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!

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.

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.

The Zoo Says *Hello*

It's been a while since a full pictorial of the zoo has been given. I figured it was about time to give an updated *Hello* from the full Family Zoo..

This is Bear. He's about 9 months old now. He's learning his signs very well. It took us long enough to figure out he was deaf. Smarter than the rest of them really though.

This is Merlin a.k.a. or Grandpa Hissypants. He's the oldest of the bunch.

Domino. He's the more shy of the 2 bunnies. 

Thumper. He's more adventuresome. 

I think we all know which crazy animal this is! 

Thumper and Domino together.

The ever elusive Toby. He rarely comes out when people are over. 

Ulee, also our people flee-er. He likes to eat plastic. 

 

Fuzzy, aka Jinx, is the fluffiest of the bunch. He also lets the kids get away with allllmost anything. 

The Frog Tank. It has umm.. somewhere between 12 and 16 frogs in it. We also have an experiment of fruit flies going on to feed this little herd of frogs. 

Squirtle. That cat, as you can see, is the Boy's own personal toy.

Dance fever boy!

Toby and Vinny. Vinny is our only female cat. And of course has the most male name. Go figure. 

Squirtle wearing a harness. 

And last, but never least, Killer the Crazy Beagle. Ok. His name is really Timmy. But he keeps catching things outside and bringing them to me as "treats". He's only in his crate because he wiggles too much to catch a picture of. His entire body shakes with happiness like he has some kind of seizure disorder. He's crazy I say. Crazy.

The Puppy!

We've been working with the puppy quite a bit, you know.. Training them. Like you're supposed to. And we've discovered that our puppy (the 60 pound Great Pyrenees) is mostly deaf. Which is a relief that he's not being just THAT stubborn, but at the same time D'oh! He's actually taking to the slight variation in training (using more hand signals, trying to use a flashlight, guiding him with out hand, etc) fairly well. Mostly, he's just a good puppy with a lazy personality that likes hot dogs. We're gonna just roll with that for a while.

 Several people have suggested the great need to go to the vet and see exactly what he can or can't hear (well, he doesn't turn his head to his name or middle range sounds.. at all.. It's good enough for me.) and several have suggested it's *my* fault he's lazy and stubborn about coming when called. Which I would agree with IF he wouldn't come bounding when he could see me and when I did the hand motion for Come. But he does, which only supports the deaf and not the stubborn lazy. If he was a high energy, naughty, misbehaving dog - I might see these as potential issues. But he's not. He lopes. He lazes.

He loves to rest on the sofa too. The girl is holding on to him because otherwise he falls off like a limp, overcooked noodle.