Update on to do list!

Okay world, here it is, my tasks for the holiday weekend....drum roll please .... what i got done:

-got hay from Beth's house (got two truck loads to fill the shed and put a hole in the tire, so Chris showed me how to change one, at least i learned something new!)

-I removed the fencing around IB and HP so the lovely ladies and their babies can roam free!

-I closed up the shack for the girls with chris' help

-I moved the hay feeder down to the garden, it really confused all the goats, but they have figured it out!

I was not able to insulate the water dishes or attach an overhang to the coops.

I was not able to complete my list, but I am very pleased that I got most of it completed. We also spent time working inside and are going to be laying slate tile for the fire place this week.

I will make sure to take advantage of the upcoming three day weekend as well!

I was disappointed to find out this weekend that two more of my Silkies have matured to be roosters, so they will get listed for sale this week and should be easy to rehome.

Hope everyone had a merry christmas! I sure did, I am currently baking a loaf of banana bred in my brand new bread maker (so cool)!

Never Enough Time!

Well it seems to have been awhile since my last post....yet again! Between work and the farm my free time seems to be spent sleeping! I am pleased to announce that I have off from work until Monday, so that will not only give me a rest, but it will also give me a chance to catch up on work around the farm and keeping you updated (as well as work on my new year's resolution list)

Lets see, what has happened around the farm, the chicks are growing up and doing well, still have all 10. The rest of the chickens are all doing well and we are still heavy on the roosters. We are working slowly to lower their numbers, but there are only so many roosters that people will buy. We lost 1 chicken to internal egg laying a few weeks ago, and the same day we lost her sister to a predator, we are thinking that it was a weasel. We have not had any other problems, but have heard reports from the hunters of coyotes and foxes, so we need to keep our guard up for all the animals.

The goats are doing well, we are looking to start doing planning for breeding for the spring and fall. I am looking to sell or trade either Buster or Dexter in order to get some new blood into our heard so we will be able to sell breeding pairs this year.

I look forward to revealing our plans for 2010 but not quite yet, we need to finish our list!

As for my 5 day weekend I need to:

-remove the fence around the chicks so they can explore and mingle with the others

-close up the goats rain/snow hut, make it more like a building

-move the hay feeder to the garden so the grass can try and grow back!

-attach an overhand to the coops so the chickens have someplace to go in bad weather

-insulate the water bins to try and avoid freezing solid

-get hay from Beth's house!

I am hoping that if i post this list for the world to see it will help keep me motivated to get it done!

Another New Beginning!

We got to say goodbye to moonpie and milkyway today :( They will be living with the Sykes family. We wish them all the luck with those two little babies, they will be missed!

Here they are as young ladies!

That is the one thing that we hate about baby animals, we know we have to say goodbye!

I went to the craft fair in Mt. Airy today, it was very nice! I got to meet a bunch of really nice people and see some amazing craft work. I even bought a gorgeous dragonfly necklace! Yeah, like i need another one of those (what can i say, i'm a sucked for them!)

And more babies

Gosh, you would think it was spring around here! We have concluded the chicken hatch with 10 chicks! 5 for each mommy. They are all very cute, they were a mixture of eggs so i am not 100% sure yet what breeds we have. But they are possibly, frizzle cochins, silkies or bantam cochins. We have two naked neck silkies for sure (hard to miss them!)

we were also blessed with our Deva having babies! There were not due until next friday, but they arrived Sat morning. She blessed us with a beautiful solid black doeling, we have named Lela, which means Black Beauty. Deva also had a little boy, but sadly he did not make it.

Deva is working on adjust to mother life, she has not quite embraced it 100% so we are doing what we can to help her. She has stopped head butting the baby and is getting more and more comfortable with letting her nurse. We are keeping our fingers crossed that in the next few days she will take over the responsibilities completely.

As soon as I can i will get pictures of all the new babies!

Babies!

Been a busy week for little ones! We have had a total of 9 eggs hatch, 1 pip and 3 more to go! They are all doing great cant wait for them to run around outside!

We also had a set of twins a week early! Sadie decided enough was enough and blessed up with a little boy and a little girl. Both are black with white markings. Still working on names for them, as well as names for our new girls!

Starting Fresh!

Okay, lots of new things going on around the farm, all very exciting!

First, I would like to say goodbye to Florence and wish her all of the best with her new family!

