Daisy's Kittens.

Cute aren't they?? There are 3 females, the little gray one in the back right is the male. 

They are living in this trough in the house for now where we can feed them and keep them safe from the dogs. Daisy is very skinny and we don't think she has enough milk for them as she keeps bring them to us. She is leaving them in the trough which is great. 

BIG PIGS!

Taking a break from the heat of the day. 

Just for reference... that pig laying on the right? She's probably around 250 lbs. 

That pig with her butt to us?? That's Little Girl.. she's OH about 500 lbs.

And that last pig? That's BIG Momma.. and she's oh about 600++ lbs... 

Big Momma and Little girl are our breeding stock.. purebred Berkshires. They'll be having piglets mid August along with a new breeder; known so far as 'the gilt' who is only half Berkshire. 

Rye In The Pig Pen.

Beautiful isn't it??

Remember this??   Yup that is the same pig pen :) Just taken from a bit different angle. 

It is amazing what a month can do :) 

This is the same general area but facing slightly to the left. It is not doing quite as well as it had pigs in it a bit longer then the first pen and it was their winter pen but it is coming along nicely. 

Ham & Bacon. A Continuing Piglet Story.

Well these two little guys got moved out of my house a couple of weeks ago now and are happily living in the chick barn. Ham is still bigger and dumber then Bacon :) He was downing 2 six oz bottles of milk 3 times a day instead of drinking out of the feed bucket like Bacon until we skipped a couple of feeds and he had to learn to fend for himself!! Bacon figure out that feed bucket super fast :) 

I just realized I should have had a kid in there for size comparison, but I didn't so you'll have to believe me when I tell you they are doing really well and getting quite a nice size for being 6 weeks old. Bacon is still very much the runt but he'll catch up eventually. I believe the plan is to give them a few more weeks in the barn and then move them out on to grass in electric netting. They are still very tame and love to suck on the kids clothes/shoes and anything else they can reach. 

House Update :) June 2013

It's been slower going then we'd hoped but we are slowly getting the walls ready for stucco. 

We've been working on getting the straw walls ready to stucco. Here is our bedroom wall at the back of the house. Almost ready to stucco!! 

Looking down the house. The walls on the right are ready to stucco. The wall on the left needs that board along the top insulated and lathed before stuccoing. I should have taken a picture of the front wall.. you can sort of see it here at the far end. It needs to be finished/sealed yet on the top but the rest of it is finished. 

Part of our new 'to us' cupboards for the house. There is a lot of them and I can't wait to be able to use them :) 

Papa weed whacking the outside of the house. Weed whacking gets the loose straw off the walls and helps the stucco to stick better. It also helps you to find holes that will need lathe to make the wall straight.. there is one such hole on the right side of the picture in the middle before the window.

The finished outside corner. Before you could see the pole inside the wall and now you can't :) 

Flowers of Love.

The kids have been bringing me flowers every day. It started with dried leftover seed heads from last fall and then went to dandelions and clover and now we are seeing quite a verity.  Here is a bunch of wild roses they brought in last week. I love this time of year with all the green and flowers!! 

Early Morning Visitors Part 2. Unwanted Visitors.

The unwanted visitors, there is something dead type, are a pair of ravens that attacked the chicks their first morning out on grass. Papa and I woke up to 10 dead chicks in the pen, chicks everywhere; under the porch, in the bushes, everywhere, and Tucker laying beside the trampoline watching the ravens eat the dead chicks. Yeah it turns out Tucker has to be loose to be 'on duty' for ravens anyway. He does fine with coyotes while tied or crated, but apparently must be loose to bark at ravens. He does chase them off, we've seen him, but not while tied... strange mutt. 

Papa and the kids and I spent 45 minutes rounding up chicks, found 4 more that had been squished in the panic, and got them all back in the pen and fed. Over the next few days we lost several, I think 4 or 5, more... probably from too much stress. It's a terrible way to wake up on a beautiful Sunday morning. 

We had to re-plan our day as we'd planned on going to church and out for lunch and then to a car show that afternoon. We'd already told the kids we were going to the car show so Papa packed up the kids and took them to see the old cars and I grabbed my book and went out to sit on the lawn.. and it was good that I did. Those brave ravens came back again and again and again!! I moved myself around the yard and that kept them from landing. 

We've had troubles with ravens before but not in several years. We found that if we tied a black garbage bag on to a movable fence post and moved it around in the pen when we did chores the ravens wouldn't land. We also move our chicks every day or every second day and the ravens really don't like change so they will not attack. 

