Growing Little Ones!

First off, I am sorry that I am just now realizing that I didn't post about this sooner! These precious little ones were born on May 30, 2015 (the first one hundred degree day of the year), to Lone Star South MsMcallie and Jaune Ranch Pygmies Powerstroke. As of this morning, they are 16 days old. The little buckling (more silver of the two) has been larger all along. Here is today's update on weight...

This morning, the silly little family HAD to have the fresh pellets, not the ones the knocked over last night. 

This is the little doeling i the weighing bucket. She is so sweet and loves to cuddle! 

I don't know why I cannot get this photo right side up, but weight today is 3 lbs 12 oz. Late last week she was 2 lbs 4 oz. So while she is markedly smaller than her brother, she is still growing.

And here is the little buckling. When they were last weighed, he was at 3 lbs 14 oz. 

This morning, here he is at 4 lbs 14 oz. Oh, goodness, he will be a big one!

We had been supplementing the little doeling with additional milk early on, when she was having trouble i the heat of the day. At this point, she hasn't wanted the extra milk, though we continue to offer it. Both little ones are eating some hay, and enjoying the crumbles from mama's hay pellets.

Such a treat watching them grow!

Sexing Goslings and Other Fun Times at Our House

Chock it up to yet another thing on the list of things I never knew I would learn in this life. Last night, the boys caught the young goslings and I worked on determining boys and girls. Yup, sexing geese. I never thought I would be able to add that to the list! Seriously, who puts that on their career goals, anyway?

The geese around here are interesting. Not overly friendly, but not mean. They keep the hawks and owls from attacking. From times of losing chickens even through the roofs of pens, we have not had one loss like this since the geese came to live with us 2 years ago. They are pranksters, trading pranks with the puppy and the goats, and busybodies, always with their nose in someone's business. But they do their job.

Each year in the Spring, Mother Goose nestles in to hatch babies. I set her up with her own food and water, over behind the swingset near the old greenhouse. Twice a day Uncle Wiggly gets her up and they fly around to the goose area to eat and drink before he walks her back. He looks out for her, and is an attentive father as babies hatch as well as with rearing them.

We keep several small water containers with their food so they have easy access to water without letting the little ones get in over their head in the good area.

The baby geese have the sweetest little voices! I hope you have the volume turned up! While they are beginning to get the orange in their bills and legs, the voices are all baby!

They are rather used to free run of the property! They meet me at the feed shed in the morning and ask to be fed before the other animals on my list.

Shadow Paws, who normally pranks the adult geese in exchange for them pranking her, maintains a safe distance to keep the geese parents happy while they are raising the little ones. 

However, we DO NOT need EIGHT GEESE. Goodness! We have a few folks that requested to be called first for little ones once they were sexed, and I will do that today, and give them until the end of the week before I open it up to others. But in calling, the first question is often, are they males or females?

So after dinner last night, the boys caught the little ones, one at a time, and I working on determining sex.  This little female really relaxed int he process.

He stood her back up, and she registered her complaint!

This one had even more to say!

I love the attitude form this one. By the way, curious about the plant pot on what used to be my clothesline? There is a fake owl there that the puppy thought looked VERY destructive. We had hoped the pot would save the clothesline from the puppy, but it blew off, and now Wyatt put it back on.

This one took its attitude straight to Charlie!

I am not going to claim to be anything approaching an expert at sexing chicks or goslings! But so that you know, here is what we did...

Vent sexing. And I have to admit, I had to ask for help with the camera since my hands were occupied, and clearly that didn't work out very well. I will add more photos later for better reference. This one is a female. If you could see more closely, the vent relaxes and begins to separate, leading to a little open there, showing you either (n this case) the folds just inside the vent and nothing else,

or in this case, a little corkscrew of a penis protruding out.  One of them didn't relax well for me, and while I think it is a girl, I will double check all of the girls to make sure one boy didn't sneak through. Our best educated guess right now, though, is One young gander, four young geese. At most, I believe I could be wrong on one of the girls.

