain, or better, a bug as a last snack before sleep. They enter the barn and the fun begins. It should be general knowledge with this country's long history of farming that chickens can fly. They don't fly well, their aim isn't all that great. Sometimes they miss their goal and end up back on the ground. But they can in fact, fly. Our barn is separated into different sections. The first section as you enter the barn is a concrete slab about 10 feet long by 15 feet wide. The slab is the floor for the tack room and the chicken coop . There's a common area for getting animals in and moving them around and putting them into the various stalls. Stalls are various sizes and are framed with pipe fences and gates. The gates vary in height from about 5 feet tall to 7 feet tall. The rafters are another 7 or 8 feet above the highest gates. One at a time, one after the other, our chickens fly up to a lower gate. From there they make the short hop to the 7 foot level. Now there is a choice. The older hens and the peahen leap from the 7 foot gate to the top of the chicken coop. Then there's the jump up to the top of the tack room. Now comes the big jump to the rafters. The younger roosters and hens show off by flapping from the top of the gates directly into the rafters. Flapping wings and squawking chickens make for a noisy barn in the afternoons. You also have to be aware of where the chickens are perched in the rafters. You don't want to be loitering in the wrong spot in the barn. There are frequent loud splatting sounds coming from the concrete.
The chicken coop does have some temporary residents. That's where our barred rock pullets are staying. There's a heat-lamp in there to keep them warm although they're old enough now that they probably don't need the lamp anymore. They are fully feathered and during the days you have to be careful where you step to avoid squishing one.
This weekend we lost our second Cornish Cross chick. We were kind of expecting this one. It was the "poopy butt" chick from a previous post. There was something wrong with this one and it was scarcely eating. It was about a quarter the size of the other chicks. In the morning it was fine and when Kristi checked them in the afternoon this one was stretched out dead and the other chicks were running back and forth over it. The chick was buried in the rain under a crepe myrtle plant.

Chicks, birdhouses and the greenhouse

We lost our first Cornish Cross chick on Saturday. There was no reason we could find for it. There are a few birds out of the 47 (now 46) that we got that don't look to be in perfect condition. The one that died was one that did look good. We have a few that are afflicted with "poopy butt syndrome". At least that's what we're calling it. They get so much poop built up back there that new poop can't get out. The get blocked and can't eat. We may have to give these unfortunates a warm lingering bath to try and soften it up and remove it. The bird was buried without ceremony under a crepe myrtle tree. It will give all it has left towards the health of the tree and the beauty of the yard. On our weekly trip to Tractor Supply we bought a 25 lb bag of 20% chick starter. This feed will keep our fast growing flock eating for a short while. We also got more goat feed, chicken feed and sunflower seeds for feeding the wild birds.
On Saturday I put up 7 birdhouses. 6 in the back yard and 1 on the power pole next to the barn yard. On Sunday we saw an Eastern Bluebird and it's mate checking the house out. Neither of us had ever seen on of these before so it would be a thrill to have a pair nesting. They stayed for at least an hour checking out the neighborhood. We also had a flyby by a few purple martins. One had landed on the house for a while and chirped shrilly.
Kristi had an extremely busy weekend. She transplanted some boxwoods that surrounded a couple of oak trees in the back patio. She hates boxwoods. I could take them or leave them myself. They definitely have some good uses. I suggested she replant them rather than feeding them to the goats (I suspect that's what she wanted to do) so she dug 8 holes and put them in a semi circle around where I installed the sump for the laundry drain. They will eventually screen off the yard along the side of the storage shed. Since this is where I keep wheelbarrows, barrels, firewood, lumber and fencing materials it doesn't look too pretty most of the time. the boxwoods will be a big improvement.
The Barred Rock hens are getting bolder. If anything a chicken does can be considered bold. They began venturing out of the barn on Saturday. Just a few steps and they'd run back at the slighted sound. But they're starting to explore the world around them. They hope to find any worms that the early birds missed.
I was working on the greenhouse again. I'm trying to create some vents at the top, just under the roof on the sides that can be opened during hot weather and closed to keep the heat in during the colder months. So far what I have isn't very sturdy or functional. I'll keep plugging along until I get it right. Kristi's greenhouse plants are growing fast too. I'd better hurry.
Kristi also cleaned out the square garden under the purple martin house. She tore out some scrub oaks and weeds. Turned the soil over and began planting flowers. She has several different colors of tulips and other stuff. All bulbs. She also turned over the dirt in what will be the kitchen herb garden again. She's outlined where the slab ends and is preparing to put down stones for a path. Luckily stones are a natural resource we have in a abundance. We could build a path around our 15 acres if we wished too.

