Category Archives: Farm Animals

Tippy

tippyWe got a dog. Her name is Tippy and we have pretty much fallen in love with her, deep, deep love.  We’ve wanted a dog for a while.  We thought it would be fun for the kids, and we felt a need to have a livestock guard dog, just to keep the ‘yotes and raccoons away.  When we first moved to the farm we got a puppy and it ended up badly, we learned that we are not good puppy owners and that we didn’t have enough time to properly train a dog to be around livestock, so I had put the idea of a dog out of my mind, figuring that the right dog would come around when the time was right….and it did.

Tippy came from my uncle who has a cattle ranch and has working dogs. Tippy was brought to the ranch for that purpose, to help work cattle, but proved to be too timid.  However, she was so obedient, loving and great around kids, perfect for a small farm and family with kids, perfect for us!  She has been with us for almost a week and it seems like she has been here the whole time.  She blends right in, she is great with the animals, comes when calls, likes to chase cats a bit too much (but the cats are showing her who is boss), chases jack rabbits, enjoys long walks and loves the kids so much.  We are so happy to welcome Tippy to the farm!

The Little Sisters

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About two weeks ago we received our first order of chicks from the hatchery.  When we got them home we realized that twelve of the chicks we ordered weren’t there, it seems the hatchery wasn’t able to hatch enough of this particular chick.  We got a credit with the hatchery and ordered more, I want at least thirty six new chicks for the farm this year so we can up our egg production. Seems there is a demand for farm fresh eggs and I can sell every single egg I produce. In the meantime something was wrong with the chicks that did arrive. In the first two days we lost half of our little flock. They were earing and drinking fine, then they would get lethargic and die within about an hour or so. It was really strange, we aren’t new at this baby chick thing, we’ve been ordering and caring for them for years now and while I expect a few losses early on I had never seen this type of loss. After a quick call to the hatchery (they seemed to think it had to do with stress during shipping, or they got too chilled during shipping) we soon had twelve more chicks added to the order I had placed to replace the chicks that we didn’t receive in the first place (clear as mud?).

This morning I got the call that my chicks were at the post office waiting to be picked up!  When I got them home I added them to the brooder with their big sisters, hoping that it wouldn’t be a problem, sometimes adding new chickens to an established flock can be troublesome, but so far the big sisters are doing great, even letting the little ones huddle under their wings for warmth!

Yay for forty eight new chicks!  I can’t wait for them to start laying this summer!

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Little sisters mingling with the big sisters

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Little sisters huddling under the big sisters to get warm

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My little fluffies exploring the brooder

Those Little Turkeys!

turkeysWe have had a lot of fun raising different types of fowl on the farm, they all come with unique traits and challenges. Recently we added turkeys to the flock, they are funny little things and they can be pretty absent minded at times. About two weeks ago the graduated from the brooder to their new digs in a newly remodeled shed.  After about a week of being cooped up we allowed them to free range, figuring they had homed to the shed.

I need to stop doing that, figuring on birds and their tiny brains.

Those turkeys love to range, they go all over and forage like champs, I love watching them.  But something happens at dusk, those turkeys forget where “home” is and bed down wherever they feel like it, the potato patch is a favorite, a cozy corner by some fences, under an old sage brush. So about dusk Dadzoo and I take a stroll down to the turkey shed and look for our lost birdies.  Dadzoo has become quite the expert at herding turkey with two long bamboo poles, I think it comes from his years if experience being a dad to a whole bunch of kids.  Have you ever herded 7 children down a crowded church hall after services? Dadzoo has! Dadzoo, he’s a man of many trades, and turkey herder has been added to the list.

imageFun fact: did you know that turkeys make the sweetest chirping sound and they will call until every last bird from the flock is safely together.

The Web of Protection

chickensThis winter has been a tough one for the chickens.

When we planned the chicken coop we tried to think of every way possible to protect our bird during the night from predators, knowing that there would be plenty out here.  We hoped that we had given them enough protection from hawks and eagles during they day, by giving them places to hide, and for the first several months things worked really well.

IMG_5136Then things started to go down hill, quickly.  The chickens figured out how to get into the dog kennel, which didn’t end well for the chicken and eventually for the dog.  Then we started to lose chickens at dusk, that time between when the chickens started to gather toward the coop to roost and we went out to shut their little door.

IMG_5154After a couple chicken kills, we happened to hear the ladies going crazy one night, as we rushed out a big barn owl flew out from under the coop where it had cornered one of the gals and had attacked. It was interesting to see the roosters try to defend the hen, they were super hero roosters.

Sadly the chicken didn’t make it.

We really want to allow the chickens to free range, to produce the healthiest eggs possible, but how do we do that and fully protect our birds?  Fully enclosing the chicken yard would work, but then we might as well just get rid of the chicken and buy organic eggs, it would be less money and less hassle.

Dadzoo installed predator lights,
and they seemed to work…

IMG_5137Until New Years Eve.
I stepped out on the back porch for something and I heard the chickens, once again, going crazy in their coop.  I yelled to Dadzoo as I ran out there, with a broom in hand, he followed quickly behind.  Dadzoo burst into the coop, the chickens were all scrambling into the nest boxes, the roosters were on attack as a big barn owl sat right in the middle of the floor, when it saw Dadzoo he flew up on the wall, clinging to the side with its huge talons and rotated its head to look right at Dadzoo.  They were about 18 inches from each other, face to face, at eye level.  The owl had flow onto the ramp and walked into the little door the chickens used to go in and out during the day!

Oh how I wanted to shoot that bird!
(now don’t go turning me into Fish and Game, I won’t shoot it, I know its protected)

Dadzoo knocked it off the wall with a broom, and then shooed it out of the little door.  The owl sat there stunned for about a minute, then flew off silently, its wing span was about 5 feet.  It was beautiful, and frustrating.

IMG_5142After the “Great Owl Attack” Dadzoo and Chocolate the Chicken Whisperer searched for another solution.

IMG_5141They created the amazing invisible chicken saving web.

IMG_5143Together they strung fishing line from the top of the chicken coop to the fence posts around the chicken yard in a loose grid pattern.  The theory is that the owl will swoop down, feel the fish line and back off, but since it can’t see the fish line it doesn’t know how to get around it, or what it really is, so eventually it will stop trying.  This, we figure, will give the chickens enough cover at dusk for them to get settled and in the coop and for Chocolate to get out there and shut the door.

IMG_5138If you look really close you can see the fishing line shinning in the sunlight.

IMG_5147The Web of Protection has been up since the first of January and so far there  have been no owl attacks, despite the fact we have seen and heard the owl since then.

IMG_5153So it seems our girls are safe
at least for now!