Fern, Charlotte and Daffodil's eggs (2 Welsummer eggs and 1 Easter Egger egg) |
This is how last Saturday went...
Our dogs got into our goats' food.
Our goats got into our chickens' food.
Jonathan dug a trench with the tractor to redirect some water and broke a mysterious plastic pipe underground. (I'm sure it's fiiiiiine.)
My cell phone fell out of my pocket unbeknownst to me and Jonathan proceeded to drive over it with his truck unbeknownst to him.
Luckily, everyone survived unscathed (um, except the phone, that is.)
Just a regular day of chaos on the farm. :)
And Brrrr. As much as I do like winter, I could do without these frigid temperatures and the wind. Especially when dealing with changing the waters for the animals. Looking forward to Spring already.
------------------------------------------------------------
In other news, our hen, Charlotte, has officially laid her first egg at 9 months old, (only 4 months later than the others!) I guess she just needed some public shaming (from my last blog) to motivate her to get started. I found her in a nesting box for the first time ever last Thursday and a little while later, there was a beautiful Welsummer egg waiting for me. And just to prove it was Charlotte's egg, her sister, Fern, was nice enough to lay an egg the same day, too...Which helped to prove that now both Charlotte and Fern are laying. (Since their eggs look so much alike, if I didn't see them in the nesting box, it would be hard to determine which of the two laid their dark brown, speckled eggs.)
Welcome to the "Layer's Cub", Charlotte! Finally!!! |
I was planning to give my hens a treatment that would de-worm them all in case that might have been the cause of her problems, but I went to three small local farm stores and none of them had any chicken dewormers in stock at the moment. It seemed like a sign to me, so instead of deworming them proactively, I decided to get Minerva Louise's poop tested for worms first to see if that was the problem after all, before I treated them. (When you de-worm your flock, you can't eat their eggs for 2 weeks, so it's kind of a big deal to do in a backyard flock.) Because I clean their coop everyday, I am pretty aware of their poop situation, and have never seen signs of worms. However, usually you only see signs of worms in their poop if the situation is really bad. For a small case of worm in chickens, you would need to send it out for testing to detect the microscopic evidence. Anyway, I'm happy to report that our vet didn't find any signs of worms in Minerva Louise's sample. So, I decided not to treat them for that for now.
However, I have started to add some electrolytes to their water which helps them to absorb the calcium better and it also gives them extra vitamins. I have also started adding organic kelp to their feed. Now that there's snow on the ground, they are loving the extra green treats. And I am continuing to give them plain yogurt and kale. The hens don't like to walk on the snow and all this wind, so they have been staying inside their coop most of the day. Having these treats throughout the day helps to combat the boredom that they must feel when staying inside all day.
-----------------------------------------------------
The goats are doing well. Just like the chickens, they don't go outside quite as much when there's snow on the ground. They are literally bouncing off the walls in their stall, but they were doing that before the snow, too! Crazy goats. :) They seem to be handling the cold temps well. They have a heat lamp in their stall which they occasionally lay under, but usually they prefer to lay under their hay rack on the other side of the stall. And they seem to have grown in a nice thick winter coat. At breakfast and dinner I bring them very warm water to drink. They love it! It's like getting a cup of tea on these cold days! They are also getting a little bit of kelp added to their food, and extra hay which helps them keep warm from the inside.
Brrrr. The outside water bucket freezes up quick these days. |
I used an app called SuperPhoto to get these cool "paintings" of the animals...
Cream |
Kit Kat |
Jessie is our polar bear who loves the snow. She doesn't seemed bothered by the cold temps or snow at all. Cooper on the other hand doesn't handle winter very well. He doesn't have much fur to keep him warm, so I don't blame him. He usually stays inside these days while Jessie and I head out to do the morning chores for the goats and chickens. My boys were insistent on buying Jessie and Cooper winter boots. I'm not a big fan of putting clothes on dogs, but Ben and Ryan really thought the boots would help the dogs and they offered to buy them with their own money, so they did. As you can imagine, it was pretty comical when we put them on the dogs! I was surprised that Cooper even let us put them on him! So silly. (See the video at the bottom of this blog.) These puppies are such good sports. It was also "National Dress Your Pet Up Day" recently, so of course we had to celebrate, and Jessie and Cooper let us have our fun with them. As Ben said, "What did we do to deserve dogs?" I totally agree. Dogs are such amazing gifts to our families. Always keeping us laughing.
Really? (This just might qualify as animal-abuse.) |
I'm only doing this for the treat in your hand. |
("paintings" made by SuperPhoto App)
Jessie |
Cooper |
A few silly videos for you....
If you'd like a good laugh, here's a link to a video of our dogs wearing the boots for the first time. Too funny. (I apologize for my annoying voice.) Click here: Dogs In Boots For The First Time
Also, here's a video of Kit Kat the goat, doing her best impression of a turtle. (Not only do the goats love playing on top of their trampoline, but they also love going under it!): Kit Kat's Turtle Impression
Aaand, here's a video of the goats and Jessie playing in the snow. Click here: Jessie, Kit Kat & Cream Playing In The Snow
Enjoy and stay warm!
No comments:
Post a Comment