DANG GOATS

My goats must be entering puberty.
How else can I explain the sudden change from docile loving Fern, into the goat from Hell?


Monday morning while Wifey took care of the poultry, I took the goaty girls out for their usual golf cart ride and morning feeding. When they finished I put them in their day pen. Then I left to cut some tree branches for them and filled their water bucket. Done with the morning chores, I went back to the house to take my morning pills and get some breakfast.

I got as far as my pill container when suddenly I heard a commotion outside and the goaty girls calling for me. I rushed to the kitchen window and sure enough they were standing on the golf cart, looking at me.....and laughing !!! I swear to God, if goats could laugh, that was what they were doing !!!

So I went back outside to put them back in the pen and look for their escape route. While I walked the perimiter of the pen they stared out at me cooly and continued their laughter. I found only one possible weak spot at the bottom of the fence between two pine trees where they had made a dust bath and there was a tiny gap between the fence and ground. So I went to get a stake and hammer to secure it with. Before I got halfway to the work shed, Fern was on the back of the cart with me.!! I made a U turn and put her back in the pen, broke a couple of forked sticks, and pounded them into the ground, securing the bottom of the fence. I went back to the workshed, grabbed my large hammer, some stakes and wire, then turned around to see both goats watching me from the doorway!!

Now I was getting pisssed off...I grabbed a cheap fence post for an old flowerbed we had and some wire too...Dang goats aren't getting out again !!!! I got the goat girls back on the cart and headed for the pen. As I got close I could see that my previous idea of where they were getting out was dead wrong.

The fence from a tree to the gate was in ruin. The fencepost in between was bent to the ground and the staples holding the fence to the tree had pulled out. Some of the welds between the wires of the stock fence had broken. It looked like a bull ran through it, not something my little goats did. I was devistated....at first. Then I got MAD.

I went back to she tool shed for more supplies, a posthole digger, 8 ft. cedar post, cement and LONGER fence staples. (I should have added a chain-saw to the list.) Hours later, after chopping though uncountable tree roots, saying many choice words and cussing my goats out under my breath, I finally got the post in the ground and cemented in. Now it was time to tackle the fence, which had shrunk since getting pulled away from the tree. When I had originally put up the fence just a few weeks ago, it was loose and a little floppy, now I needed to stretch it 2 inches to reach the tree. I am sure somewhere there is an engineer who can explain the reason for this phenominon, but not me. So I grabbed a cheap ratcheting tie down strap, passed it through the fence and around the tree and started tightening it....the 1 inch strap broke. Okay, that one had sat in the back of my truck for a while, but I had a new one. Find it and try again. The thin metal ratchet stop bent and it released the pressure. (Have I ever told you about my great-great-great Uncle Murphy? He's the guy they named all of those Laws after, and the proginator of our Black Irish Luck.) Anyway I tied the two straps together to make one and finally got the fence stapled to the tree and then the new post. Now to track down them dang goats.

I found them browsing around the grape trees. What....you have never seen a grape tree??? We have this Concord Grape vine that is impossible to kill. I have tried digging it out, burning it out and even salted the ground. It thrived on a Weed Killer diet one summer years ago. I even built a chicken run around it for a few years until it pulled the fence down.Why kill it you ask? Because we hardly ever get a grape from it. Whatever the beetles don't eat in the spring, the birds eat in the fall. And the vines love to climb trees and completly cover them, when this happens it becomes a grape tree. Once they pulled down a 30-40 ft. maple. Anyhow the goats were feasting on tree, grape and raspberry leaves. Oh yeah, the raspberry plants must have a symbiotic relationship with the grape vines and where one grows so does the other, bigger and better than anywhere else. I just dare anyone to try and plant either one anywhere else on this five acre sand lot and try to get it to grow, ain't gonna happen, I know, I have tried for years. WHAT....oh yeah...the goats !!

Okay, so I get the goats back into the pen, pick up my implements of construction and head for the tool shed and a well deserved rest. I got 40 ft. before Fern ran past me......

Now you can ask anyone who really knows me, I have a great deal of patience. Most of the time, anyway. But thoughts of my shotgun and blood on the ground flashed through my head accompanied, with the sound of goat laughter.....





I shook it off. Returned Miss Fern to her crying sibling in the pen, and BACKED away this time. I wanted to see how she was getting out.... I didn't have to wait long. She went to the back of the pen and ran towards the front and leapt up, got her front feet about 2/3 rd's of the way up the fence, replaced them with her hind feet, and sailed over the five foot tall fence !!!!!!!!