We've never ever had raven troubles the first night the chicks are out until now.

So we made this guy known as Scare Steve. He's a scare crow but he looks like and is tall like our friend Steve and the kids named him :) Tucker DID NOT like him and barked for ages until Papa brought Tucker into the chick pen and 'introduced' them. 

So far, it's been 10 days now, we are keeping the ravens away with a couple of proactive activities. We are moving the scare Steve every couple of days, we are moving the feeders/waterers/ wheelbarrow in the pen every feeding or almost every feeding.. so two or three times a day! We are spending a LOT of time outside which they don't like and we are hunting them. Well Papa is :) We are still having raven scares every day. In fact the kids and I moved the chicks across the driveway today into a new pen and within an hour the ravens were checking them out. The scare Steve is not yet in the new pen but it will be tonight. The kids are outside doing P.E. and that should throw the ravens off until Papa can get the scare Steve and the feed trailer into the pen. I'm also seriously wondering if I should get a couple of Papa's old shirts and change scare Steve's shirt every day or two. Papa and I also sleep with our window cracked so we can hear the chicks in the middle of the night. 

 Papa figures the chicks would dress out about 3 lbs right now so it shouldn't be too long before they are too big for the ravens but until then we will be doing everything in our power to keep them safe. The ravens will not go after my laying hens so at least we know there is a size where the chicks should be safe. 

Early Morning Visitors. Part 1!

There are two kinds of early morning visitors when you live on a farm. The painful 'there is something dead' kind and the 'oh look aren't they beautiful kind.' This last week on the farm we've had both kinds of visitors.

These two beautiful does showed up as Papa was finishing up chores one morning. He came into our room and pointed them out to me :) The kids were all asleep so I took some quick shots. They stayed for almost 20 minutes until the dogs noticed them and Tucker chased them off. He vibrates when he gets that excited :) 

The unwanted kind of visitors will be coming in a post soon.. 

I was going post them together but the beauty of the deer shouldn't be sullied with the horror of the other. 

G's Pigtails.. Way Too Cute!!!

I was trying to get her face in the mirror but it's a bit dark.

Smiling girl!! Looks so grown up with her hair back! 

Oh yes I am SO cute!!! 

Two little tails :) 

The Chicks On Grass :)

It's a family affair :) 

J, L and E caught almost all the chicks and put them in the crates in the barn. Papa and I put the crates on the trailer and we drove them over to the yard. This worked MUCH better then any other year and we are very glad we got the crates. This and this is how we've done it in the past both have proven to be more trouble then anything and I think we've finally got this figured!! 

Filling up waterers before letting chicks out. 

Their protected area.. which they aren't even using as it's warm enough! 

Note: the wheel barrow is how we mix feed with milk to be able to feed it to the chicks.

They love this feed mix! 

Oldest and Youngest helping :) She loves them. 

Chickens chickens everywhere!! Oh and kids :) A friend stopped by and his little girl helped unpack the chicks. 

I love this picture. If you squint you can see the cows in the back behind the house, the laying hens loose on the yard, the calves in their pen in the left and Tucker by the trampoline. If there was a cat and a pig we'd have one of each critter in this picture. 

E took this picture of  holding a chick. It's a great picture!! 

Happy chicks on grass!! 

G and Papa having a quick cuddle. 

Happy happy happy chicks.

A great picture of Tucker.. he really didn't care about any of this chick mess.. still doesn't.

We bought those crates last winter for this very thing and they worked GREAT!! 

Chip LOVES chicks. He worries over them, walks around the pen constantly and just totally enjoys every minute of them. If one gets out he worries about it until it goes back in. He loves all babies but really chicks and Papa are his too favorite things. 

Lazy dogs, chicks checking out the fence :) 

Papa and I sat in the pen and watched chicks for about half an hour after we let them out. Relaxing. 

This little chick kept getting into trouble with the fence so Papa picked it up and told it to behave and put it on his lap. I snapped this picture quickly and was glad I did as she did NOT stay long!! She had attitude!! 

We are much happier with the chicks this year. We bought unsexed Cornish Giants and we have big cocks, a bit smaller hens and only a few road runners *those little throw backs to the plymouth rocks... normally these are about 3% of the flock and take longer to grow into a good size if they ever do. 

Just one more note :) Cornish Giants are a cross breed of a Cornish game bird and a Plymouth rock. 

The same way a Mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey :) 

A Piglet Feeding :)

Ham likes to sit to eat and Bacon prefers to stand :) 

Thank you L for taking these great pictures!!!