The billy-goat was feeling amorous this morning. He was making a nuisance of himself with the younger female. They were crashing around the barn when I went to feed them. He was making his guttural sounds. Very human sounding from a distance. She was trying to escape by running in and out of stalls in the barn. I was concerned about being run down. Those horns are pointy and hard. I fed the orphan just enough to keep it happy for a couple of minutes and grabbed the goats food. Now they all follow me. The 2 females, the male and all the little ones. When I get to the goat shed it gets cramped. I go to the farthest bowl and fill it. Step around several goats and fill the next bowl. Push a couple of babies out of the last bowl and fill it. By this time the orphan has figured out where I am and it's wondering why my nipple is missing. I have to go back to the barn to retrieve it. Then I can finish pumping a quart of milk into the baby goat. It takes a lot to fill four stomachs.
Once baby goat was satisfied I could check the new chicks. It would be good to know if they survived the night. I had 3 heat lamps set up in the new brooder but you always wonder if it will be warm enough. The back door of the barn (I built a proper back door when we moved in. Before that there was just a cattle gate) was shut to keep things less drafty. The chicks are being kept in a horse stall with plywood sides which helps to cut drafts too. They were happy. All squished up next to each other with many at the feeders and some getting water too. I refilled their food containers. I had borrowed the feeders from the Barred Rock hens in the coop next door. I gave them the feeder that I fixed after the billy goat bent it all up when he stuck his head into it last week. There's a previous post about THAT little episode. That feeder holds about a weeks worth of food so I don't have to bother with it as often. I suspect the other chickens are eating out of it when I'm not looking however.

Must be about birds

2 eggs
Arriving home yesterday I saw a road runner perched on the fence near the gate. This is the second time I've seen this particular bird. I hope it is nesting nearby. They are fun to watch. It jumped down and ran 30 or 40 feet from the fence while I opened the gate. I drove very slowly down the driveway watching it. Like the first time I saw the bird, it jumped through the fence on one side of the drive, ran across and through the fence on the other side. From there it would run a dozen feet, stop and look around twitching its tail and then run on. The goat families were in the same field on the other side near the hill. When Kristi got home a half hour later the road runner was still in the same field.
Yesterday we saw a flock of birds of an unfamiliar type. From the ground we thought they could be purple martins - though they weren't dark enough, or Tufted Tit Mouses (mice?) but they usually don't move in flocks. Kristi went in to get the binoculars and after looking closely at them we were able to find them in our birding books. They were Cedar Waxwings. They were very similar to many other bird types, we were finally able to ID the birds because of a distinctive red spot at the end of the wings.
Thursday we have been told that our order of 45 Cornish cross chicks will be in. Cornish cross is the breed you get at the grocery store. Meat birds. Our experience so far has been with laying birds. Barred Rocks, a Rhode Island Red or two and several birds of indeterminate heritage. The Barred Rocks are supposed to be a dual purpose bird. Suitable for both egg laying and meat. The Barred Rocks we've had are really skinny. Not much meat on them. They are great for stock though, and that's where our butchered birds have ended up so far. I think they have been 3.5 to 4 lbs when butchered. The Cornish Crosses will grow very quickly- in 7 weeks they'll be ready for the freezer. We're used to watching the rapid growth of chicks - every day you go to feed them and you can see that they're bigger. The Cornish Crosses will grow much, much faster. Last night I threw together a brooder box for them. I took a horses stall in the barn, put up some chicken wire to prevent the little darlings from waddling out. A few pieces of wood for a box of 5feet by 6 feet, some pine shavings and it's done. This afternoon I'll put up a few heat lamps, put in the waterer and feeders and we're done. We should pick the birds up before 6pm today. My morning routine will be extended even further. Oh joy. I'll start getting up at 4:45am to take care of the extra animals.
Now is the time to start planning for "processing" the chickens when they're done. A little thought now will help speed the process. If we can do 10 birds a day for 4 days we'll be doing well. Doing them that close together there shouldn't be too much weight difference between the first day and fourth day of processing. In case you noticed, we bought 45 birds and are counting on 40 birds processed. Just in case we have some losses. This will be our chicken supply for the year.

