I'm building a set of nesting boxes for the chickens. Right now they lay their eggs in several different places. Mostly in the barn in the corners of stalls where they can scratch some hay into a crude nest. They always pick the closed stalls for egg laying. We leave a few stalls closed to the animals all the time to keep some clean. That way if we have a sick animal we don't have to clean one up on a moments notice with a patient waiting patiently. So the hens sit on their little nests and lay their eggs and sometimes fall asleep while laying. Some chickens lay their eggs in the hay feeder in the goat barn. Yesterday as I was checking the fluffiness the hay (goats like fluffy hay) for them I found a broken egg in the midst of the hay. That's not good. Goats are pretty much Vegans and don't even care for eggs fish or dairy products. So eggs are right out as far as they are concerned. The egg reminded me that among the many things I need to do is to make a lid for the hay feeder to keep the chickens out and to keep the goats out. Three times in the last week I've gone to either fluff or refill the hay and I have to check first that there is no goat actually IN the feeder. If I threw an 80lb bale of hay onto a 15lb goat it won't be the hay that suffers. So a lid has become necessary. It will probably be simple, a wood and hardware cloth affair. Easily opened and closed yet suitable for preventing the ingress of the animals while still allowing them to eat all the dried grass they want.
I see that another project has intruded upon the nesting box project. Well isn't that the way it goes. The purpose of the nesting boxes is to encourage the birds to lay their eggs someplace that's easy to get to, for them and for us. Someplace where they won't be disturbed by the myriad of creatures that inhabit the barn. Yet somewhere that is easy for Kristi or me to easily open while balancing a bucketandascoopofchickenscratchandthechickwatererandtheeggcarton which is frequently what we're doing while gathering eggs. So I'm 2/3 of the way through building the nesting boxes. It will be 8 feet long, an 8 holer, with 12x12 luxury boxes for the birds. When I'm done with the structure Kristi will paint the interior in a dark color for privacy. The exterior will be painted for durability. With luck we can keep the goats off it.
All the momma goats are doing fine. All the babies are swell. 29 was released from the designated birthing stall Sunday along with her two babies. We refer to our goats by their ear tag number. That's where the 29 comes from. So we have 3 more expecting females left. One looks big enough for triplets and the other two may have one or two. We're keeping our eyes crossed hoping for trips.

More Catching Up

Brrr... it's been cold.

Last night, Mike smelled smoke -- as in a grassfire type of smoke and drove around at 2:30 in the morning looking for the fire. Luckily, there was no fire.

In his post, he didn't actually make a full accounting of the animals we now have.

23 goats (we had two last night!) -- nine of which, are newborns. 3 of which are male.
47 chickens (last count)
5 guineas (they're brains actually allow them to survive right now. Amazing.)
3 cats (we're keeping PureCat until he becomes socialized a bit more, I think)
1 peacock (wounded)
1 peahen (hopefully pregnant by aforementioned peacock)
1 dog

Catching up

Last post, 15 goats. This post 21 goats. It has been busy. I could attach some very goopy pictures, but that might be rude. Therefore I will post a cute picture of some of the kids. We had a tragedy. When we bought this place Kristi, thinking quickly (as usual) traded a minor potential tax issue at the closing for 3 goats from the previous owners. One young buck (that is a male goat that is still....intact. Fully equipped. Whole. Unaltered. We also got 2 experienced nanny's. A nanny is a female goat that has given birth before. A doe is a female that hasn't given birth and it therefore an unknown quantity as far as birthing problems. Last January we were lucky enough to get twins (both does) and triplets by the other (all boys). Nanny two rejected one and you can read about that in the archives. We called the little buck Spot. In December Nanny two was pregnant again. We were picking the place up and battening down the hatches for a predicted ice storm coming that night. I noticed Nanny two was in the goat barn in the afternoon. That was slightly unusual. She was also bleating, which was unusual. She is usually quiet. We went to the grocery store to buy supplies enough to last a couple of days. When we returned I went to check on Nanny two. I found her in the goat barn. She was having her babies. She had 3. Two were dead, still encased in their placentas. One was alive and kicking. I ripped open the placentas in case there was a chance they were alive but it was too late. If they were born alive, they may have suffocated. It's mama's job to open the placenta, and clean up the babies. Usually they do, but occasionally they don't. Had I been there watching the birth, I could have done something about it, but I didn't put the hints together. While I was cleaning up afterwards I noticed what I thought was the afterbirth coming from Nanny two. It turned out to be a 4th kid, also born dead. This one had been pushed on for a long time, and probably nothing I could have done would have helped. Mama was okay if tired. I got her a nice smorgasboard of grains, hay, alfalfa blocks and goat feed. She ate and drank some warm water laced with molasses. All was well with her. Her baby didn't look so great. One rear leg was twisted about 90 degrees. The other rear leg was bending the wrong way. I think it was due to too many babies in there and overcrowding. I hoped that it would straighten out. After a few days it did and his legs are perfectly healthy. That was Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday we had a nice ice storm. You could leave the house, but it was a struggle to make it 80 feet to the barn. The back deck was iced over. The driveway was iced over. The goats were fed in the barn that day. The goats were happy. I isolated Nanny 2 in the goat barn with her baby so they could bond and she could take care of it without 14 ravenous goats stomping, butting and smashing their way through feeding time.
Saturday morning I went out and fed everybody. When I got to the goat barn Nanny two was dead. She was laying in the same position as the evening before, wrapped around her baby keeping him protected from the cold. THAT was a bad day. Later in the day the other Nanny goat gave birth to twin does. That was great, but the day was one of black gloom.
Saturday morning I buried Nanny 2 in the pet cemetery. She took a big hole. Her baby, now orphaned became my charge and had to be bottle fed. Kristi is calling it Spot, like the first bottle baby. It took a couple of hours to train the kid to drink from the bottle. Kristi and hunger finally convinced it. Oh, and of course we had to drive over to Wal-Mart for a couple of baby bottles. Now, a few weeks later it is taking a quart of baby goat formula twice a day. The baby is perfectly healthy and is much bigger than any of the other new kids.

We are up to about 47 chickens. Our Barred Rock rooster was taken by a raccoon and that was the end of the fertilized eggs for a while. Still, 47 is probably enough. Roughly half are roosters so this spring we'll cull the roosters (make chicken stock) and get another one. We don't want to use one of the roo's we're raising since they are all brothers and sisters. We'll bring in some new genes.

Around the same time as the goats were starting to kid we had a Barred Rock hen go broody. This is our first motherly chicken and is unusual in modern poultry. Broodiness has been bred out of chickens. An egg takes 21 days to hatch on the average. After about 25 days I candled the egg when the hen was out eating. The egg was not fertile and had no chick growing in it. I ran to the house and grabbed an egg from the incubator. I checked it was a good one with a flashlight and ran back to the barn. I exchanged the eggs. Momma hen was fooled and sat right back down on the egg. A few days later the egg hatched and we now have a very proud momma hen strutting around showing off her little baby. This is a behavior we'd like to encourage amongst the chickens.

There's more more more to say and I'll post when I have some more thyme.