See For Yourself

Oh it's so bad.

Goats on the Prowl

I have to post some pretty pictures I took with the goats this morning. After running errands and eating breakfast this morning, I decided, as I often do, to take the goats for a stroll. It was such a beautiful morning and the breeze was blowing just hard enough that it steadily rained down crispy yellow leaves upon the 4 of us.





Here's a nice chest shot of Tierra. I had just set the camera down and started the timer when she decided she had to go see what the big deal was with the shiny little box making all the noise.




This is a picture of Lucy standing against the fence polishing off the rest of the leaves still clinging to survival.

I LOVE my goats. They are everything I ever thought they would be.

Louie Moves in for the Kill

I was talking to my mother (FarmMama) on the telephone this morning and happened to look out the window to see what the goats were up to. Let me tell you: Louie was partaking of a deep and soulful sniff of Lucy's bottom. I mean, the boy was completely engrossed for a full minute or so. As he came up for air, I saw him flehm. This is quite a sight. The buck lifts his upper lip and looks for all intents and purposes just like he's smiling. A buck does this to help smell the pheromones wafting from his girlfriends butt. :) If you look very closely in the picture you can kinda see him doing it. Notice that Lucy is quite the willing participant in all of this. She was more than willing to let him go on sniffing and smiling all afternoon if he'd like. After he finished, she turned around and was sniffing and licking all over his face, her little tail wagging a million miles a minute the whole time. I do believe we might see some action soon! I should have known something was amiss when the two of them did not touch their grain that morning.

Mystery Solved

Caught him! I was standing along side of the chicken coop, as I'm sure you can tell. Right after taking this video, I opened the chicken coop door and saw all of the chickens pressed up against the door of their partition. Of course he would immediately stop crowing as soon as I opened the door. I stood there for a minute looking at my two roosters, who in turn stood and looked back at me. Nada. So I stepped to the side, just out of sight. CROOOOOOOOOO-A-a-a-ark! I thrust my head back in the doorway just in time to see.......... drum roll please.......... the black rooster crowing.

I was right!

A Real Who-Dunnit

Last night while I was on the phone with a lady about a goat (oh, I am SUCH a farmer!) Dustin came tearing into the house yelling my name over and over. My first thought was that the Copperhead has made another appearance and has perhaps succeeded in eating our firstborn. As I threw down the phone, he said, "Our rooster is crowing!" This is a big deal. We have been waiting for one of our roosters to figure out he can crow for quite some time now. Apparently, Dustin and Ayden had been playing soccer near the chicken coop when all of a sudden they heard a creature being murdered within the dark confines of the coop. It sounded something like "crOOOOOOOAArk-k-k". It took Dustin a minute to figure out what it was, but he soon decided it must be an attempt at the fabled Cock-a-doodle-doo that Ayden has told us roosters do. We were not convinced, until now. The real question is, which one is it? The big beautiful black Wyandotte rooster or my gorgeous white Ameracauna rooster?

Obviously, my first order of business this morning was to capture the blessed event on video. I did not think this would be hard, as I must have heard it 20 times if I heard it once in the time it took to load Ayden in the car this morning before taking him to school. When I got home I ran inside for the camera and posted myself just outside the window of the coop. Not a peep. Nada. Nothin. So, camera in hand, I went to milk the goats and decided this is as good a time as any to capture that on video.

The chicken antics I mentioned are as follows. I set my milking tote down while I stepped inside the goat pen to give Lucy and Louie their grain then lock them out in the back pasture. No sooner had I done this, than a chicken had jumped up and was in the process of pecking at the coffee filter on my milking jar. Ahhh! Here's a picture to prove it. You can see her friend in the background sitting on top of the fence, which is their new favorite thing to do. I shoo that chicken away, and as I grab my milk tote and head into the goat pen to milk Tierra, who is waiting ever so patiently for me, I spy a black chicken who has locked herself out in the pasture with Lucy and Louie, and is successfully stealing their grain. That is one brave chicken. As any of you who own goats know, they are serious when it comes to their grain.

After milking, I decided to stalk the chickens for a while and try to capture the elusive crowing rooster. While entirely and disgustingly unsuccessful at that, I did manage to capture some rather incriminating evidence all the same.

