Meager Villas Complete!

Whew! It's finally done! All of our meager witted fowl- some much more meager witted than others- have their own cozy condos. As of about 4pm today the guineas are in their area to the right of the chickens, and the turkeys are to the left. Hooray! Hopefully this will be a suitable arrangement for everyone.

Sweetie Pie's Babies

A cuteness overload...

All 8

We're keeping this little guy ( think it's a guy)

These should turn out similar in color to Sweetie, one is my mom's.

This is the little runt- he already has a new home when he gets weaned

I'm keeping this little fawn girl (again, think it's a girl)

Also keeping this albino boy(?)

And of course this is not an Angora- it's Madison and Willow's pet dutch named

chocolate fudge.

Gobble Gobble!

The turkey poults are here! The girls and I picked them up this morning in Lexington. The guy I got them from says there 4-5 weeks old and are Narrangansett and Red Bourbon crosses. They're still too young to sex accurately but he seems pretty sure that the lightest one is female. We shall see.

They're all settled now, but it was certainly a rough morning for them. After the ride home I let them out in the chicken coop while I gathered supplies. They promptly freaked out- flying all over, bashing into the walls and trying to run through the chicken wire. They finally exhausted themselves and watched while I tried to set up a pen in the coop. Well, they're still a little small to contain in the wire I have left from the rabbit tractor. With the right angle and amount of thrashing they got out. So we got to got through the whole chase routine. Unlike chickens that just run and dart, baby turkeys have a different escape plan. They hunker down like they have no energy left, then when you try to grab them they FLY RIGHT AT YOUR FACE SQUAWKING! Very startling. Very.

Alas, I did prevail and get them all tucked into a small cage. As long as I watch from a distance they move around, eat and drink as turkeys should. If I get close they tuck in quietly and wait to JUMP AT ME AGAIN! It continues to be startling.

Growing Babies

The bunny drama seems to be over. Sapphire has been a very good mom to the 3 in her nest and they're growing big fast. It seems she knew best since all the ones that got abandoned didn't make it. Even with Sweetie trying to take care of the one and me giving supplemental feedings it was still a lost cause. Sweetie Pie's eight are doing great. I've taken out their nest box and they're eating hay and drinking out of the water bottle. We're trying to come up with a naming theme for them. Madison wants Sapphire's to all have gemstone names, but we're not sure what to do with Sweetie's. Also in bunny news- Chuck has added 3 New Zealand white as breeders for meat rabbit stock, and Madison managed to talk him into a a chocolate Dutch as a pet. The girls named her Chocolate Fudge.

The guinea are 2 weeks old today. They are still so flighty. We're getting plans together to make an addition to the coop so they can have their own wing. We're also adding 4 young turkeys on Wednesday. The turkeys are a heritage breed so they will forage, mate and walk like turkeys are supposed to - unlike the commercial breeds you find at the supermarket. We are definitely planning to eat these come Thanksgiving-- as Chuck does all the processing. The chickens are 13 weeks old today- eggs are expected in about 3 more weeks. Hooray!

All the other critters are doing well also. Madison and Willow have been helping out with the chores since school is out and they get to stay up later. They've been a big help picking blueberries, blackberries and planting sweet potatoes this week. BeepBeep is teaching them the correct hoeing technique and we haven't lost a plant to them yet!

Sometimes It's Tough

Sweetie Pie's litter of kits was textbook. She bred easily, nested on schedule, delivered easily and has been a great mom. All her kits were a good size at birth and they're all thriving now. On the other side of the coin is Sapphire's saga...

Sapphire was much harder to get pregnant than Sweetie, but we were pretty sure there was success. As planned and just like with Sweetie the nest box was put in a few days before we thought she was due. The few days passed and no kits, no nesting, no bib hair pulling. Then all of a sudden Monday afternoon there was 1 kit in the bottom of the cage. According to protocol, we placed it in the nest box. The next morning , it had been rooted out of the nest box AND out of the cage. Now knowing this was intentional, I put the kit in with Sweetie. She seemed to let it nurse but we lost him Tuesday afternoon anyway.

During the frequent checks on Sweetie Tuesday, to see if she was accepting the new baby, we discovered an additional kit with Sapphire. So about 20 hours had passed- strange indeed. This one was in the nest box for a bit, but eventually wound up on the ground Tuesday evening, and there was another kit born. I'd already buried the first, so I took the 2 that were left, tried to get them to drink milk replacer and then put them both in with Sweetie.

Sweetie is still fine with this arrangement. It's hard to tell if they're getting nursed since rabbits nurse only once a day and are very secretive about it, but they were both alive and curled up with the older babies at the morning check. Sapphire then had 3 more babies, one stillborn. Now though, she's nesting, the live babies are all tucked safely in the nest of hair and straw just as they should be. I took the stillborn and buried it, checked back in after lunch and there's another that's just been born.

Right now (Wednesday evening), that leaves 2 with Sweetie, 3 with Sapphire, and 2 that didn't make it. Hopefully after 48 hours of delivering babies, Sapphire can focus on the ones she has and with Sweetie's help we'll have 5 from Sapphires litter- fingers crossed and all that.

If all goes well, they'll look like these cuties in a couple of weeks!

Busy Weekend on the Farm

We got a lot accomplished this weekend around the farm. The does have been rehoused in a larger barn- they finally outgrew their little dog house. We also got them some field fencing panels to use as temporary fencing so they could browse down other areas of the farm. It's still a work in progress and like Hemingway said "the first draft of anything is shit."  In addition, we tended to some general maintenance - cleaned out the gutters, divided and transplanted liriope plants, mowed and so on.  

In other news, the guinea keets are here. There are 30 of them. They all made it through shipping and are doing well. I never thought it possible but they are more meager witted than the chickens.  The baby bunnies are growing so fast! No losses there either and they will be 2 weeks old on Tuesday. We have 8 of them- 2 white (one with grey points), and the rest varying shades of browns with grey points. The browns may lighten up into fawns- we'll see. A few of them have their eyes open, and a couple have managed to squiggle themselves out if the nest box.  Here they are sleeping in their jumbled pile...

It's here!

Well,  this is my spinning wheel. It's a used Ashford Traveler that I found on Ebay all the way from New Zealand. I have completed my beginner spinning class, have my bunnies, and my wheel- so I guess now it's time to make some yarn!