A mailbox recovered

Saturday afternoon, when we were returning from the local big box store with our mailbox materials we drove up and down the street again looking for the old box. It was just unbelievable to us that someone would have made off with it. Kristi suggested looking in the creek that borders our property so we stopped to look around. How about that? There was our mailbox in the creek. There were also two old batteries, a sign and a bunch of junk and litter. Another bit of work makes the todo list. Cleaning up the creek. I had best get some waders and I'll drag Kristi's canoe behind me to use as my waterborne wheelbarrow. Oddly there is only one gate from our property into the creek even though we own halfway through it. Since it's a steep bank at that point it may be easier just to access the creek from the road. One of these days I'll put in a gate to make the creek more accessible. There's not really anything that we'd do with the creek but it does need to have the litter picked up periodically.

The mailbox killers

2 eggs yesterday.
Thursday night someone hit our mail box. The box was a plastic box with an integral stand kind of a beige-ish brown color with a cutesy green roof. It had fake windows. It wasn't us. Still, on the current list of priorities replacing the mailbox was number 1783 out of 21,468. So it was some ways down the list. The choice was taken out of our hands. I got up Friday morning, did my usual animal related tasks (I don't want to call them chores) and drove off. I opened the first gate, the one with the electric wire at the bottom that has bitten both Kristi and Barbecue. I opened the second gate at the road, picked up the paper and left. I noticed the mailbox diagonally across the road was barely hanging on its pole. I left for work. Kristi followed me out and immediately noticed that our mailbox was gone. Not just knocked down but completely gone! Who would want to steal a tacky plastic mailbox? Well gone is gone so we got a new task put on our list. When we returned we found that the four by four post that held the box up was snapped off at the ground level. Somebody hit it a ton. We drove up and down the street looking for it. No luck so we went off to the hardware store to buy mailbox building stuff. We looked at the standard mailbox kits and didn't like them. So we designed our own. We bought one 8ft fencepost - this is an eight inch diameter log that has had the bark trimmed off. They are used for an anchor to stretch barbed wire fences to keep them tight. We wanted something sturdy. Bought two cement bags, a few 9 inch lag bolts and a large mailbox. Next stop was Tractor Supply for some horseshoes, reflectors and tried to find some large numbers for the address. We went to McCoys too looking for numbers. All we could find were teensy four inch numbers. That's great if people actually drove the thirty mile per hour speed limit, but since the average speed is closer to 50 mph we needed big visible numbers. That meant we go the DIY route. I had an old 1x6 in the lumber pile and a scroll saw. Kristi found a suitable font and blew it up to about 1000 points. That gave us a 7.5 inch number. That would be big enough. Kristi printed out her number and meticulously cut it out. I cut up the 1x6 into the right length and then figured out how to use the scroll saw. It took a while to cut the numbers and sand them so they looked somewhat the same. Then they got several coats of paint. I also had two half round pieces from a table top that I used as a protective decoration to help prevent baseball bat damage. The whole thing was cut and bolted together. Late Sunday we threw it all on the truck and cemented it in the ground. It was a long day and we were both exhausted. Then we went grocery shopping at 7pm. Whew.
Yesterday Kristi worked on refurbishing the chicken coop I built. We're expecting 45 broiler chickens (Cornish cross) later this week. We will likely move the Barred Rocks into that coop when the broilers come in. So it needs to be in good condtion. Maybe I'll even finish installing the last two pieces of trim. She also cleaned out the livestock water tank. This is a five foot by two foot by 18 inch galvanized metal tank with an automatic filling valve. It gets nasty after a few months. She made it look new. I took the opportunity of the tank being emptied to put it up on concrete blocks and level it so water won't slop out.

Silly chickens roosting on the gate. Peahen and a cat are visble too. 

Crazy chickens, an orphaned goat and poop

2 eggs today (but I broke one on the way into the house so I flung it to the cannibal chickens before it leaked all over the place)