I told you! What did I say? That brown chicken has it in for my feet. Thank goodness I have a solid layer of rubber between my tasty soft tootsies and her. While observing the chickens I also witnessed a near chicken-rape. I was staking out the large black rooster when he noticed that one of the hens had laid down for a moment for a rest. He went running full tilt across the yard and pounced. I saw him coming, and I saw the lustful glint in his eye, so I scrambled to turn the camera on in time, but alas, he was too quick for me. He pounced, she screamed, he fell off of her, she ran a few feet away, and then they both partook in a bit of feather ruffling. They shook it off, so to speak.

With this episode in mind, I cast a fearful eye on Ambrose lounging amongst the chickens. I tried to explain to him what had just happened to this poor unsuspecting hen when she mistakenly chose to lie down on the job, but he would not listen. He rolled over and exposed his soft underbelly to me, taunting the chickens. Here's what happened.

Ok, so its not as exciting as it could have been if the rooster would have been feeling trans-species-amorous, but nonetheless, it goes to show that I was not lying when I said he loves the chickens.

To conclude, I am accepting bets on which rooster possesses the death-rattle crow. I am giving 4:1 odds that it is the larger black Wyandotte rooster. I hope to catch the "crow" if it can be called that, on video this evening when they all go to bed. We'll see.

Reflecting on THE PLAN

Well, I just found an old blog that I did on Myspace back in June about the prospect of moving out here to the country. I have just posted that blog here on blogger, so if you scroll down to the very first entry, you will see it.

As you can see, I outlined the basic plan for the farm, and it is interesting to me to see how closely we've followed The Plan, and some things that we've decided to do differently.

For one thing, we were not able to start out with the Nigerian Dwarf goat breed, as they are prohibitively expensive and hard to come by in this area. It was much easier for us to start with a goat breed that is abundant in our area, which turned out to be the Nubian, which I had thought my least favorite. I had heard that they are very noisy and make themselves quite a bother. Living with Marek at the time, I could not handle the thought of having yet another animal contributing to the cacophony. But, Tierra was the first goat I found and am I ever so glad I did not trust unidentified voices on the Internet telling me that Nubians are terrible to own. She's a joy.

I still plan on breeding Nigerian Dwarf into my heard, and I would not even mind having crosses of all the full size dairy goat breeds mixed with the miniature stature of the Nigerian Dwarf. The NG breed is also known for its high butterfat content, which means you can make more cheese per gallon than you can from regular goat's milk. I would like the first buck I invest in to be a Nigerian Dwarf with good dairy characteristics. Here's what Tierra's offspring would possibly look like if I bred her to a NG. They'd be called Mini Nubians!



I also ended up with an Angora goat, which was not even mentioned in The Plan. I had thought that it would be fun some day to experiment with the Angora breed and see if you truly can make money from them. Well, now I get to experiment sooner rather than later! The way I have figured it, if I can get even a modest sum for her mohair, it should cover the cost of her yearly feed and maintenance, with a little left over. Add to that the profit if/when she kids each year (with a break here and there, of course), and she should turn a profit. In any case, she's the only animal here (other than Ambrose) who is a pet and gets to stay just cause. I would like to learn how to card mohair, dye it, and spin it. If I did those things it would be worth much much more.

Chickens. Check. Pretty much on track with The Plan when it comes to them. I've lost 5 in the past few months, and one of my Wyandotte hens ended up being a rooster. Oh, well.

Ducks. Oooooh I want ducks. I want them now. I'd like to convert the underside of our back porch into a duck house- still working on Dustin for that one. In my opinion, its just wasted space. All I'd have to do is enclosed the underside with some tastefully done (ha ha ha ha!) chicken wire, and then close in the section under the stairs as a waterproof nesting area. I think it'd make a bang-up duck shelter, someplace safe for them to call home at night. I'd also like to devise some sort of pet door in the chain link fence going to the pond so they'd be able to free range the yard and pond area during the day.

We're still on track with the bees, as we plan to get them in the spring. Not sure where we're gonna put them, but we'll find a place.