I sat amazed and dumbfounded....



Fern: "Did you see me dad? Huh. Huh. Did you see what I can do?

Me: "Yes Ferny-Fern, you are such a smart goaty girl."

Fern: "Thanks for tightening up the fence, it adds more spring to my jump."

Me: "Yes dear-heart, I noticed how high you flew over the fence. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

Fern: (more goat laughter) "Ha, I could do that all day long, it was fun. You really worry to much you know."

Me: "Yes I am sure it was. It's all fun and games until somebody breaks a leg. Let's go get your sister before she cry's herself sick."

Fern: "Peaches is NOT my sister!!"

Me: "I know, but she thinks she is. Let's not tell her any different."

Fern: "This is going to cost you ya know."

Me: "Oh, I sort of figured it would."


I put the girls in the Pallet Palace for the night, went into the house, told Wifey about the situation, finally took my medication and took a nap.


Ever since, the goats have been re-assigned to the dog pen. It's the same height as their pen, but so far neither has escaped it.

Now I have to figure out a way to goat proof their pen. Any ideas?

BUGS

My grandson Owen has a great dislike of insects and his powerful child's eyesight can spot the tiniest of them. His normal response is to holler out "BUG" which is the signal for us grandparents to search it out with our failing aged eyesight. When we can't spot it, we say "where I don't see a bug"  to which he replies, "There it is.!!!"

Fern ate it !!!

Clean-up on isle 9.  "Gramma Fern needs a wipe" !!!!



Shhhh.....They can't see us in here...FERN leave my hat alone!!!

Peaches and the back 40.

The girls new pen. Made from mostly recycled materials including a very large doghouse and some fencing from my son's old dog pen. 

........Fern sees a bug....

,,,,,,it's Owen.!!  Checking out the lavish space inside the dog er... GOAT house.  Plenty of room for both girls to sleep in.

Bugs.  That was Owen's response to his first introduction to newborn quail. And the name has stuck, Wifey and I now commonly refer to them as "the bugs" to quickly identify the difference from the other chicks we are brooding on the back porch.  We have not lost a single "bug" since my last post and the cats have had to resort to eating only cat food.

Silkies.

A mixed batch of chicks from our hen's eggs.  Ten of which have already found a new home when I sold them to a neighbor.  Life on the farm is good.  Lots of fun....especially with Owen's BUG games.

THE END



Little Chicks = Big Problems

............Fresh from the shell...chicken on the right and quail on the left.
If only I knew then what I know now, I would never have bought the parents of the quail.
Who'd a thunk these tiny chicks could be so much trouble????
They are better escape artists than the great Harry Houdini.
And faster than The Road-Runner !!!

They have been escaping from my incubator either from the vent in the rear (which is now screened over) or leap from the door when we open the cabinet.  Either way means a injured chick which eventually expires.
I keep the incubator on the back porch on a stand so I can keep a close eye on it.  Sadly, so do my cats. Any chick that survives the fall and is not immediately found by me or Wifey doesn't last long.  I also keep my brood boxes on the porch.   And my dang cats figured out how to get into the one I had for the quail chicks. (second generation of the Quail box as they escaped from the first through tiny vent holes that I swore they couldn't fit through)

So now it's back to the drawing board to come up with a new solution.  (I think I need to get an ACME catalog from Wile E. Coyote).  Another problem is that regular feeders and waterers are too high for the chicks to use.  So jar lids must suffice and that means constatly filling them. Especially the water in this heat wave. 

My little quail hen has been laying an egg almost every day since we bought her, it is too bad that she has NO nesting instinct ( I was warned when I bought her that they have been bred in captivity so long that the nesting instinct was gone).  So far I have not raised a single quail chick.
But the cats are well fed.

New Additions

Like everyone else, we have been busy here. With all of the egg incubating, yard work, gardening, household chores, animal care and building a goat pen we decided that we still had too much free time.

So we purchased a pair of double breasted  bronze turkeys to raise as meat.  Of course we called them Thanksgiving and Christmas.

And while we were at it we just had to get this pair of Silkies.

And I just couldn't pass up this baby Flemish Giant doe, she will help increase the size of my meat rabbits.

Hey..... let's raise some quail too.

These 3 are Black Spanish turkeys.  After hatching the eggs for a friend, he kindly gave these to me. 
We hope that we can raise some of this heritage breed and sell the extra chicks.

Are Guineas possible to tame?  Since our Guineas only hatched 6 eggs and only 2 have survived, we bought 3 day old chicks and they are WILD.  I was hoping to be able to tame them by hand raising them, but so far it doesn't seem possible.  The turkey chicks practicly run to my hand and are content to be held and petted, these are just the opposite.

