Oh! Yard Updates!

We've been busy the last few weekends. We built a big ol' run for the wee baby chicks and ducklings so they are NOT in the garage any more! (And the peasants rejoiced!)

It's got a giant piece of cardboard in there on either side with a heat light in there to keep them warm at night since it suddenly decided to go all "below freezing" here in April.

It's about 8 foot long and about 3 foot high. And freaking heavy. No one ever listens to me about assembly closer to final destinations. But the 35 chicks in there have MUCH more room than the 2 Tupperware containers they were in before and... They aren't in my garage.


We did this:

It's a 2 gate entry way. The kids kept letting the animals out when they were helping feed everything. It's not as much "help" if you have to go retrieve a puppy, goat, duck, chicken every 3 minutes because it ran through the gate (and they were getting crafty). So, we got a play yard with an auto-close gate and zipped it up to the other gate and Viola! A double gate system. Oh my goodness it makes it SO much easier. 

These 2 big boys have certainly earned their keep today too! I heard them barking - rather oddly - so I went out too see why. 2 big stray dogs were getting close to the fence with the birds. Their barking scared them off. At the same time, a hawk had just discovered the baby chicks. And while they *should* be safe in their new run.. I'm all for a giant ol goof barking at the huge hawk.


Now, while these big boys were doing their business, this little guy was certainly watching:

Little Adams is just so small. He's just not going to be any help until he puts on at least 30-40 pounds. He's so tiny. But he's cute! Even better? He sleeps in the dog house. With the goats. And Doris. Yes, Doris of Doom, Lambie, Jack, and Adams come piling out of a medium sized dog house like a clown car. Never Gets Old. EVER.

Lambie is getting bigger. I can't say "Big" because.. She's a pygmy goat. But still. Bigger. Oh, another thing that Never Gets Old?? Watching goats run! Not the *I'm horrified* run. But the All 4 Legs at a Time run..The just bound along in their odd goaty way. Even better? When they start flipping their back legs sideways with excitement while they do it. I'm still trying to figure out how to record that one.

The birds are maturing nicely from our first batch. The Reds are maybe 2 months from starting to lay? I don't really have any idea, but they're getting fat.  We also have these crazy ducks that are currently making better watch dogs that the poor undersized puppy. The white ducks are HUGE. Giant, massive, enormous ducks.

Guardian Dog!

As soon as we started even talking about "livestock", we also talked about what we needed to do to keep them safe. A fence - Check. A barn  - CHECK (finally)! Ways to keep them warm or cool in the random crap weather we have - Check (ish) we've figured out the heat light issue for now and have plans for the cooling issues should we need them. We have our rifle and shot gun hand (ish - kid safety trumps animal safety) should we REALLY have something big come up and need it. The last thing we had thought of (and I'm sure I'm missing things, but ya know I do that) was a big ol dog to stay out there and just eat the crap out of anything that bothers the animals. Now, yes. We DO already have 2 big ol' dogs. But, seriously, have you MET them? They can't catch a freaking mole, nor do they bark at strangers (in fact one of them barks to get let out to be petted by them), and one tries to eat the birds. So, we found us a livestock dog.

The term "dog" is a little bit generous though. He's a smite bit undersized right now, to say the least. We found out - a bit late of course (is there any other way with us?) that he isn't as old as we thought or were told nor even fully weaned. The bastards were just bad people when it comes to that. I get so angry when people do that. They apparently were just *done* with puppies and got rid of them because they wanted to, not because it was actually best for the puppy. Both the big boys we have now were both thrown out like that though and turned out to be the most fantastic dogs we've ever had, so I'm not worried with it. It just pisses me off that people do that.

Anyhow, little guy is named Adams.

He's a Great Pyrenees. He stays out in the barn with the chickens and goats and ducks except when it gets too cold even with a heat light - because I'm a giant pansy. He's smaller, right now anyhow, than the Rhode Island Reds which is freaking hilarious. The long term goal is to teach him to round all the birds up at night and stay with them and keep them safe from the coyotes and snakes and stuff we've started to find. For now, we crate him in the barn at night and just keep him warm and are getting him used to that being "Home" and not chasing the birds.

The Zoo is Now a Farm!

The Family Zoo has now become a Farm! With our recent move to a place with land, we have acquired  some animals. Ok, several animals. The kids are LOVING it. We're just starting this little experiment at animal farming, but so far we've only had the loss of 1 chick. 

Our original small collection of random animals now has a defined purpose. The bunnies will be raised for pets and meat. The chickens for eggs and meat. The ducks for whatever purpose they dispose themselves for - if they are nice duckies then eggs, if they are mean duckies then meat. The goats are mostly pet animals but may branch out into milk.

Part of what I'm going to attempt to have the kids do before we have things ready to sell is sort the website out so it's organized better. Which, obviously, it's not.  Anyhow. There are pictures of all the new aquisitions because they're cute!


The Rabbits:

Thumper - A Netherland Dwarf buck - about a year old. Will be a breeder boy for the pet rabbits.

 Oreo - A Netherland Dwarf Buck - about a year old.Will be a breeder boy for the pet rabbits.

 Anne - A Netherland Dwarf Doe - about 8 weeks old. Will be the breeder female for the pet rabbits.

 Hazel - A Flemish Giant/Holland Lop mix. About 2 months old and already BIG. She will be the female for our meat rabbits.

I'm calling this one Sausage, the kids have him named something else - but I don't know what it is. He is a New Zealand/Lop mix and is about 2 months old. He will be the boy breeder for the meat rabbits. He's going to be a little smaller than Hazel (who he's going to be *umm* friends with, but we figured that the female being a smidge bigger can't all that bad).