I went out to feed the goats this morning. Five fifteen am is early for me. At this time of day I haven't had any coffee or tea. Nothing to perk (!) me up. I NEED perking up at five fifteen in the morning. What I'm getting at is that I don't have the same level of consciousness early in the morning that I might have at say, noon. My wits are still in the same dark quiet place where they are of no danger to anyone. So I'm feeding the orphan with its mother standing next to me trying not to notice. The little one is amazing how much it can eat. It will take the entire 24 oz bottle of formula without so much as a burp. The goatling weighs about 13 lbs now. I can't drink that much at nearly 20 times its weight. Not too nearly. I noticed, as any good mother would that there was a dark crusty stain on the little baby's neck. I was alarmed. My first thought-which took only a few seconds to percolate up- was that it was blood. I couldn't imagine what else it might be. I felt it. Crusty. Very dry. The incident happened hours ago. I moved the bottle into the light with little goat still attached. Still looked bad. I picked him up and held him more towards the light to see the wound. No luck. At that point I thought I was getting late so I fed the big goats, fed the barred rock chicks and forgot to feed the big chickens. One thing about free range birds is that they are perfectly capable of finding their own food. The big advantage of the feed I give them is that it is balanced just right to promote egg laying. Barred rock hens, fed properly, are capable of laying 280 eggs a year.
In the afternoon I warmed up a new bottle of goat formula and went to check on my little charge. He was hungry and began to suck down the entire bottle. While he was distracted I explored the wound a little better. It's amazing how much 8 cups of early morning coffee and adequate sunlight can help. The "wound" was no more than poop! Our chickens have long since abandoned the proper chicken behaviour of hiding out in the chicken coop at night. Mind you we have 2 coops and one of them cost nearly $ 400.00. By any measure an extravagant chicken coop. It can house as many as 6 birds. Anyway, the chickens won't use the coops. They perfer to roost in the rafters of the barn at night. it's a real effort for them, the older ones especially to fly up to the rafters 15 feet above ground level. They use the bleeding edge of chicken technology to accomplish the feat. From the ground they will flap up to the cattle gate that closes off the chicken coop from the large animals. From there they can manage the short distance to the fence that bounds one side of the stall next door. With a short hop they can then get to the top of the chicken coop. That's about eight feet up. From there it's only a step really to the top of the tack room. Here's where it gets dicey. From the top of the tack room to the rafters is about 5 feet. They really have to screw up their courage (why do you think they are called chickens?) to actually FLY the distance. At that point they have truly flown the coop (har) and are in the safety of the rafters. Since they have gone to all that trouble, which they do every night. They seem to take great pleasure in carefully aiming and bombing any creature down below.


I found that the mid-group of chicks had learned a new trick. As far as groups go, we got 12 chickens when we bought the farm, we hatched about 10 more from the first groups eggs and the third group would be the recently purchased Barred Rock chicks. That we are down to 9 chickens total from the first two groups is a testament to the greed of raccoons. Since we got Barbecue the loss of chickens has almost stopped. Back to the trick. There is a gate that separates the backyard of the house from the yard between the barn and shed and house. The 5 remaining chickens of group 2 were all roosting and preening on top of that gate. We were so overcome with how cute it was that we avoided going out that way for the rest of the afternoon. I also got to take some pictures with my Treo 650. See photo posted above. If you look closely you can also see the peahen on the ground and one of the cats up on the deck railing in the background.

"Board" Kid and Ignorant Goats

2 eggs.

Goats, as you know, may be smart, but even Darwin would have a problem evolving them into something less... clumsy. For example, I came home today and, of course, heated up the formula for our orphan, then took it out to it. At this point, I can't find the kid and think that the bleating I'm hearing is coming from it, so I call it. "Come here, dingbat!" ...and call... I didn't see anything in sight... Where was it? Why was it so loud and not seen? The two nannies were in the far field with the billygoat, but the kids weren't there. I looked behind the barn and finally discovered the cause of the noise which, in fact, was NOT the orphan, but one of Nanny Goat's kids -- stuck under the pallet I had propped up for them to play on! It was flat on its side, between the middle board of the pallet and the outside board... Of course, it had been raining all day, so who knows how long the kid was under the pallet. I can imagine that the other goats would have also stepped on the pallet to assess the situation, thus squishing the poor kid. If the kid had been even a week older, it would have gotten out by itself due the matter of growth. In this case, it fit PERFECTLY under the pallet. When I removed the pallet, it stood up on shaky legs and didn't stop shaking until Nanny Goat, far in the field, came running back with the other goats. The kid was a filthy mess, with dirt on every inch of it. Nanny Goat only came running back because I was holding the orphan, not hers -- that was bleating loudly... maybe they'd heard the particular bleat of the kid that was under the pallet all day and decided just to ignore it from that kid... but when the orphan started screaming, here come the goats as if there was a house on fahr (that's 'fire' in Texas-ease)!

Anyway, the kid was fine and sucking with enthusiasm when Nanny Goat came around to the barn.