For some reason it looks like Fern is chewing grandson Owen's fingers.

Our dog Bear has finally been accepted by Peaches but Fern just tolerates him.

Again with the fingers, What does Fern find so facinating about Owen's dirty little hands?

Actually she is looking to be petted and nuzzling his hand off of the steering bar.  Owen is her favorite human playmate and they share the sandbox.

Well the animals are calling....guess I will post again when I have a minute to spare....Winter maybe???



A Guinea Kind of Father's Day

Those of you that have these crazy critters will know of what I speak.

I purchased these 2 males and one female last year and have had them penned up all winter and finally this spring let them loose hoping that they would return to the coop at night.  Well it worked out better than I expected.  The female even sat on a clutch of about 20 eggs which hatched out 4 chicks and she excepted 2 more from the incubator.  So now I have one very protective hen with a group of unruly keets. Both males try their best to help teach the young, but they cannot seem to get them to understand how to get back into the coop. 

They get a good start at it but then the keets just go crazy,  jumping off the ramp or running underneath it.  If the parents go inside, the little buggers squeeze through the chicken wire and escape the confines of the pen.  This really drives the adults nuts. (The chickens gather to watch the festivities and get a chance to see the babies close up.) They will attack anything that gets close to the fence, which makes herding the babies back in a dangerous venture for them and me.  I have felt mom's wrath 3 times already for being a good samaritan and bare the scratches and bite marks to prove it on my hands, face and head.

The males get vocal and make feint charges but stop short of attacking, (we have gotten pretty close over the last month) and look at her like she's crazy after her attacks.  They even squawk at her as if to warn her not to bite the hand that feeds her, and can't she see I am only helping.

After the reunion all is right with the world....until next time or when it is time to get them in for the night!

My daughter Angie was sick, but Eric brought Aden & Ethan over.

They also brought over Eric's prototype of his recumbent bike for two.  He made the rear pedals adjustable so Aden could ride too.

Aden wanted to show off her steering abilities so her and dad switched places.  Eric was a little uncomfortable in back but managed to pedal them around.

Ethan wanted to show off his first missing tooth.  He pulled it out all by himself.

We let the goat girls out  to browse in the orchard...

Fern noticed the kindling bin and dedided to climb it to try to reach some leaves.

Peaches had to join the fun. 

Finally the day was ending and it was time to bed the animals down and go in for a much deserved rest.....

But WAIT..........

what was that????????????

For ME ???  

No Abbey,  these are going to the farmers market for sale.  36 of the 40 eggs from my hens hatched in the incubator.  I made an improvised brooder and added a heat lamp.  But the peeping noise on the porch was driving the cats and dogs crazy, everyone wanted to see the cute chicks.  My geriatric cat even left the back steps to sleep next to them.   Even though I didn't condone her actions then, I hope that she had pleasant dreams from her younger, bird nest raiding days. 

Say goodnight Gracie....

Bunny Nest

We had another hatching yesteraday, 1 pheasant and 1 guinea from the incubator.
Two guineas from our hen who still has 14 more eggs to hatch.
And these seven bunnies, well six, one died.



Mom is doing well and seems to be caring for her litter.



Proud daddy guinea is so besides himself that he isn't sure wether to stay inside with mom & kids or run outside and tell all of the neighbors about it.

The goat girls where very happy to have a nice sunny morning that allowed them to get a ride out to the orchard to browse, in their favorite toy.



They take turns trying to be a hood ornament.

today Peaches was content to stay close....

Fern however wandered afar in her favorite pastime....trimming trees.

On the ride back, Fern got very emotional and took turns kissing Wifey and me.

Then they got penned up for the day while wifey and I do chores.  Tonight they will again go for a romp in the orchard before getting put in for the night.

Our daily goat ritual is a favorite time of day for us.  So far we have had no problems with the girls trying to excape their confines.  Something that has worries us both as we have read on other blogs the problems that some goats can be.  Oh I am not saying that they are angels.  They are still very mischievious/curious creatures.  But so far they haven't problematic. Well I've done it now, I've opened my big mouth, let's see what my next blog brings.  I better go knock on all of the wood I can find.  NOW

There and Gone - Empty Nest Syndrome

I first met Tony a couple of years ago when he stopped to buy eggs and we have been cultivating a friendship ever since.  This elderly man with a quick smile, twinkling eyes and heavy middle European accent reminded me of my Great Uncle Joe and I somehow knew we were going to be friends.

