Spring Babies Bigger!!

All the spring babies have gotten so much bigger! The tiny little puppies are already 10 weeks old, the chickens and ducks look like a giant yard of chickens and ducks instead of a yard of chicken nuggents for hawks.

And yes, that one on the far side, it is a sheep. 

George is still doing well. We've moved him to the Rabbitry for now until we can figure out how to help him get around better (if that's possible). But with him out there, he gets a morning jaunt out in the grass every day when I clean his cage and refill his food and water. He can't walk along for more than about an hour, but he seems to enjoy it.

Happily, my 1 handed typing has somewhat (and occasionally) returned to 2 handed typing. And the peasants rejoiced! Hopefully, this may mean I can update more frequently than once every 3-4 months.

These are 2 of our 2 Flemish Giant babies! These are from the first litter we had ever with Hugo and Bernadette. If we don't sell them, then yes, they will be snackums.

The Girl and her doggie Rupert.

My Magpie boy.

My pretty girl.

It's like Farmville!

We've expanded! No, we didn't get any more animals - we got rid of a few of those (roosters) actually. We built more farm yard! We more than doubled fenced in yard space actually.

We have those little trees in there for some natural shade, grass, tons of nice bugs for tasty snacks for the birds, running space for the puppies. Boy, did that suck to build though. C and I did it with the kids in a few hours on Sunday and got it all done at once. Logic would have suggested waiting until it was cooler (the heat index was 103 when we started), get help to make it faster, or break it into parts so we didn't want to die. But, no. We follow no such logic. We rotated giving our gloved to the kids so both C and my hands are completely torn up (the kids are fine of course). And I have a rash on my upper leg from sitting for all of 4 seconds on the ground. BUUUUUUT look how pretty!

Look how big this little Reaper Monroe has gotten! She's such a good girl too. She's picking up all the basic commands and loves to play in the water bins we have sitting around for the ducks. She literally climbs all the way in and just plays in them. She loves getting brushed too - which with how fluffy she is, is good.

The geese are ready to come out of the brooder, if they'd stop causing trouble with the puppies :( We tried to let them out 2 days ago and I looked out after a few minutes to find one of them had pecked Adams face so much that Adams had just grabbed it's neck and was just carrying it around. As you can see, it's completely unharmed. There isn't even a bite mark on him. (Which just goes to show how gentle the puppies really are, we still like to discourage to carrying of the birds in the mouth.) So, until the geese can get along with the puppies (and vice versa) in they stay.

My helper boy! 

My helper girl with a fantastic hair cut!

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.