I would like to welcome two new girls to our farm! Still working on the names, but they are very sweet and VERY shy! Here the two little ones are!

We are expecting chicks to hatch on Wednesday, we have Henny Penny and Itty Bitty sitting on a clutch of eggs each, hopefully we will have a great hatch!

We are also expecting Deva to kid on Oct 31 and Sadie to kid on Oct 30! Busy with babies around here! These kids will all be ready in time for Christmas. Our next babies will be bred for delivery in the Spring, we will be breeding all of our females that are of age, so we will have TONS of little ones running around (hopefully the new barn will be ready by then!)

Early Start!

Well it has been an exciting morning! All started with a wake up call from the barn, not for babies, but for breeding! We have sold Florence to a wonderful family, and they requested that she be bred, so we are working on getting her and the boys to play nice, not going to well! Boys will be boys!

We have almost finished the fire pit, the only things left to do are fill the hole around it and get tread stones for the top. I looks great, i cant wait to use it!

We also have two hens in the basement sitting on 17 eggs (good thing they are mostly small ones) We started with 25, but cracked 3 and 5 never developed. They are a good mix of bantam chickens, it will be exciting to meet them all when they hatch!

The count down is on for Deva and Sadie, yeah babies! We have Deva due Oct 30 and Sadie Oct 31. We will be busy in a few weeks with little ones! I love goatie babies so much!

Well i guess that is all to say for now before going to work!

Time to keep moving!

Well we made it back from our honeymoon! We spent a week in the Rockies! It was so beautiful and so much fun. We went on an ATV tour, a full day horse back tour and a cattle drive. As well as making a trip to the local amusement park and aquarium. It was a wonderful week, but we are glad to be back with the animals.

So now we are back down to business, here are our plans:

-baby watch for Oct!

-finish removing the old barn

-level land for new barn

-make a final design and build new barn

-plan out next years garden layout

-build another chicken coop

-finish fire pit

-install steel I-beams

So we have a lot of stuff ahead of us and we are ready to move full steam ahead. I will be posting honeymoon pictures as soon as i can.

Wow its been a while!

I cant believe how long it has been since an update!

Well lets see whats happened on the farm?

May: Dakota has her run in with a car, car:1 Dakota:0 , She gets her surgery and is on cage rest for the next 4 weeks.

I get a new job at the WSIFB making eye glasses

June: Dakota has multiple vet checks and things are looking good.

July: Chris and I get married on July 18 in CT

Dakota is healed and cleared from the vet to return to normal duty.

Somewhere in there we hatched a TON of chicks and gain more adult birds. We also worked on breeding some of our girls.

We are up to 65 birds, and expecting some baby goats tonight or tomorrow.

I am going to a horse stable in the AM to see about doing some work on the side to get back into riding again. (I am very excited for this opportunity, i hope it works out for me!)

We are going to be expecting some more babies in October. Things for breeding have been crazy this year with the wedding and now the honeymoon coming up. I know mom would not appreciate little ones while she is hear.

I will update much sooner than last time, i promise!

Poor Pup!

Well this week has been a difficult one for us and the future looks a little slow. Our puppy Dakota was hit by a car Tuesday night in our driveway. We think the guy was not paying attention and drifted. Anyway, she was rushed to the vet and spend the night in ICU. She was scratched up pretty good and had a very broken leg. There were three breaks to her femur in just about the same spot. So after talking with the dock and visiting her we went home for the night to try and figure out what to do with her leg, can we afford to repair it, and would it be worth it or will she become and amputee? 

We picked her up the next morning, saw our vet, he sent us back to the specialist and had her booked for surgery. The outcome of the leg from both doctors was good, she is young and healthy, she should recover just fine and have use of the leg. So the decision was easy, we get her fixed. 

She spend 3.5 hours in surgery on Wednesday. The end result is 1 bone graft, 1 plate, 10 screws, 1 pin and 4 wires holding it all together. She has an incision about 12" long down her leg. They also shaved all her scratches and the inside of both of her legs are covered in road rash. 

She spent wednesday in the hospital, Dad naturally brought her her favorite toy and a blanket from home. They said hopefully friday she can come home. To my surprise Thursday afternoon i get a call from the vet saying she is doing well, she is using the leg a little bit and with that progress she is ready to go home! So i made arrangements to get her at 3:00 that afternoon. 