Another thing we've added to The Plan is gardening and possibly a pig (or two). I know what you're thinking, what on earth do you want a pig for? Well, we want to eventually grow all of our own produce and fruit, and gardening on that scale requires quite a bit of muscle. A pig can be a farmer's best friend when put to work effectively. You can temporarily pen them on an area to be rototilled, and they will methodically eat all the vegetation, root around in the soil and remove all existing roots, all the while working their own natural fertilizer into the soil. By the time they're done with it, its ready to plant! A single sow can produce about 20 piglets a year, which could be sold off as weaner pigs or raised out for pork. Throughout history the pig has been known as "The Irishman Who Pays the Rent" because they are ridiculously profitable even in times of depression. We don't eat much pork, but its never hard to find people willing to pay for fresh, organic pork fresh from the farm. Couple that with the gardening benefits and their labor-saving ways, they make a perfect addition to any homestead. All that being said, I am a little intimidated at the thought of owning a pig. I've spent the last year researching chickens and goats, and pigs are like an alien creature to me. We'll see what happens.

We also plan to start raising turkeys in the spring. I'd like to secure advance orders for heritage-breed organic Thanksgiving turkeys, and raise out enough to sell come November, plus enough for our own consumption, and also enough to start some breeding stock for future generations. Unfortunately, almost all turkey breeds have lost the ability to reproduce naturally due to genetic modifications, such as breeding them with breasts so large that they are physically incapable of doing the deed. Therefore, if you want any chance of turkeys that know how to be turkeys, you have to look at the rare old-fashioned breeds. I am passionate about supporting and maintaining the populations of heritage breed livestock, and would like to incorporate them in the future. Barbara Kingsolver, my favorite female author, says that the heritage breed turkey she raises, the Royal Palm, tastes unbelievable and is almost reminiscent of lobster. Yummmm!

I Get NO Respect From the Chickens!

I can already tell it's going to be one of those days. It all started last night. For the second night in a row, Dustin told me we were missing a chicken when he locked them in the coop. This is because they've discovered that they can get into the back pasture via the goat pen, but then they're on the wrong side of the chain link fence, peering in at all their little chicken buddies. So, they commence to walk the fence line, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.... you get the picture. Unfortunately, there's a gate next to said fence that leads into the empty lot we own next door, and there's a large gap under this fence. So, in all their pacings, they inevitably squeeze under this gate and then further compound their delimma by then trapping themselves in the lot next door, which has absolutely no entrance back into our yard. So from there they resume their pacing, half the time finding themselves out in the street and trying to get in our gated driveway. Well, the first time we were missing a chicken, I figured she was locked out of the yard and would show up in the morning, which she did. Same thing happened this morning, only, things went steadily downhill from there.

Here's what happened.
Phase I: I saw her on the wrong side of the fence, so I opened the gate at the corner of the property by the pond, ran back to where she was, grabbed a tree branch and walked behind her encouraging her to walk toward the open gate. I do this almost every day for wayward chickens. Only, this chicken walked the entire length of the fence, coming within 5 feet of the open gate, then would panic and turn around and run the way we had come. I would whack at her side of the fence with the stick, trying to cut off her retreat. So what did she do? She'd leave the fence line and run off into the woods, making a large detour around the angry woman yelling wielding a stick. So then I'd have to run along my side of the fence and try to get on the far side of her to start the whole process again. We did this 4, maybe 5 times. At this point I'm starting to get angry, as it is 46 degrees out and I am just trying to help this chicken get back inside so she can eat some breakfast. After about the 5th time of having her within feet of the gate, only to watch her backtrack the entire length of the fence (about 250 feet!), I tried jumping over the fence. Yea, so I have not done that since I was a kid, and my center of gravity has...shall we say, shifted. After attempt 4 of getting my bulk over the fence, I drag a cinderblock up as a step. I catapult myself over the gate, land wrong, and twist my ankle. So now I'm near tears, swearing, and watching the retreating back of this blasted chicken, of course headed in the wrong direction. I'm so angry at this point I ignore my ankle and go plunging through the woods in hot pursuit. At this point I don't care that I'm chasing her away from the gate, I just want to grab her or at least give her a good scare. I'm so immature. Branches are crashing, thorns are tearing at my flesh, spiderwebs engulf my face, and all I care about is grabbing That Chicken. I cornered her a half dozen times, flailing out at her, my fingers like talons, only to feel her slip through my grasp. This went on much longer than any sane person would have allowed. Back and forth we went, until finally she ran away from the fence altogether and ran into the woods. I pursued. I finally gave up when she ran into a massive briar patch, and I screamed, "FINE! You can live out here for all I care!" I stormed back to the house seeing red, and feeling as if I was burning alive from the inside out. I went and milked the goats, my sweet sweet goats that follow me wherever I care to lead them, and still no sign of That Chicken.

