I have now had Korina the goat for 5 weeks. At the moment I am writing this, she is pacing in her pen because I haven't been out to see her yet today. Not because I'm a neglectful, mean owner, but because it's 40 degrees outside and raining. However, I will trudge out in the mud shortly to give her some reassuring pats and feed her some cornstalks.
We have made some progress:
1. She will allow me to touch her most of the time without jumping out of reach.
2. She will allow me to somewhat lead her on the leash (though I discovered that if you press too hard on their windpipes they fall to their knees and convulse - a scary observance).
3. She knows that the coffee can means grain is coming and I'd better run into my house to get some.
Areas we have not progressed:
1. She still will not eat hay, and the leaves will be gone soon.
2. She's still trying to get out. The other day I came out to see her rather late in the day, then soon walked away to do some gardening. Not hearing her cry, I thought maybe she was handling separation better. Silly me. I kept peering over at her pen and didn't see her hanging out in front looking for me. Finally I went closer and discovered the reason for her stillness. She had shoved her head under the gate and was stuck. Good thing I hadn't left home!
3. She's lonely, and the cats do not seem to be sufficient company.
Regarding chickens, of my 3 youngsters left, 1 died suddenly last week. Have no idea why, and another one had, I believe, Marek's disease and sat pitifully on it's belly all day with legs extended at unnatural angles. I had my husband put it out of its misery. So the lone one left - which I don't even know if it's a pullet or cockerel - was thrust into chicken society. Not surpisingly, it has not been warmly welcomed. I'm still praying it's a pullet. It's about 4.5 months now, and should lay or crow soon to let me know. Hopefully it will survive initiation.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
I am so brilliant a computer user, that after I posted that last blog, I couldn't find my blog again! Therefore, the lack of conclusion. I will try to remember the rest of the horrible spring, but I've put a lot of it out of my mind. To continue:
My orange cat, Ellie May, had discovered she could just fit her paw through the wires in the rabbit cage and pull out a wee babe chick. She also managed to scratch the eye of another (ouch!) and terrorize them all. I managed to save the chick and get her safely back in her cage. This cage would be locked in the workshop away from cats from now on.
Fast forward 6 weeks. The 6 chicks are beautiful - white, black, brown, red, and growing nicely. Time to put them in a separated part of the chicken coop to give them more space and used to outdoor weather. A few days later I come home to find a black chick staggering in my car port. I run out to the coop to see 3 more missing! Drats! I go back to the old stake pounding in their section of the coop to keep out what I thought was a coyote. Next day, 2 more missing. I realize now that the predator is much smaller than a coyote, and borrow my neighbor's safe animal traps (i.e., they trap them but don't slice their paws/tail/face in half). My only surviving chicken is the same Rhode Island Red who was ripped from her safe haven cage by my cat, Ellie May. This chicken has serious post traumatic stress syndrome by now. We placed the trap next to the chicken coop with some lunch meat in it. Two days later, we were shocked to find a large cat in the cage. It looked part domestc, part wild. It's head and paws were huge, but was the size of a Maine Coon. The day after we caught that cat, I see another cat in my neighbor's field that looks like it could be his brother. Therefore, another trap was set, but this time - and I'm trying to remember my reasoning - I set it under my bedroom window. Why? Why? The next day I look out my window and am thrilled to see a trapped animal. I call out to my husband, "I caught it!" He peeks over and says, "Uh, I don't think you caught a cat." The next words are redundant as the odor beginning to permeate my bedroom already warns me of what I caught. "I think it's a skunk." Unfortunately, in my brilliant cage placement, not only was it under my bedroom window, but also next to the dryer vent, which of course, is connected to my dryer in the middle of the house. It provided a speedy conduit.
Watching my husband trying to sneak up on the cage to throw a towel over it was humorous. After doing so, he managed to shove a brick under the door and hop, skip, and leap the heck out of Dodge. After dark, our skunk wandered out of the cage, having lost a day in skunk prison, though that prison was much mroe pauinful for us than him, for sure.
In conclusion, our Rhode Island Red, which my son had named Hueva, was the most neurotic chicken I've ever seen. She followed me around like I was her savior, and took a very long time adapting into the flock. I also bought 2 adult Marans to replace the others I had lost.
My orange cat, Ellie May, had discovered she could just fit her paw through the wires in the rabbit cage and pull out a wee babe chick. She also managed to scratch the eye of another (ouch!) and terrorize them all. I managed to save the chick and get her safely back in her cage. This cage would be locked in the workshop away from cats from now on.
Fast forward 6 weeks. The 6 chicks are beautiful - white, black, brown, red, and growing nicely. Time to put them in a separated part of the chicken coop to give them more space and used to outdoor weather. A few days later I come home to find a black chick staggering in my car port. I run out to the coop to see 3 more missing! Drats! I go back to the old stake pounding in their section of the coop to keep out what I thought was a coyote. Next day, 2 more missing. I realize now that the predator is much smaller than a coyote, and borrow my neighbor's safe animal traps (i.e., they trap them but don't slice their paws/tail/face in half). My only surviving chicken is the same Rhode Island Red who was ripped from her safe haven cage by my cat, Ellie May. This chicken has serious post traumatic stress syndrome by now. We placed the trap next to the chicken coop with some lunch meat in it. Two days later, we were shocked to find a large cat in the cage. It looked part domestc, part wild. It's head and paws were huge, but was the size of a Maine Coon. The day after we caught that cat, I see another cat in my neighbor's field that looks like it could be his brother. Therefore, another trap was set, but this time - and I'm trying to remember my reasoning - I set it under my bedroom window. Why? Why? The next day I look out my window and am thrilled to see a trapped animal. I call out to my husband, "I caught it!" He peeks over and says, "Uh, I don't think you caught a cat." The next words are redundant as the odor beginning to permeate my bedroom already warns me of what I caught. "I think it's a skunk." Unfortunately, in my brilliant cage placement, not only was it under my bedroom window, but also next to the dryer vent, which of course, is connected to my dryer in the middle of the house. It provided a speedy conduit.