Mike said that I locked the orphan into the tack room after feeding it. I tried to kick it out a few times while I was getting feed for the chickens, but it was insistent on trying to get past me. Apparently, it did without me knowing it.

All the animals, including the peahen, but excluding Barbecue (contained in the backyard) were inside the barn when Mike came home. Every day's an adventure. We live on a farm!

I didn't get a chance to check the plants in the greenhouse today. :(

Barbecue is helping the cat feel at home. 

I crossed a black cat's path

When I got home yesterday I fed the orphan as usual. He's up to a full 24 oz bottle of formula every feeding now. As soon as he eats he has to go lay down, he's so stuffed. No eggs at all today. Kristi thinks the chickens have a secret place that they lay from time to time. I think it's just an off day. We'll see. After yesterday's bonanza we thought we'd get something. It rained quite a lot over the last couple of days. I sink into the "soil" of the barnyard about an inch. I emphasize "soil" because what it really is, is sand, poop of various kinds and dirt. In that order. This is why we have shoes stashed in various places. It wouldn't do to wear shoes in the barnyard and then, say, go to dinner wearing the same shoes. People would take notice that their steaks smells a bit off today. You sure wouldn't want to wear outside shoes in the house. Of course that happens sometimes. Anyway, I went into the woods behind the barn to see how the creek looked after all the rain. Our rear property line is in the middle of a branch of Cedar Creek. The same Cedar Creek that the town of Cedar Creek is named after. If you Google "Cedar Creek" you'll get about 869,000 hits. Not a very unique name. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22cedar+creek%22
I found a wet weather pond of about 30 feet in diameter. Our soil percolates so well that I expect the pond will be gone in a day or two. Continuing on I came across a live animal trap that I had re-baited with hot dog pieces a few days ago. We have been having chickens disappear with the most obvious culprit being raccoons. We had captured one in the past and were hoping to vanquish more. Today it was not a raccoon however but a cat that was trapped. We have had a marauding black cat hanging around for months. It was a kitten when we first noticed it. It would always run when it saw us, of course if we saw it we would go get the pellet gun and start firing. Kitty was taking its life in its paws by hanging around. Please don't take this to mean we don't like cats. We certainly do. But you have to draw the line somewhere and our line is drawn on the far side of 3 cats. All precious but destined to remain a group of three. We would see the cat from time to time sneaking into the cat's shed to eat our cat food. It would eat as much as the other 3 put together. This increases our feed costs which are considerable and growing every day. The decision was made to blast it if possible. Of course we didn't have any kind of gun until recently. Now that we have one we REALLY need to practise a bit before we load it for real. So we satisfy ourselves yelling and throwing rocks. But today we caught it in the trap. It had greedily eated all the hot dogs. It's last meal. At least, at our place. I brought the trap out just as Kristi was arriving home. We were pleased to be rid of a pest. After doing a few pressing chores we took the critter about 12 miles from home and turned it loose near a creek. Then we treated ourselves to dinner at the Yacht Club.
I guess because of all the rain we saw a lot of critters in the morning. I very nearly hit a white tail deer just past our property. It was a large multi point buck that had jumped the fence on the right side of the road, ran in front of me, and because I was able to slow down in time, it then jumped the fence on the other side of the road. It was a very near miss. Kristi reported having seen frogs and a coyote that ran in front of her car and then into the brush.

All's well, that smells well.

The greenhouse project, despite Mike's logical board placing (uh huh), IS going well. I planted chaste trees, transplanted more voluntary oregano cuttings to their own pots. I have about a hundred things planted in pots, now. Of course, there's no room to move. But since the sides are now filled in from Mike's work this weekend, it's a LOT warmer and I expect a lot of germination to happen this week. A short list of plantings and what's in the greenhouse:

tabasco peppers, bell peppers, dill, thyme, flowers (about eight different kinds, some that work well in shade), basil, artichokes, squash (two or three kinds), poblano peppers, oak trees (from the acorns we seem to have an abundance of), gourds (dipper and snake), oregano, echinacea (purple cone flower), peppermint, penny royal, french tarragon (trans-plants), bay trees (two), an almond tree, castor bean plant, meyers lemon tree, wormwood... lots more, but that's all I can think of right now...