I bet you always wondered about that, right?  Well, I will call folks this afternoon and give them the option of picking up geese, and I will admit we will likely be keeping a little female.  (We will work on naming her once all the dust is settled!) 

We will catch you up o more later. So, what things have you learned to do that you never though you would need to?

Reach Out and Find a Friend...

Late last December, I was perusing a local Facebook page for poultry folks. I look around frequently, but understand that my heritage poultry preference and soy-free, corn-free organic feed standards are not those of the typical backyard poultry enthusiast, so I am rather selective about what I post on, preferring to not get into debates where I am glad to agree to disagree. Still, there are so many places where we agree, and where we are able to support one another. Then one caught my eye.

There was a woman from my town who had a very small mixed flock, including a few bantams. The bantams were living separately from the standard hens, as they had been pushed around by the larger hens, and then of the bantams, one had begun to pick on the other. One little Sebright was being bullied, and then her companion bantam had passed away. Long story short, the Sebright was now very sad. Flock animals are meant to have friends!

As the little Sebright's owner was looking for advice for finding a suitable friend for her, I considered our own situation...

As breeders, we often have a wide variety of birds and ages in the grow out bantam or grow out standard pens. One of the little ones from this past year's bantam Cochin hatch had a cross beak. Not a true scissor beak, but her head and beak weren't truly in correct alignment.  This just happens sometimes, even though our poultry are bred to the Standard of Perfection, and many of the offspring do quite well at shows. I will never know if something went wrong in the egg, putting it in the incubator, or what really happened. Still, with the issue, the little one had not gotten along with the other bantam Cochins, and had moved over with the Silkies for some time. There were also a few other mismatched ones growing out in the group, but as they were growing and the Silkies and others gradually were moving out to their long term homes, we found ourselves debating the future of the little hen.

She would be fine for breeding, that isn't something she will pass on with young, and she is clearly healthy and eating and drinking and getting around just fine. She was due to begin laying once the light increased again. Yet, we are not only a little pressed for space in the Silkie pen, but also collect eggs there for hatching, and don't wish to have cross-bred bantam birds. The children and I had been debating the best place for her, and she deserves a happy life. So what to do?

I commented on the post that I had a little pullet who was not perfect, but was thriving, and who didn't seem to be finding her place here. A little bit later, I found a message from a sweet person named Jade, who surprisingly lived only about ten miles or so from me. We offered that perhaps due to the fact that the little pullet was different, she hadn't found her place yet in our home, and if Jade thought she would like to try, she was welcome to have her as a friend for her little Sebright. I stressed that she could not be shown, and her beak was not right. Jade thought it could be a good fit, as their chickens are pets, not show birds.

I was so excited that Jade and her husband were coming to get her the next day! Bailey gave the little one a bath to get ready, and she sat in the living room with her by the heater, with farm puppy Shadow watching over them as she dried. Within a few days, Jade sent me the photo above, of the lonely little one with the pullet they had brought home. She told me that initially that pullet from our place had definitely been in charge, but they were becoming friends and exploring together.

Then later, another message saying they were getting to be good friends! This is where the two sleep at night. I feel so tremendously blessed that Jade has let me know that this has been such a great move, and so blessed that the little pullet has found the place where she always belonged, we just had to give her the chance to grow and thrive and to reach out and help her find it. What a great chance for her to have a flock family! They are nestled so sweetly in this photo.

Then, earlier this week, there was another message... she laid her first egg! For any of you who also own chickens, you know the excitement of the first egg, and of the feeling like it is all working out. Honestly, I had the feeling that it would work out as soon as I had met Jade. And Bailey was glad that a little one from her breeding program would have a great place to be. Wyatt was not only thrilled to not have to figure out how to manage the egg situation in his Silkie breeding pen, but he got a little spoiled as well when Jade brought him lemons! (Many thanks, he feels he has now perfected lemonade!)

