Eggses

I dunno'. Plain ol' "eggs" seemed so boring. Eggses has a nicer ring. Or maybe it just gets your attention... ;)

Some sweet friends of mine surprised me the other day by giving me a free bag of chicken feed from Q-Bar farm; I had heard a lot of good about this particular feed mill, so I was especially excited to see how my pullets did on the whole grain feed. To my surprise, on day #2 of switching feeds, my little ladies started laying! Coincidence? Methinks not. :)

The eggs are only about 2" long right now, as the hens get older, their eggs will get bigger. They look so cute nestled amongst the gargantuan brown and green eggs in our fridge.

Below is a picture of an egg comparison. On the right is one of our tiny pullet eggs; on the left is a duck egg.

Wait a minute! Where'd that duck egg come from!?

Hehe, I couldn't resist...

A friend mentioned to me that she needed to re-home her pair of Magpie ducks. And who was I to say nay to such an opportunity? ;) I absolutely love these two new additions to the farm. They are so hilarious as they waddle around, quacking softly to each other. As you can see in the picture, I dug out our kiddie pool that had been gathering dust in the shop, and filled it for my small aquatic friends. 

The female has been faithfully laying an egg every single morning, and for awhile we would have them for lunch (personally, I LOVE duck eggs!), but now I have been leaving the eggs in her nest in hopes that she will go broody and hatch out some ducklings! We'll see...

For Sale...

Beatrix and Bertram...

6 weeks old. 1/2 Boer, 1/4 Saanen, 1/4 La Mancha.

Both are dehorned, and Bertram is castrated.

I'm not sure how Beatrix will turn out as a potential milker, since she has Boer blood. But if she is anything like her mom, she should be a good producer! Heidi is producing 1 gallon a day, and has not yet hit her peak. 

Beatrix is a little pill. She's cute and she jolly well knows it! She likes to prance away right before you can touch her, and then race around the pasture; gloating over how clever she is. ;) Her conformation is very correct, and she is pretty dairy looking. Her legs are just a little stubbier than most pure dairy breeds.

$100 for her.

Bertram is my love bug. He loves attention, and enjoys being scratched behind the ears. Beatrix may have gotten the brains, but Bertram definitely got the brawn. He looks very Boer with his thick, heavyset body type. I've half a mind to keep him and train him to do draft work! 

$75 OBO.

If you want both kids, I'll lower the price to $150 for the two of them.

If you would like to come out and see my little goaties, feel free to e-mail me HERE.

And I Cried...

Heidi's CAE test results didn't come in the mail today, like I was hoping.

I tried to wait. I told myself that they would probably come tomorrow.

But I couldn't wait. I wanted to know what the results were, NOW! So I called the lab, and asked for the results. It seemed like forever as they searched through their files for my name.

Then came the moment...

Heidi tested...

100% negative!!!

She is completely clean!! I was so overjoyed that I started hopping up and down. I think my response over the phone was something like, "Really!?!? THANK YOU SO MUCH! I am so happy right now!!"

The gentleman on the phone just laughed at my exuberance, and guessed that it meant a lot to me.

It did.

I went out to the barn, to see Heidi, who was contentedly chewing her cud. 

And I cried...

I was so happy, and relieved, that I cried...

Need A Laugh?

I posted the first video of Huguenot Farm a while back (look in the 'Labels' on my sidebar for 'videos'), and am now posting the sequel. I don't know how they manage to do these things without bursting into laughter... ;)

I Must Have Blinked..

Poppy...

@ 12 days old. 50 lbs. 

Poppy...

@ 4 months old. 300+ lbs.

Poppy...

@ 6 months. 400+ lbs.

I must have blinked... My knobby kneed, clumsy calf bloomed into a graceful, not-quite-as-clumsy, heifer. I don't even know when it happened...

All Flesh Is Grass...

Our herbivores eat grass. They don't eat dead cows, chicken manure or bubblegum wrappers, like CAFO animals. They eat grass. Just the way they were created to...

I love bein' a farmer...

Taming The beast

I actually managed to do it last night...

I separated the goat kids from Heidi.

Upon entering the barn this morning, I saw what I had hoped to see: Heidi with an absolutely engorged udder. I chuckled and told her that she looked like a cow. ;) She grumbled and muttered as she hopped onto the milk stand and began eating her breakfast. 

The goat kids started hollering...

Then came the moment... How would Heidi react to someone milking her?

Hehe... She didn't like it. She kicked, so I tied a leg back. She tried to sit down; so I put the milk pail directly beneath her. She sashayed to the side, so I moved with her. Seeing that her efforts were not working, as I continued to stream milk into the pail, she tried a different tactic.

She stopped letting her milk down. 

Dairy animals have the ability to choose to be milked or not. You can have an animal that is so full of milk that it's causing them pain, but if they don't trust you, or if they're stressed, then they can hold their milk back, which leaves you milking desperately but not getting a single drop of milk. And that's what Heidi did. She decided that she was done with me, and I had barely even started! Luckily for me, the goat kids were still calling, and that caused Heidi to let her milk down after a couple minutes; but she still danced and pranced all over the place.

With Capri and Ivy, all I have to do is start singing their favorite song (goats like routine, and they really do have favorite songs!) and POOF! They would let their milk down. I tried singing to Heidi, but she wasn't too keen on my warbling. :-/ I'm not sure how I started what came next, but before I knew it, I somehow found myself reciting Dr. Seuss' book, 'Green Eggs and Ham'! 

"Would you could you, on a train? Would you,could you, on a plane?"

"I would not, could not, on a train, I would not, could not, on a plane! I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I Am!"

Strangely enough, Heidi seems to like classic literature by Dr. Seuss. ;) She stood still, and listened to the strange words. Alas, I finished reciting the book too soon, and she held her milk back again. I gave up after milking her out halfway; it was a good start for the first milking. Heidi gave me one last withering glare before stalking back into the pen...

Inside, I strained the lovely milk into a jar. I managed to eek out a little over a quart this morning. But I think I could have gotten a full half gallon, had I been able to milk her all the way out. Maybe tomorrow..

Moral of the story? If you have a stubborn dairy animal, try reciting Dr. Seuss. ;)