Sping Baby Update

With all the troubles on the farm this spring, I just wanted to update everyone on all the wonderful successes!

Chicory, the little premature goatling born to Rabbit whose triplet siblings were stillborn, is a complete toot. It took him over a week to assure us he was going to live. I guess that makes sense - that would have been his original due date, so his development must have finally caught up with the fact that he was outside instead of inside momma. He is a lean little scraper and loves to torment all the other goatlings. When feeding time comes, he is always willing to throw you for a loop. He either sprints right over and downs his milk without needing help...or he decides that a little game of chase is what's called for before having a civilized meal. You just never know with that guy.

Tiger Lily, our bow legged munchkin from Shelli, has made leaps and bounds of improvement. It was quite nerve wracking when her contracted tendons began to stretch, but her muscles weren't yet strong enough to hold her up. It appeared she was getting worse for a number of days. And then...she was just simply better. Woke up one morning and you could no longer pick her out of the crowd by her stance! She still has a funny little gait and tends to hop like a bunny when she wants to move somewhere quickly, but she is getting better and stronger every day. Whew.

Dandelion, the HUGE boy from Maxie who was passing blood on the second day of his life, is simply still a beast. He picked up on the bottle feedings faster than any of the other goats and has just not skipped a beat since his miraculous recovery. You really would never know anything had ever been wrong with him!

We are still brooding some 60 baby poultry. After the initial heavy losses, we have kept the others healthy and strong. We do have one chick that is a bit wobbly on the legs but I think she'll be fine, or perhaps we are just going to have a replacement yard chicken who spends her time around the house instead of foraging far and wide with the flock. I'm sure we won't mind that! And the ducklings are HUGE. I can't believe how fast they grow.

But the young poultry has once again suffered the consequences of tenacious raccoons. The ducks have a fully wire enclosed pen to spend the night, safe from predators...or so we thought. But apparently a raccoon was able to sneak up on them and grabbed one through the wire before she woke up and was able to run. But we quickly solved the problem by putting a layer of tiny mesh around the bottom 2 feet of the enclosure so no naughty hands can be thrust through the openings. I hate lessons like that. But the coons had the taste of a fresh meal so they have probably been back checking the defenses each night. All was safe for a few days. Then they discovered that they could dig under the chick brooder house - which we thought would be ok since the entire floor is wire mesh with several inches of dirt over it. But the coon kept digging until all the dirt from the floor fell through. And then must have just waited until a hapless chick or two wandered too close and pulled them through the wire. ARG! More security has been added and hopefully we've got the place locked down now!

And of course Ace and Mac, the spring lambs, are doing great. They have grown enormously but have unfortunately picked up more of their mother's traits than their uncle Linden's. They are skittish and we plan on working on that in the weeks to come. I still want to milk the sheep, so I will be giving the little boys a bottle every once in awhile. That's what made Linden the friendliest sheep on the block!

We still have more babies to come. Savannah and Elise are due this weekend. They are both absurdly huge and I fear they are going to have triplets! Hopefully they just have big twins, or at least all the triplets have had plenty of room to grow in there. And Miranda, our youngest bred doe, is due in May. And then the spring baby season will finally be over!

Wee wittle baby birdies

Well, the spring babies are really rolling in. Last week we received several shipments of poultry. It's amazing that you can pick up a box of peeping babies at the post office having arrived from cross country. Unfortunately, things sometimes don't work out so well and the chicks don't make it for one reason or another. We've never seen as many casualties as we did this year, but we have plenty of babies to take care of and have found a local feed store to make up for our losses.

We have about 30 chicks of various breeds. These will be providing us with a good number of eggs come the latter part of summer. We've got breeds that lay all sorts of eggs - from blue to white to deep chocolate brown! Mixed in with the chicks right now are 6 keets - that's baby guineas. Have you ever seen a guinea? Let me tell you, they are not the prettiest critters around. But keets sure are cute - they have ugly duckling syndrome in reverse!

(one of the keets is the stripey headed baby on the left of the photo)


And a first for the farm...DUCKLINGS! Oh my gosh, they are seriously the cutest little mess makers I've seen. Dale convinced us to get Khaki Campbells - they are supposed to be superb egg layers. I have always been in love with Indian runners - they 'waddle' almost completely upright and always look like they are in an absurd hurry. So we got a few of those too.



And if you've never had a duck egg...well, you might actually be disappointed. Dale was kind enough to give us some eggs to try from the Campbells he's raised at his parent's house. With some trepidation, I tried my first duck egg - just fried with a little salt so that I could discern any "grossness". Well, turns out, they taste almost exactly like chicken eggs! Maybe a teensy bit richer and creamier. So be sure to look for them amongst the farm products late this summer - they certainly are bigger than chicken eggs which is just an excuse to have more for breakfast!