He lives about a mile and a quarter down the road from me on a few acres that can best be described as a whole in the pine woods.  Until just a couple of years ago when he installed a mailbox and cleared some trees,  it was a home I hadn't known existed.

Tony escaped communist Romania when he was in his early 20's.  He made his way to America and spent most of his life in the Detroit area.  Years ago he purchased this home as his future retirement residence while visiting friends in the area and has been working on it ever since.  A few years ago he did retire and now lives here while his wife continues to work in Detroit and comes up on the weekends.

Tony has raised quite a managerie of animals, mostly birds, and I love to visit him and learn from him.
One day he mentioned that he had this incubator that wasn't working at his house in Detroit (he said his dog had chewed the wires on it) and I told him that if he ever brought it up here I would see if I could repair it for him. Then one day he shows up with it in the back of his pick-up and says here it is, but I don't have room for it so it is yours until I build a new house and shed to put it in. (about 2 years from now).


Then he told me if I needed parts for it he would buy them and to get it working and we would go into the chick selling business together ( I would hatch them and he would sell them). Well I could see right away that there were parts missing even though I knew nothing about incubators. Luckily I found the manufacturer on-line and he sent for the missing parts. Then he told me he had bought some pheasant eggs to hatch. Well now I had to scramble to learn how this machine operated and then he had to order more parts. By the time I got it up and running the eggs were about to the end of their time for use as hatching. In the mean time he had placed 3 dozen of the eggs under a couple of chickens who were sitting on their own eggs which he thought were bad and tossed them. So I put the remaining dozen in the incubator along with 40 of my chickens eggs. And the waiting and worrying began.  Was I doing this right??
A week later he asked if I still had room as a friend of is had some eggs he wanted hatched. I said sure, the following week he brought his friend and the eggs over, an assortment of turkey, guinea, and chicken eggs (most were Banteys). What a mess, the eggs were muddy and dung covered. NOT what you want to try incubating. But I took them and cleaned them up anyway (something you are NOT supposed to do) and loadede them into the incubator.
He also brought me some of his other pheasant eggs because the hen stopped sitting on them and he had no idea if they were still good or not, but I tossed them in too.


Note the very tiny hole.

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Those are the ones hatching right now.
The first six hatched with no problem but the next two required my intervention.  After many hours of attempting to peck out of the extremely tough eggs I felt I had to help them.  The rubbery inner membrane was just too tough for them and fluids in the egg had dried and hardened around their esxcape holes and glued the chick to the membrane. So very carefully I removed  some pieces of shell with a pair of forceps and then tore the membrane and peeled it from the chick.  Shortly after releasing their heads, the chicks escaped from their shells and exhaustedly waited to dry.
 
 

 

Tony came today and took last nights hatch of five, making a total of ten Chinese Ringnecked Pheasants that have hatched so far. He is placing them under the hen that also hatched eight of the eggs.  He hopes to domesticate them more by raising them with the chickens. 

I am missing them already, especially the two that I "delivered".  But I am also excited to see how the rest of the eggs turn out.

So in the next 2 weeks I should have quite a lot of experience in incubating and hatching.

Weather or NOT

A nice swarm of mosquitoes caused by our local weather - heat and rain.
But I hope that cooler temps may slow down the build up of our local population.


Current weather


52°F Cloudy
High 58°
Low 40°
Humidity 82%

Five-day forecast

Tomorrow  
Showers
Hi: 65°

Lo: 51°

May 25 Thursday
Showers
Hi: 55°

Lo: 44°

May 26 Friday
Showers
Hi: 57°

Lo: 45°

May 27 Saturday
Showers
Hi: 64°

Lo: 48°

May 28 Sunday
Showers

Hi: 68°

Lo: 48°

May  29 Monday
Showers

The winds and rain have stopped our county's efforts at mosquito abatement, however I did get them to come out and fog my property.  For all of the good it did I might as well have not bothered.  When they showed up there was hardly a mosquito to  be seen. I think they had tapped the phone line. But the next day they were back with a vengeance.

 




 
 
 
 
And they brought their friends the black-flies, midges and other biting bugs.  I just doesn't pay to tick them off !!!  And speaking of OFF....it doesn't work either...

I guess that before I go outside today I had better load up the shotgun, maybe I will have better luck shooting them.  But first I had better check with the DNR and see if I need a special license.

But I probably better just get used to this....



....as our gardens are only half planted and when the rain finally quits and the ground dries enough we will have to venture out and finish them.