The Goats:

 This is Lamby - She is almost 2 weeks old. She is bottle fed and freaking hilarious! She follows us around like a puppy and baaa's (which is how she got named Lamby - it sounds just like a lamb) when she's unhappy. 

This is Jack. He is about 3 months old and is quite a bit more shy than Lamby, but is warming up nicely. He's kind of into the quiet, stalker mode right now. He's definitely got his own personality. He and Lamby seem to be getting along pretty well though.  Hopefully, when they both get to a reasonable age we'll have some more baby goats because these 2 are fun. 

The Ducks:

 These are Goldie and Herbie. They are just starting to get good and feather-y. They are starting to get shy so they may turn into eating ducks or egg ducks depending on if they are male or female (don't let their names fool ya, we have no idea.) 

These 2 ducks are Wilbur and Blackfoot. I couldn't tell you which was which without looking at their chest and feet and well, I don't care that much. They fall into the same category as Goldie and Herbie. Eating or eggs if they don't straighten their act up. Heck, we don't even know what kind of duck these 2 even are. 

The Chickens Of Doom:

 Meet Doris of Doom. She is a hen of doomic epic amounts. She clucks and squacks and poops. She is a dark Cornish chicken and would be a tasty addition to someones Sunday Dinner. She will be one of the founding member of the meat breeders unless she keeps being evil, then she'll be dinner.

 This is Dark Meat. It's supposed to be a pullet - though we have no idea. We have a total of 5 Rhode Island Reds that are supposed to all be pullets - I'm guessing we probably have at least 1 that isn't but, ehh Dinner it will be. 

 These are our first 2 successful egg hatches!! They are Silkies. The kids like them because they're fluffy and fuzzy. I don't know why we have them other than that. Egg hatchers I guess if they are hens.

These are the 5 Rhode Island Reds. They are all feathering nicely and currently in the garage until the coop and fence get built. They don't really seem to mind their big dog crate so.. These 5 (assuming they are all hens) will be the founders of the egg layers group. Why this kind? Heck if I know. It's just what we ended up with I suppose. 

The Dogs:

 Rupert 5 months ago.

 Rupert Today. He is about 6 1/2 months old and over 80 pounds. He's such a good boy though! 

Here's Bear. I couldn't get him to look over at me, odd - I know - not being able to call the deaf dog to get his attention.. He's still right around 65 pounds and is probably full sized now that he's just over a year. 

The Cats:

 Fuzzy - the biggest and most congenial of them all. He lets the kids drag him ALL through the house. Literally. His real name is Jinx though.

 Squirtle - Named after a Pokemon character. One of my favorites after Merlin.

 Merlin - the grandpa of the group at 13. He is my all time favorite of all the cats ever.

 Toby. Garfield would have been a better name for him as we have him on a continuous diet.

 Vinny - the only girl of the cats. Yes, her name is Vinny. Wow, she's loud too.

Ulee - The most cat like of the group. 

Random Leftovers:

 The Hamster - I'm sure it has a name. I just can't remember it. 

 

 The fish tank. It DID have 19 frogs in it earlier today. The frogs are now helping the chickens grow stronger by being their dinner. So now there is 1 lone fish in the tank. 

The eggs in the incubator. I just candled them the other night and all but 2 (which I threw away because they looked nasty) are showing veining and positive growth signs this time! That's the highest count so far!! Hopefully we'll have a high hatch rate this time. The 2 little Silkies above are the first hatches and the kids were SOOOO excited, so if we can get a higher rate, that would be cool.

The Help:

 This little helper boy will be 7 in just 1 more month! He complains less about cleaning and helping with the animals than brushing his teeth. He likes the chickens and goats the most so far.

This little helper girl is almost 8 1/2 and loves the bunnies and goats. She is great and getting them all cleaned up and fed every morning! 

 

Pictures for Auntie Jen!

A few pictures for Auntie Jen of the menagerie!

 This is the new chick and duck set up! We've got chicken wire as a lid so the cats don't try to take any off as a snack. So far we've got 5 chicks and 2 duckies. We've got a new batch in the incubator that is much more promising than the first - that ended up with none hatching out. BUT, we did figure out why several didn't hatch (we accidentally cooked them) and why probably several others didn't (they appear to not have been fertile when we put them in) and then figured out that flipping them with dirty hands may have introduced bacteria into some of the others.. SO. While the first batch *failed* like any experiment - it was not a true failure.

 This is Oreo. Or Domino. Or Ol' Smitty. Or well. Whatever the kids happen to be calling him that day. He is the shy-er of the 2 boy bunnies we have. We are going to be adding to the herd whenever we can (as in we already know where we plan on getting it from, it just has to be old enough) to get a girl so we can start a small rabbit hatchery. (Yes, I know it's Rabbitry.. or something similar but spell check REALLY hates that word.)

 The boy really likes helping with the animals. They both do. If they didn't we would not have as many as we do.

 This is Black Foot. The Boy has claimed this one as his.

This is Goldie - the Ducky. The Girl has claimed it as hers.

 Both bunnies getting raisins. That's their favorite treat. 

This is Thumper. He's much more friendly and out going, but since we got the bunnies from didn't treat them well at all, they don't like to be snuggled. We are going to snuggly the new one so it will tolerate it better. 

This is the frog tank and frogs. Yes, there are frogs in this picture. I just poured a ton of fruit flies into the tank so there are a bunch of flies and frogs - can you find them?

 Black Foot and Goldie close up. 

Peek-A-Boo Ducky. 

Girl was being a super helper with all the cages.

A feisty boy!

Still to come are the Rupert (the Biggest Puppy Ever), Bear (Deaf dog), and Kitty Galore. Oh the Hamster! I always forget the hamster.