Phase II: After having cooled off somewhat, I decided to lure her back with her flock-mates. I took their goody pan (where their scraps go. I call "here biddies!" and they come running) with a handful of chicken feed in it, call the chickens, and head out the open gate by the pond looking like the Pied Piper with 16 chickens at my heels. I set the pan just outside the gate, and watch as a few chickens run out to it, and sure enough, here comes That Chicken. She joins in and eats heartily. If you look closely in this picture you can see the silver pan just outside the open gate with chickens surrounding it. That Chicken is the white one standing to the right of the pan. I figure she'll just come right back in with the other chickens. Of course not! They finish eating, the other slightly smarter chickens come back in through the gate, she follows them, then at the last minute veers off to the right and walks along, yes, you guessed it, THE WRONG SIDE OF THE FENCE! I'm nearly blowing a gasket at this point. I do everything to encourage her to walk back toward the gate, ensuing a long and drawn out repeat of Phase I. I storm back to the house. I hate this chicken. I'm already imagining life without her, and am slightly saddened that my future generations of chickens will not have her unique white coloring, because I AM GOING TO KILL THIS CHICKEN!

Phase III: Time goes by. She still does not come in on her own. I am storming around the chicken coop looking for Ayden's bug net, with visions of netting That Chicken. I find the net, but there's no way a chicken will a) fit in the net and b) be stupid enough to run into a neon orange net with a large caterpillar head on it. So, I walk back to the fence one more time, kick the fence a couple times to move her toward the gate, and watch with bated breath as she inches closer and closer to the open gate.... she faked right a few times like she would head back into the woods, and at this point I am praying to God above, please just make this chicken come through the gate. So she does. Comes walking in like its the most logical thing in the world.

Ugh. As I wearily walk back toward the house, still exasperated from the whole operation, a single brown chicken runs full speed at me and starts pecking my boots. She's taken a shining to my purple toenail polish, and for the last couple weeks every time I come outside she runs up to me looking quite confrontational, and takes a peck at my toes, which does not particularly feel nice. Here's a picture of her having a go at my boots this morning. I've been trying to tell Dustin how the chickens no longer respect me, they try to eat my toes, and in the mornings I have to put my purse on my exposed flip-flop clad toes as I physically push them aside to open their small door in the coop. They used to part like the Red Sea when they saw me coming. Not so anymore! Now I get bum rushed by this brown chicken each time I walk outside, and confronted with an unmovable wall-o-chicken if I dare to tresspass.

Things Only I Would Find Interesting

This video was about attempt 7 of trying to get the goats on video making their respective noises. The problem is, they only holler at me when they want me to come hang out with them. Once I'm close by, they just stand there and stare at me. It makes for titillating video footage, let me tell you. I was trying to capture the range of sounds they make. Tierra has this unholy moanish-groanish-wailing sort of noise. Sounds sorta like a mmmmmGUAHHHHHHHHHHhhhh or a variation thereof. It sounds absolutely painful. The Angoras, on the other hand, make a neat little maaaa sound. As I've said before, the poor darlings look and sound just like sheep, the only difference being that sheep don't have half their personality and sheep go Baa while goats go Maa. It's all very technical. ;)

Here's another video, taken this morning, where you can at least hear the Angoras talking. I've actually gotten to the point that I can tell Lucy and Louie's maa's apart. Louie's is actually louder and higher pitched than Lucy's. Ironic. This was taken as I walked outside for our morning milking. I have a confession: I also took a video of me milking Tierra, but I had failed to take into consideration how absolutely horrible I looked. I really do not dress up much for the goats. Come to find out, pink corduroys, a green and white fuzzy sweater, polka dot rubber boots, and a slept upon French braid did not make me camera-ready. Will possibly try again tomorrow after a little more attention paid to personal hygiene.