Dakota is now home and confined to her crate for the next 2 weeks until we see the doc again. She looks terrible, but we are both glad that she is home. The one thing we can say from this experience is, if you hit someone's pet (whatever it is) and they have a collar on let them know or call the emergency vet, do something! We were home and i heard it happen, but the person never stopped. 

Pray for a good and speedy recovery for her!

Let the hatching begin!

We had our first set of eggs hatch this week. Out of 14 eggs we have 3 frizzle chicks and 3 Easter Egger chicks. There are 4 eggs that appear to be duds and 4 that have potential to hatch (fingers crossed). Here the cute little peeps are!

Our hatch schedule is as follows: 

Hatch #2 - Tuesday April 14 - Easter Eggers

Hatch #3-Thursday April 16 - Easter Eggers

Hatch #4- Friday April 24 - Silkies :)

I have yet more eggs to place in the incubator, next week I set 20+ bantam cochins, and May 13 I set Turkeys and more chicken eggs! Our bator and hatcher will be busy for the next few months. 

We are working on building more coops, siding the buck barn and building a new goat barn. I am also going out next week to get a new bucking, someone unrelated who will make great babies with my ladies! 

Oh we did have some good news, Ariana and Willow are doing wonderfully with the Seats. They love jumping on the baby calves! Just like a goat always leaping around! It is always nice to hear how the babies do when the leave. 

Have a happy Easter everyone!

Chick time!

Well it is that time again . . . chicks! We have the incubator full! We have 5 frizzle eggs and 32 EE/Amerucana eggs! First hatch is set for April 6, Second one is April 13 and the last one is April 16. Hopefully we will have a good one. 

I have already starting lining up my eggs for May, I am planning 12 assorted turkey eggs, 20 bantam cochins and the rest I am not sure of yet! 

I am looking for homes for Coco's baby boys (Cowboy and Danny). They can go as bucks or wethers. Either way, they will make wonderful pets. They are so friendly and cute, it will be hard to see them go!

New Beginnings

Well, we would like to say goodbye to Ariana and Willow. The set of identical twins. They were picked up by their new family, the Seats, yesterday. We wish them all the best with their new pets. 

Stella misses them this morning, but her crying should not last long, as we discovered she is in heat. ::shakes head:: miniature goats are just crazy when it comes to breeding.

Our next set of babies, Midnight and Ash will be going to their new home next weekend. And Coco's babies will be pictured and posted for sale soon. 

Well I guess if we kept all the babies we had we would be completely overrun with goats. So selling them is not such a terrible thing.  

Yeah babies!

Thank goodness we had a snow day today. We were both able to be there for little coco when she gave birth. It was nerve racking and exciting all at the same time. Both kids are doing well. We have two bucklings. One is black and the other appears to be dark chocolate. I am sure that coco will be a great little mommy! She even gets to stay in the basement tonight (she's just a touch spoiled) 

Coco not only had Chris and I there with her, but her foster daddy Sprocket was waiting at the top of the stairs for her to have her babies safely (he is such a mush)

Well here are the babies!

Monster Egg

My poor chicken!

Introducing . . . Dottie

Here is florence's doeling. One of her ears is a little lopsided. It will straighten out eventually, must have been smashed while in her mommy!

She is too cute, and a noisy little bugger!

Surprise!

We have been waiting for little Coco to kid, and when Chris got home from work today he discovered that we had a baby! . . . but it was not from Coco. We were kind of surprised because we were not expecting anyone else to be kidding until May. After some quick detective work Chris figured out that it was Florence that had kidded. She had a beautiful single doe! I will have to post pictures of her tomorrow. 

I really hope that Coco follows Florence's lead and kids soon!

Accomplished Weekend

Wow, it has been awhile! So here is what has been going on:

We found out that Coco is pregnant, at this point, she is due any time now! I know she is getting uncomfortable, and he udder is filling nicely. I hope that all goes well for her in delivery, and would prefer for this kidding that she only have one, but she may have other plans. We do not know who that Sire is, she decided she wanted babies and took care of this one herself, so it will be a surprise for us when they arrive. 

The chickens have begun their production. I am sure the warm weather has helped a bit with that. We currently have 17 hens and todays egg count was 11! We have begun selling to people at work and posting ads on craigslist. I would hate for them to go bad, because there is no way I am going to eat 11 eggs in one day!

