Busy Season Begins

Things are definitely shifting into high gear here at Lazy Danes. Here's what been happening...

In crops, everything continues to grow and sprout as planned. Carrots were thinned yesterday and peppers and tomatoes planted. Several of the strawberry plants have blooms and the snow peas are have really taken off. We've had to water quite a bit, which after the super wet winter I won't complain, and it's really convenient to have the water coming from the shed.

Moving on to livestock, there have been lots of changes! We'll start with last weekends addition of Dinky the Donkey. Dinky is a miniature donkey and will get between 36-38" tall. He is 7 months old. We got Dinky mostly to be a friend for Roscoe, but also for some guardian work and I love the braying. He's very sweet with us and the girls and gets along well with Roscoe.

Version 1.o of the donkey/buck fence did not keep in said goat. Back to the drawing board on that one. Dinky is content to stay in his enclosure, but Roscoe has to stick it out in the cattle fencing until I can get a stronger box and run a higher wire. They still hang out together through the fence. And since it's where 3 different lots come together, even the dogs have been enjoying the company of Dinky.

In other goat news, Niblet, Scarlet's buckling, has gone to live with a very nice family that wants pet goats. The best possible outcome for little dairy bucklings. Merryweather's little buckling, Polliwog, is doing very well, and lucky for him the same family is planning to get him when he gets old enough. So he and his half brother will grow up to be pets together. For now he's enjoying being the only goat and not bullied by the slightly older Niblet. Siblings!

Milking is going very well. Now that Scarlet isn't feeding Niblet, she is giving well over a quart each milking. MerryWeather is producing as expected. Her teats aren't lengthening as fast as Scarlet's did so she's much more difficult to milk- especially without spraying it all over the place. Chuck tried out the cream separator over the weekend with out much luck. It will take some fine tuning to get it to the right thickness. We'll keep working on that.

Happy chickens ready for night-night. Somebody isn't putting their eggs in the nest boxes so we'll to watch them that they don't go broody and disappear again. The baby chickens are 11 weeks old and starting to look more like a meal. The keepers should start laying in 6 weeks or so.

In rabbit news, I've had to admit failure on the Angora front. Of all the new things we've been doing, harvesting Angora wool was my least favorite. It gets everywhere, so outside was the only good option, which means the weather had to cooperate. Then I had to time it right before a shower because it goes up your nose and all over your clothes. Anyway, after a lot of thought and plenty of guilt we sold our breeders and processed the others.

Instead of Angoras, the hutches have been turned over to a breeding set of Silver Fox Rabbits. Chuck has been wanting more meat rabbits and to keep with the heritage versus commercial theme were researched and found a lady near Asheville that breeds them. The Silver Fox is critically endangered according to the ALBC, with only 200 registered in the USA. The does are a little young still but we will start our own breeding program in the next couple of months.

Chuck named them so here we have pictures of Isaac, Foxy and Cleopatra.

Now for the ducks, all is well. Rascal had a sore foot last week and wasn't getting around so well. Waterfowl have really weak legs and she has been in and out of the pond rather exuberantly. After a few days of rest in her pen she's back to her old self. Here she is peeking around the columbine.

Cheese and Quackers are getting taller, but still aren't all feathered in. They have about a week left in the brooder, then it'll be on to a mini pen next to Rascal.

I'm sure I've missed something on this go 'round and there's certainly more happening all the time.

Welcome Polliwog!

Polliwog was born 4/14/10, at about 5:00pm. He and his mom, MerryWeather are both doing great!

MerryWeather, the new mom

Polliwog has blue eyes like his daddy, Roscoe.

Sleepy baby. Here he's about an hour old.

More farm news to come soon!

Disbudding Niblet

Niblet and his mom, Scarlet

Whew! Glad that's over. Today was the day we sucked it up and disbudded Niblet. For those new to the goat lingo, disbudding is when you cauterized the horn so that it will not grow. Why do this, you ask? Because I don't want me, my children, my dogs or my other goats gored, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Plus,they can tangle themselves in fences, hay mangers etc, and tear a horn later which is a bloody mess. There's the why, here's the how.

Our first choice was to have a vet do this for us. Her response was - "everyone does it themselves so I don't even have the equipment for it." Eek! Are we goat farmers or not? We had already gotten the equipment so it was up to us. I did get an Rx for banamine from the vet to help take the edge off the pain. Yay drugs! I also picked up the tetanus antitoxin just to be safe. Time to disbud.

The time came, I gave Niblet his meds- he was a trooper. Then, shaved down his fur around the horn nubs while we waited for the banamine to kick in. After about 45 minutes he was feeling very loopy. Chuck heated up the iron while I got into position holding Niblet. He was not happy about being restrained and hollered for his Mommy pretty quick. Then he REALLY hollered when Chuck applied the iron, cauterized horn one, reheat iron, cauterized horn two. A touch up to make sure it's done, then take Niblet back to mom for some soothing milk.

Here he is back in the paddock an hour and a half later. He's recovering fine, hanging out with his mom and aunt Merry. He was even head-butting Merry a bit when I checked on him last. You can see the burnt ring around his little nubs, and a touch of blood. These will scab up and heal, then the fur will grow back.

So glad that's over with. Next up for Niblet is castration, and I think we're actually going to keep him as here as a friend for Roscoe now that he needs to be separate from the does. Roscoe is definitely not happy being by himself. We were pondering getting him a donkey as a companion/guardian but I think Niblet will be a much better friend. Plus, we don't have a lot of pasture available for a grazing animal. A donkey may still be in our future, but not soon.

In fowl news, Cackle Hatchery finally gave us a ship date for our next lot of birds. We have 5 Blue Slate turkeys, 5 Ancona ducks and 12 Plymouth Rock chickens on the way the week of May 10th. Yippee! I also ordered a killing cone to aid Chuck in all the processing he has coming up.

The Cayuga ducks are doing well. They are 2 weeks old today and only need to be in the brooder another 2 weeks. I still can't tell the sexes yet. I guess I really should choose sex-linked breeds so I can tell immediately. Oh, well.

I leave you with pictures of the Cayugas on Easter. Cute, cute cute!

More Baby Pictures

Well, one week in and the milking is going very well. I'm able to get about 24 oz at each milking before Scarlet gets done with her grain and therefore done with standing still. The hobble was back ordered so I guess other people are having the same problem. The little guy is growing fast, a week old today. He comes out in the paddock with his mom some now and has been sampling the hay and grain.

Cheese and Quackers are getting bigger, too. They're just over a week old. Today they got to come outside for some playtime. I was thinking they might explore more but they decided to stay close- mostly just sitting on my feet or in my lap.

And here are the chickens in their playpen. I'm hesitant to allow them free range with the hawk we have, it actually got a guinea a couple weeks ago. They're 9 weeks old this weekend, and still have some growing to do before they're dinner.

The veggies in the raised beds are doing well still and we've had a load of pea gravel delivered to spread around them and the milking shed. It should look nice after many, many, many wheelbarrow loads.