I reached out to Jade, and asked whether she felt okay about me sharing this story. I feel like it is important to see that the backyard pet chicken person and the egg and meat producing (and showing and breeding) folks can work together to enable a truly organic and humane industry on the producer side and great family flock on the backyard pet poultry side. 

The little bantam Cochin pullet and her new family sent us this video to share as well. Thanks so much! I think you all likely can also see that she continues to eat just fine!

Well folks, now it is your turn. How do you partner between small farms and backyard flocks? And between different herds of goats? Share your ideas and success and help inspire and educate. All the best to you!

A Day in the Unfolding of the New Year

Trying to take on a few major projects while my work schedule is lighter, as well as help the kids with homeschooling and their own projects has kept me on my toes, but it has been quite rewarding. I will share more about the projects going on around here in the next few days. Okay, seeing how often I am too tired for blogging lately, how about I promise to do my best, but acknowledge they might be a bit late?

This blue Silkie pullet is one of a few new layers who have been contributing their first few eggs to the family here lately. This morning, she seemed bent on being broody, though she wasn't actually sitting ON the egg. Wyatt wasn't sure whether to be thankful she was making the collecting easy or explain how the whole broody thing worked, but since he was trying to get pens cleaned between storms, I think he was just happy for anything simple he could get!

Shine got to hang out in the house for a while with his buddy Shadow this morning. They haven't had as much of this time lately, since the rain and mud has led to some rather muddy hooves! On the flip side, at least the rain has the barrels mostly full again! Shine and Shadow sure enjoy the companionship, though, they were great friends when Shine was a house goat.

Later, Shine got to head down to visit friends at another 4-H club we compete with sometimes. A number of the youth are brand new to the group, but a few have grown up together showing as a group for several yers now. It is amazing to me to see them so grown up!

The older youth were examples and teachers, as they should be as Senior showmen. They also enjoyed laughing with each other and at themselves, I think!

Shine seems to be settling in to the showing thing, though he seemed to like raiding cookies from Bailey's pocket the best!

I think it is funny that after each trip off to training sessions, meetings and community outreach, both Shine and Shadow stop in the front yard to check all of the statues. 

I am not sure what they expect, but they are usually the only ones who move them!

FOr those of you following the saga of the lonely chick, I gave in this week and arranged for the little one to have some friends. A big thank you to Melanie for sharing some of her purebred Black Ameraucana stock with us, these will likely be te only new poultry stock until after county fair.The four little chicks have taken well to their new surroundings, and the slightly older Java of ours seems to also be taking well to having young charges to look after.

Some of the biggest news these days is that Miss Versie seems to be getting ready to kid. Bailey is spending lots of time out there, and we are tracking her progress. One interesting thing about her, Verse has taken in the last day to stretching out by climbing the fences of the maternity ward with her front hooves. I sure hope that means that the babies are settling well into proper position.

You can barely see Verse in this photo, she was in the corner of the pen after our last check. She really is a sweetheart. While I don't think kidding is truly imminent, I will head out there again in another hour and let Bailey sleep a bit. It never hurts to be on the safe side, these will be her first kids. 

On that note, I think I will squeeze in a short nap. While moping the kitchen is calling my name, I think it can wait a coupl eof hours and help me warm up after I traipse back out to the goat area in a spell. Hope you all have a wonderful night, I will share again when I can! Love to all.

What Have We Been Up To?

And the farm animals take over the blog! Clearly, the humans have been too busy to blog lately, with their homeschooling and church and cleaning pens and stuff, so we thought we animals would share a few words on what we have been up to around here!

We finally got some rain around here, and the "goosies on the loosies" as that house mama calls us like rain better than any of the other animals! Why? To play in, of course! But also, because weeds mean that we eat fresh greens that the other animals don't reach. Mama says that means we are brats telling everyone else about it, but we are the guard geese after all, so we should get some perks!