Anyway, this weekend, I made jalapeno cheese bread, made some raisins (the juicier, better-tasting the grapes, the longer it takes) and pulled down the french tarragon that I had harvested to let dry and put that into a container. Mike roasted a chicken, but it wasn't as good as usual because he didn't brine it. Funny how we spoil ourselves by creating something delicious from a common item, but then when we don't prepare it the same way, it just isn't right.

Watched Rain Man and then several silly Pink Panther movies. It rained a lot this weekend, but there were some gorgeous moments.

We have a Mexican Eagle -- a Caracara that I think is nesting on the property. Mike swears he saw a painted bunting -- two or three times this weekend.

Our little barred rock chicks are getting bigger. Much bigger.

Signing off,

Kristi

Eye meets 2x4 

On eggs and greenhouses and injuries

Five eggs. It makes no sense. This fall and winter we have been losing chickens to raccoons. We have 2 laying hens left. The best we can hope for is 2 eggs about 4 days a week. We don't know what kind of chickens these are because we usually get Barred Rocks but these came with the farm. However, we aren't ones to look a gift chicken in the mouth. But today we had 5 eggs. Can it be that 3 of our pullets came of age all on the same day and laid in the same spot? Yesterday afternoon I found that there were 2 eggs on the ground in the goats' shed. One was broken, so I left that for the chickens to eat. They are greedy cannibals. I took the good egg for us. The current preferred spot to lay is in the goat's hay feeder. This is a lean-to inside their shed that will hold about a half square bale. There are two sides to the feeder, but the chickens would never lay in the far feeder. Only in the one nearest the door. We'll check to see if any of these eggs have double yolks. Sometimes new layers will have multi-yolk eggs. We'll have to keep an eye on this.

The greenhouse project is coming along slowly. We are converting an old livestock shed into a greenhouse. It's in a half-acre field that we will use for our vegetable garden in the spring. I took off all the tin panels and replaced them with clear plastic ones. The shed had a cattle gate in front, but I took that off and framed a wall and a wide door. Then I attached more plastic panels to each side of the door. I'm in the process of tightening up the structure now. Can't have any precious heat escaping! Yesterday I was nailing short lengths of 2x4's into the corners to seal them. I cut all the pieces at once and just set them in where they were going to go. Once they were all cut I began nailing them in. After whacking on one for a while I was clobbered by a piece of 2x4 that fell from the top of the greenhouse. It hit me in the face next to my eye. A bad spot. (see photo above) There's no permanent injury but it sure was painful I got a little more work done on the greenhouse yesterday afternoon. It rained last night and I had left my cordless Makita drill out in the rain. Luckily, it still works at this point. Hopefully it will survive as I use that tool all the time.

Unintended consequences and livestock

Goats are wonderful creatures. They have a reputation of being smart-as livestock go. While they may be able to circumvent any attempt to confine them, they certainly have their bad days. Today was a bad day for our billy goat. I slept in this morning thus getting a late start feeding the animals. I warmed up the bottle for the orphan - a minute and a half on high - and put my shoes on. When I got to the barn the Main mama goat was up and about, billy was up as always it seems. The other mama goat was in a stall with our orphan and her other little ones weren't in there. Strange. I had to feed the orphan as she was screaming for food. I had slept through my 2 o'clock alarm as I had set the alarm clock to pm. Oh well. He sucked down a quick cup and I went looking for the other little ones. In the meantime the mama of the missing little ones was getting upset. The little ones were finlly found in a stall that had been converted into a chicken coop. Mama goat couldn't get into this stall because it has a cattle gate across it. The little ones were piled on top of each other between a cinder block and the tin sidewall of the
tack room sound asleep. Mama was bellowing for them but like many children they don't mind too well. Orphan was between my legs wanting more milk. I held the bottle for him while I opened the gate so mama could get to her babies. Mama went in, didn't see her babies but did find a chicken feeder. This feeder is metal about sixteen inches tall with an open ended conical top to hold a weeks feed and a round pan shaped bottom so a little feed trickles out at a time.
I hadn't fed the goats yet and when they discovered the chicken feeder they swarmed around it trying to eat all they could. Billy stuck his head in the top of the feeder and got his horns stuck. He paniced and thrashed around smashing the feeder against the steel rails of the stall next to him. Chicken crumbles when flying everywhere. The bottom flew off the feeder so now he has a conical cylinder stuck to his head. He began bellowing and running around at top speed. He hit the barn door and went outside. I followed him out and he came around the outside chicken coop and hit me a glancing blow, it nearly knocked me down. He then went back into the barn and into the first stall. There were two babies in with him. I went in and showed him my hand to help calm him. I grabbed the bucket and his horns to try to get him unstuck. I almost had it off and he surged forward. Since I still had my grip I stopped him in a corner and was able to pop the feeder off his head. The feeder is going to need some repairs.