Watching my husband trying to sneak up on the cage to throw a towel over it was humorous. After doing so, he managed to shove a brick under the door and hop, skip, and leap the heck out of Dodge. After dark, our skunk wandered out of the cage, having lost a day in skunk prison, though that prison was much mroe pauinful for us than him, for sure.
In conclusion, our Rhode Island Red, which my son had named Hueva, was the most neurotic chicken I've ever seen. She followed me around like I was her savior, and took a very long time adapting into the flock. I also bought 2 adult Marans to replace the others I had lost.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
I really should have started this blog in March. That's when the "Horrible Spring" began. It started with the suicide on March 30 of my cousin's 17-year-old daughter, followed by the fatal car accident of my daughter's good friend's sister a week later. What do these tragic teen deaths have to do with farming? Nothing. They just set the tone for the calamity, frustration, and despair to follow in the next days, weeks and months.
The first sign of farm trouble was the disappearance of one of my layer hens. I only keep 6 hens and 1 rooster - enough for eggs for us and some to sell. I thought maybe she was hiding in a nest box. But then the next night, we were down to 4. After inspecting the chicken coop, I discovered that the chicken wire had rotted away where it entered the ground, leaving a kind of large swinging door for any animal motivated enough to push under it. And push under it did. Twice. I figured it was a coyote since we have many around here. Therefore, I pounded any form of stake I could find lying around the yard in front of the coop spaced about 6 inches apart. No coyotes were that thin. In addition, I had to replace those layers because 4 eggs a day or less would not be enough, especially since several of them didn't lay every day.
Starting hens from chicks is a long, sometimes frustrating process. There are 3 major barriers to successful raising:
1) Said pullet may turn out to be a cockerel (ain't no eggs comin' out of him)
2) These wee babes from the farm store may be diseased or weak and you don't find out until you get them home and wake up one day to find a stiff wee babe.
3) Introducing them to the established flock is tricky and often perilous to their health. There's a reason it's called "pecking order." There's no Welcome Wagon in the ole' chicken coop. Just a gantlet of pecking until the Queen Hen is established, and on down the line, until the lowliest of fowl is the one with the bloodiest and least feathered back. Sad but true. It's the equivalent of $10 jeans at the half-yearly Nordstrom sale. It's every hen for herself, and don't get bloodied in the melee.
In any case, I decided I had to bite the bullet and bring home 6 chicks. My son and I went and decided to have fun with picking new breeds. We picked exactly 6 different kinds. They ranged in price from $3.50 to $4.50. We stuck them in the rabbit cage (that's another whole story) and put them in the barn. Since this post is getting too long, I'll finish the story later, but here's the cliff hanger. Within one hour one chick was spotted at dinner time in the mouth of one of my cats.
The first sign of farm trouble was the disappearance of one of my layer hens. I only keep 6 hens and 1 rooster - enough for eggs for us and some to sell. I thought maybe she was hiding in a nest box. But then the next night, we were down to 4. After inspecting the chicken coop, I discovered that the chicken wire had rotted away where it entered the ground, leaving a kind of large swinging door for any animal motivated enough to push under it. And push under it did. Twice. I figured it was a coyote since we have many around here. Therefore, I pounded any form of stake I could find lying around the yard in front of the coop spaced about 6 inches apart. No coyotes were that thin. In addition, I had to replace those layers because 4 eggs a day or less would not be enough, especially since several of them didn't lay every day.
Starting hens from chicks is a long, sometimes frustrating process. There are 3 major barriers to successful raising:
1) Said pullet may turn out to be a cockerel (ain't no eggs comin' out of him)
2) These wee babes from the farm store may be diseased or weak and you don't find out until you get them home and wake up one day to find a stiff wee babe.
3) Introducing them to the established flock is tricky and often perilous to their health. There's a reason it's called "pecking order." There's no Welcome Wagon in the ole' chicken coop. Just a gantlet of pecking until the Queen Hen is established, and on down the line, until the lowliest of fowl is the one with the bloodiest and least feathered back. Sad but true. It's the equivalent of $10 jeans at the half-yearly Nordstrom sale. It's every hen for herself, and don't get bloodied in the melee.
In any case, I decided I had to bite the bullet and bring home 6 chicks. My son and I went and decided to have fun with picking new breeds. We picked exactly 6 different kinds. They ranged in price from $3.50 to $4.50. We stuck them in the rabbit cage (that's another whole story) and put them in the barn. Since this post is getting too long, I'll finish the story later, but here's the cliff hanger. Within one hour one chick was spotted at dinner time in the mouth of one of my cats.
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