House mama, also known as the feed lady, she tried to pull some weeds down by her garden recently. We told her this was unacceptable, as they were the salad bar we hadn't gotten to yet. Finally, we got her to leave the piles for a couple days so that we could munch a bit before she did more work.

She still has more to prep for our eating. We are done with the other piles, so she had best get busy!

Just because the geese roam all the time doesn't mean they are the only ones with good treats! Despite getting our own salad bar in our pen that Wyatt keeps stocked and growing for us, we still get baskets of sprouts!

It is like a party when the red baskets come out in the middle of the day!

We even share with the guineas! (Well, most of the time, anyway!)

Breakfast time is the best time in our pen! Okay, well, we think we get the best dinner, too! We have the house mama and our Bailey trained to bring us bottles twice a day, and then Daddy Powerstroke lets us have the feeder . This is our look that says, "We are cute!" We know you agree, and the Brahmas that share a fence with us in the grow out pen sing along with us.

The house mama is always excited to see melons doing well. What we like about melons, is that the chickens get lots of melon and then they are in better moods!  They complain less about us singing at night when they are in good moods, and I think I heard this kind of melon called a honeydew...

Just in case you were missing out on some of my cuteness, I am Freedom's Prayer!  I am pretty sure the world is here to cuddle me!

Did we mention we are masters as coexistence? The goats might say we complain about them singing, but we keep our rooster in line, and also have a pet snake in our pen. If you look closely, you will see his tail over by the old feeder we like to stand on.

This guy doesn't bother us hens, and our nesting boxes and new feeder are up off the ground. The desert comes with mice, so we let this guy wander around so the mice don't bother our nests, and in turn we nest up high and only try to sit on eggs up in the loft where Wyatt keeps our straw. The added bonus- the bigger our Wyatt gets, the funnier it is when he tries to get eggs from us up there! Then we all stand around in the door to our hen house and watch him... Did I mention bonus points for anyone who can get him stuck up there so he has to call for help?

Why yes, the chickens tried to take over! But guess what! We are just too cute to ignore!

My brother was being silly and trying to wrestle with our Dad, so I decided to play peekaboo from my favorite house. Dad also likes to pose. Don'e tell the house mama, but he leaves a pile of poop near where he poses on purpose. She says he wasn't well socialized before our Bailey brought him home, but Bailey says that means he will do just fine in our family of homeschool goofballs. Not sure what that means, but she always scratches our ears and brings us food. And, if we cry really loud, she will come out over and over to check on us!

Well, that is the world according to the bucks, the geese and the Big Pen. We dare the does and the others to outdo us!

Baby Chicks Available at Local Hardware Store

A little over a week ago brought a new adventure for the little chicks of Patriot's Dream. One of the local hardware stores has begun carrying chicks. They ordered in some Ameraucanas from a hatchery, and since things were going well they wanted to add some local chicks as well. Four little ones from our recent hatch went along.

Wyatt packed the little ones in a crate lined with towels and played with them in the back seat on the way to deliver them.

I don't think they were too sure about leaving their friends in the brooder!

Here is Wyatt with the little ones, riding in to town.

Initially, the delivery went really well. But the littlest was just too little for the digs there, so Charlie stopped to pick her up on his way home from work (in the middle of a big rain storm, no less!) That little one came home and nestled right back in here. The Silkies long thought they were her mama, since she was younger than the rest, though in the bottom photo, she is nestled in to the feathers of a slightly larger chick of her own breed who we didn't take along since we believe it will be a boy. You have to look really closely in order to see the little one tucked under and a little behind the wing.

One of the many benefits of working with a local breeder is the support you get, and the service. For us, we are thrilled that the three little ones were sold to local homes, and things went so well, they asked for more chicks! We didn't have any at that moment, as we had cleaned out the incubator, but likely will soon.

Well, pretty exciting to have such positive partnerships with local businesses and good people! More exciting news to come as well!