First Freeze

As predicted, the temps here fell to 32 degrees the night before last. The day before the freeze, all of the peppers and tomatoes still in the garden were harvested. This included a lot of unripe tomatoes. So, along with some of the green tomatoes given us by Jeff's parents, we used our green maters plus our onions and apples to make a green tomato chutney. We canned 12 half-pints. Today, we are pickling the rest of the green tomatoes and canning tomato soup with the red ones. Our apple trees produced an abundance of fruit this year - sometimes breaking the branches. We've made lots of apple sauce and apple butter. Hopefully, we can try making an Indian chutney this weekend, using more of the apples. Here's our stash of preserves in storage down in the cellar:


The new goat barn is still under construction, but the goats are still able to seek shelter from the cold in another small barn. However, the goats used to sleep in a space beside the chicken house, but that got turned into the outdoor chicken brooder. A big heat lamp in the brooder keeps the chicks warm.


All 13 chicks appear to be thriving. In one last attempt to have one of our hens hatch and raise some chicks, David procured a dozen Barred Rock hatching eggs via the internet, which we placed underneath a hen who was setting at the time. The hen and eggs were given a private room in one of the old rabbit cages. Although she seemed to be setting on the eggs well, when we candled the eggs a few days ago, only a couple appeared viable. The next day, the hen gave up; she was off the nest and squawking to be let loose. Perhaps we will have better luck in the spring.

First days in the outdoor brooder at 2 weeks old

Four weeks old - growing so fast!



In other chicken news, two of our older roosters died in the last week or two. Both roosters started looking really depressed in the days/weeks before they died. It was sad to see them moping around. Hopefully, it was just old age and not some contagious disease. I guess this makes more room for the newbie roos, though. We still don't know for sure how many of the chicks are male. The older Wyandotte chick, that we've been calling Dottie, seems to be developing more male characteristics than the other two Wyandotte chicks, Wyatt and Annabelle. Dottie may turn out to be Wyatt. We shall see. However, we are in the process of integrating Dottie into the flock, following his/her stint in the infirmary. Being smaller than the other chickens and having only one good eye, I've been a worried mama hen. The poor thing hides in corners or under the chicken house most of the time. She also tends to seek safety, when we are around, by flying up on our shoulders and nestling down there. It's tough to be the new kid. Lastly, egg production is going back up now that they are almost done molting. We're getting 1-3 eggs per day now.

-Annie

Git 'er done

Yes, that's right, it is time for some goat news!!!

Well after a month of wondering, pondering, and considering we have now been successful. . . um, maybe.

You see, it isn't easy (at least it didn't seem so) to tell if a goat is in heat or not, especially if you a)aren't a goat, b)haven't had goats before, or c)don't have a virile buck around.  Annie and I strike out on all three counts.  So we have spent the past month trying to figure out if Hoppy and Lilly are in heat or not.  This has involved a number of considerations:  are they "whining" more, are they waggin their tails, are they more affectionate than usual.  Thus far we had strikes on all of those (well except that Hoppy is always whiney so that didn't help).  We have also been examining (visually only) their nether regions on a regular basis for signs of "excitement" but couldn't tell for sure if they were swollen or what.  The other test we had was a rag that I had rubbed all over the head and forelegs of a buck who was wanting some action (you see they pee all over this part of themselves, because the ladies LOVE that).  We let the ladies smell it and they react "like a teenager mooning over some boy" (that's close to an exact quote) then we have a doe ready for action.

So this past Saturday, after a month and a half or so of uncertainty we finally hit pay dirt.  Hoppy had been whining almost non-stop for two days (the first day it was raining, and she always whines in the rain so we wrote that off).  I let her smell the rag, and she rubbed her head all over it, and started wagging her tail.  I looked behind her and their appeared to be a secretion.  This was a goat who was feeling amorous.

Then the race was on.  Goats only stay in heat for 24-72 hours at a time and we now suspected some of the whining the day before had to do with her being in heat.  So we called all of our goaty friends and acquaintances, and there were no answers.  Aaarrgghhh!!!  So we waited, then I called one of them back, and - HALLELUJAH - he answered.  So quickly we rustled Hoppy into the dog carrier in the back of David's truck, and whisked her off to a farm about a half hour from here.  We got there.  I had my hand in her collar, and she was straining against me as hard as she ever has to get at that buck.  So we got her over there, and within - oh I'd say 45 seconds the deed was done.  We wanted to wait around to let him have another go at it, but he seemed to be exhausted - so we came on home.

Goats typically gestate for about 5 months, so probably sometime around March we will have some little kids born here at deerfield.  Lilly was acting kind of goofy today, so probably the next time or two she comes in heat we will breed her too (we want to space them out a little bit, so we don't have lots of newborns all at once).

So that is the latest news here from Deerfield.  Aside from that we are working on the barn still, the chicks are all doing well, we got our first frost last night, so gardening is changing, and I'm staying fairly busy with work.

Hope you are all well,

Jeff

ps.  Just in case you wanted to know, Hoppy's one minute stand was with a goat named Tater Tot, who is a La Mancha, which is a different breed of goat, but still a dairy goat.

"All my pretty chickens"

The chicks are 2 weeks old now and doing well. They are growing fast and need a larger brooder, so we will be setting one up down at the chicken house soon.

Here are the chicks at one week old.
Their wing and tail feathers are coming in. The black chick at the top of the first photo has developed some crooked toes on one foot, as can be seen in the photo. I've read that little cardboard boots can be constructed for it, if you want to show the bird, but chickens can live normal lives with crooked toes, so we've chosen not to intervene. Maybe they will straighten back out on their own. In the second photo, the brownish chick standing in the center is our first hatchling- the Ameraucana female.

The chicks at 2 weeks old.
Yesterday morning I entered the nursery to find the little black guy, in the first photo, enjoying the view from atop the brooder. While I will miss having the chicks so close, it does seem that they need larger accommodations than this box. At 2 weeks, the chicks have many more feathers coming in, especially the Ameraucanas and Welsummers, which are the brownish ones. The Marans don't seem to be growing as fast and still have a lot of their baby chick fuzz. However, what most of the Marans got, that the others don't, are feathers on their legs and feet, which might be evident in some of the photos.

Well, since we hatched the eggs in the incubator, our hens in the chicken yard have basically stopped laying eggs, leaving us eggless in Deerfield. We have, like, 20 chickens, and we had to buy eggs at the farmer's market this week. How crazy is that?! Well, the chickens are molting now, which typically decreases egg production, but the chickens are also rather old (a hen died this week- the second since Jeff and I moved in), which further decreases production. This will likely continue until the winter solstice, because most breeds of chicken reduce egg production in the winter, as the days shorten. The newbies should start laying by next spring, though, and hopefully give us a more steady supply.

One last note: Dottie, the chick with the eye problem, will likely have to get along with only one functional eye. The swelling and redness went away, and she opens the affected eye now, but the eyeball protrudes somewhat from the eye socket and it is all glazed over. She's a very sweet bird, though, and she will be the second one-eyed female in our flock, with which we will try to integrate her very soon.

-Annie

Barn Raising

Jeff and I have continued to work on the construction of our goat barn, and yesterday we finished one of the side walls - complete with window.














The razing of the old barn in Whitesburg is done. The structure has been completely torn down, and all of the usable materials have been salvaged. We almost got enough old tin to cover our roof, and we hope that we have sufficient wood to make all of the walls. This has significantly cut the construction costs. Here are some photos of the barn razing:










I'll post another chicken update soon. Then it'll be time for an entry about the goats - breeding season is here!

-Annie