Last night Kristi began building a little play area for the baby goats. It was a small pile of cast off cement blocks. They took to it right away climbing and jumping on it. We added a pallet and a couple of boards for ramps. They are having a great time and burning off some of that energy.
Time to go do some work on the greenhouse.

The Portable Goat

I fed the animals as usual at 5 am. The orphan goat - maybe I shouldn't refer to him as an orphan anymore since he thinks I'm his mother_ takes about 25 minutes to feed. It takes a while to get the milk out of the tiny hole in the bottle. He also has to take breaks. It's tough work sucking down formula. He took a whole 24 oz bottle of formula today a new record. I also had to follow him around my office proportionally more thanks to the outcome. I went to see my allergist today for my weekly shots. While I was there the nurse noticed my eczema was especially bad and she called the doctor in. He wanted me to go straight to the dermatologist but I had to defer. After all, I had a baby goat in the cab of the truck. Another assistant came out who has 15 goats. She was helpful reformulating the kid's formula to help prevent Scour (diarrhea).
You know how a dog can be rambunctious in the cab of a truck? A cat likewise? A goat isn't the greatest traveling companion either. When I got out of the allergists it was sound asleep under the pedals on the drivers side. I woke it up and put him in the box that I carry him in. He needed to be fed of course so I stopped and fed him. On Highway 71 he began trying to get out of his box. He wanted to go back under the pedals. I kept -gently- pushing him back in his box. He'd climb right out. I could just see trying to explain how the accident happened to the officer. "Well my goat got loose and..." This went on at least 30 times.
When I got home the goat went into the barnyard and began playing with the senior mama goats kids. They are 5 days older but the orphan is getting close in size. He's bigger than his two siblings. Mama knocked him down for daring to include himself but I found them all sleeping in the same stall later so she couldn't have been too upset.

Plymouth barred rock chicks 

Feeding frenzy

The animals get fed around 5:30 this time of year. We feed them before it gets dark. Animals get paranoid after dark. We spoil our chickens by warming up some frozen corn and hand feeding them. One result of this spoilage is that all the chickens come running whenever we go to the barnyard. This helps us take inventory and aids in their capture should such a thing be needed. The adult goats get goat feed, about a pound each. I also put out about a half bale of coastal hay as theirs was nearly gone.

Kristi fed the little orphan goat. We won't name it because that makes it more difficult around butchering time. It is taking about 12oz at a time now. It takes about 20 minutes to get 12 oz into him. We have to do this for at least another week and a half.
Barbecue followed us into the barn. Since the birthing, Barbecue has been in ill-favor with the mama goats. If Barbecue comes into the barn the main mama goat will chase her down and butt her hard. Barbecue is a smart dog and takes the hint. She stays outside until we emerge.

The main mama goat is a good mother. She keeps her little babies spotlessly clean and guards them ferociously. Luckily I had spent a lot of time gaining the goats trust since we moved in and they will let me handle the babies. Our auxillary back up goat is a somewhat lesser mother. The little kids have very messy, poopy rear ends. It's mom's job to keep them clean. I'll concede here that if my primary cleaning tool were my tongue, I might also slack.

We bought 10 Plymouth Barred Rock chicks last weekend. They are growing like crazy. We feed them 20 percent protein chick starter crumbles. They get about 3/4 lb per day. No matter what we do with their water they get pine bark in it. I have the brooder inside a chicken coop that the regular chickens won't use. They all roost up in the barn's rafters. Since there's no danger I opened the lid of the brooder and set up another heat lamp outside the box. Now they can get out into the main chicken coop if they want to. So far I haven't seen one get out.

Mama 2 with 3 kids 

Birth day. Mama and two babies 

First post

This has been a busy week for the farm. Tuesday 1/25/05 our main goat had triplets. One was still born, the other two are very healthy. They have grown a lot in the last week. On Saturday 1/31/05 our emergency backup goat had triplets. All three have survived, however the mother has rejected one. That goat is being bottle fed. That means that I am having to take it to work with me so it can be fed every two hours. Little goat is not potty trained (can you potty train a goat?) So I follow it around picking up various messes. Today it has dicoveredthe heater and has scarecly moved from that spot.