Chris has decided that he would like some chickens that lay blue and green eggs, so he put me on the look out for hatching eggs. We have an incubator, mine as well use it! Chris' friend found a guy close by that sells the blue eggs for hatching rather inexpensively, so I am trying to get his information so I can pick some up. He also has turkey eggs and peacock eggs. I would really like some fresh turkey this year so after the chicken eggs I will get some turkey eggs from him. Peacocks are an interesting idea and I would like to have some, but I think I am going to need to wait on them until I can get more area cleared away. 

I was able to sell Ash and Midnight today, a nice man from Pilot Mountain is purchasing them together as pets. He will be picking them up in a few weeks when they are closer to being weaned. I was also able to see my left over eggs this afternoon, so it was a pretty productive day! 

We found out that we will be having family down for Easter, which will be very exciting. It also means that we need to get working on the Barn lay out so the guys can get cracking on getting it started. We also need to get going on the barn so we can get more goats! We are running out of room in our shack at night. 

I started planting my seeds inside today, I have tomatoes, okra and scallion currently started and will start the majority next month. I need to have my garden space enlarged and turned up so when the warm weather hits I am ready to go. 

So as you can see things here have been busy busy busy. We never stop moving since there is always something to build! (or a goat that needs so love!) 

Welcome Home!

Well this weekend we adopted 6 chickens and 2 new goats. Everyone is settling into their new homes nicely. The goat, Gallahad and Diva were in a bit of shock to see everyone else, but are doing great tonight. The chickens are doing okay. We had a problem this morning with a chicken fight, which resulted in Shadow being brought into the house for wound care. We have since built a new pen for the rooster and his wife that caused the injuries. We were very happy to collect 3 eggs this morning from the new girls. We will have pictures of the new residence soon, it has been chilly and gets dark pretty early now. 

Names have been decided!

I would like to introduce you all to our babies (who finally have proper names)

Midnight - doeling (Sadie)

Ash - buckling (Sadie)

Ariana - doeling with waddles (Stella)

Willow - doeling (Stella)

I am also excited to announce that we will be adopting 2 new goats this weekend, along with some chickens. We are pleased to welcome Diva (doe) and Gallahad (wether) along with their black star friends. We are hoping to pick them all up this weekend, and pictures will follow. 

I have heard from Jasper's new family and he is doing well, making lots of friends and lovin life!

Everyone grows up!

Well I listed Jasper online yesterday morning and around 4:00 I got a call about him. They came out and met the cute little devil and decided to take him home. Thank you Jeff! He is going to a cattle farm where they have other goats and a donkey to keep some of the ladies company. There he will have a very loving home, and the best part is that he is only 5 min away so we can go and see him now and then! We are glad he found a great home, but still sad to see him go. Now we are down to 16 goats, and we are discussing selling a few more (not sure on which ones yet, tough decision). 

Our next task though, is to name all the babies we now have. If we don't name them soon they will be known as the twins or so and so's baby. So we need to get to naming. Out of four babies we have named one, midnight, the black doeling. We need to name 2 silver does and 1 silver boy. The boy will be either cinder, ash or cole. The girls, who knows! Any suggestions, throw them at me!

Sadie kidded!

Well this morning I noticed that Sadie has a little white on her back end and decided to email Chris. I asked him to check on her when he was home for lunch because she was close to having babies, but I am not going to stay home because she was a few more days to go. Boy was I wrong! Chris found two little babies when he got home for lunch! Sadie had a black doeling named Midnight and a big buckling who we are considering naming Cinder or Ash (aaash). 

Midnight - black doeling with frosted ears, tail and head

Cinder or Ash - grey buckling

The buckling is almost identical to Stellas babies from last week. He is just a little darker. Well we should be done with kidding until Spring, so we get a little break, and hopefully can figure out who we are going to sell. We are now up to 17 goats, we started last Jan with 6! It is an addiction!

Stella had babies!

I came home at 3:00 today to find one of my pregnant does missing. I quickly found her laying in the barn. She was going into the first stages of labor. I checked her every 30-45 minutes. Chris and I did our last check around 6:15. I decided to do one more check at 7:45 and she had a set of identical twin girls! 

I helped dry them off since it is cold out and called Chris in the house so he could bring me some supplies. The only difference in them is that one has waddles, just like her mom!

As of 10:00 tonight they are both doing well and snuggling with their mom. I am sure they will be okay thru the night and in the morning the loving begins! They both need names at this point, so if there are any suggestions we are open to hear them!