Taking the Good with the Bad: Late Winter on the Farm

Saturday was the first rain-free day we've had in a while here. It seems like it has been windstorms and Pineapple Express-born heavy rains in our little neck of the woods all Fall and Winter. No severe cold this year and no snow to speak of, just endless wet.

It puts a strain on us, our garden and our critters. Trying to keep bedding clean and dry is a battle without end. Making sure that our beehives are draft-free and cozy for our little honeys is something we fret over, especially when the winds pick up.

So it seemed like a good omen - actually, a bit of a surprise - when Bill went up the hill to take a look-see at our three hives. The temperatures are still just a tad low to actually open the hives up and check things thoroughly, but observing your girls' activities can still tell you a lot about the health of the hive. Bill saw comings and goings at all three hives, a promising sign of life. Better yet, he saw bees coming in with pollen on two of the three hives, which is indicative of a happy hive, as pollen is what is fed to the "brood", infant bees.

We were pretty dumbfounded to have all three hives seemingly healthy and active, especially after one of them had the roof blown clean off their hive during one of the larger windstorms we've had this season.

Alas, if the bees' good disposition was our Yin, the sadness that awaited us in Goatlandia was the Yang.

After greeting and giving good head scratches to my goat gang, I went in search of Blue, who usually heads up the treat shakedown/scratch-fest. I found her in the goat house, looking very much like she was asleep. Our strong, sweet, sassy, irrepressibly-maternal little girl Blue, left us on an unseasonably sunny Valentines Day.

Blue was 14 years old, though we'd only had her for her last 4 years. She came to us with her little tiny buckling, Blackjack. He would be the last baby for our Bluey, and as though she knew that she'd reached the end of her new-mothering journey, she coddled and protected that little stinker to the point of spoiling him rotten. She was small but fierce.

Blue & her little man, Blackjack, chowing down.

In the years following, Blue became Auntie Blue, the maiden aunt/foster mom to many of our kids. If a doe had quads and couldn't keep up - the kids nursed Blue. If a Mama rejected/neglected a baby, Blue took them in. Even when her infant charges were nearly taller than she herself was, she nursed them when she could, fought for them to get their fair share at the feeder, napped with them in pools of warm Spring sunlight and slept close to them in the goathouse at night.

Bluey, in all her chunky glory :)

Waiting (uncharacteristically!) patiently for head scratches from her Papa

It hurts - literally hurts - to think that I'll never hear her insistent, distinctly unladylike "EH-EH-EH-EH-EHHH!" and see her rotund little form come trotting around the corner of the goathouse, in hot pursuit of snacks and head scratches. Her sassy little spark has gone, and I miss her.

So long, sweet girl.

Update: Annabel

As you know if you've been reading this blog long, we recently lost a hen who was very dear to us, sweet Miss Annabel.

She took ill rather suddenly, and over the course of the next four days, continued to steadily decline and was in such obvious discomfort that we felt it necessary to take her to the vet. Setting aside financial and logical issues (we had pretty much accepted that she could not, at this point, be saved), we took her to the one critter clinic in town that even sees chickens, South Bay Veterinary Hospital.

I can't say enough about how sweet they were to us and our chickie.

After making the difficult decision to let Anna pass away in comfort, we discussed what her illness might mean for the rest of our flock. The doctor recommended having Anna undergo a necropsy.

Within a few days, we heard the initial findings - it appeared that whatever illness or disease had killed her had done so via her kidneys and liver, both of which looked abnormal. Today we received the final word on the pathology studies, Annie appears to have had either chronic kidney disease or kidney cancer, which in turn spread to/effected her liver. It sounds like toward the end that she was experiencing multiple organ failure.

It's terrible to think about how much pain Anna may have been in, for God knows how long, before we finally noticed that she was not herself. But at the same time, knowing what we do now, it is also comforting and somewhat reassuring to know that we could not have done anything more to save her, and that what took her from us was not something that the rest of our flock was in danger of also catching.

So, there you have it. Answers that both trouble and comfort us at the same time. We were so lucky to have such a beautiful and sweet girl as long as we did.

Fly home, sweet Annie. xo

27 minus 1

Our final chick count was 27 hatched, 26 of whom have survived. Our little one that passed was born with congenital deformities of his legs and feet, and was unable to walk or stand much, and essentially just failed to thrive. I guess that it's a blessing, really, but I always feel bad losing a critter, even if it is for the best in the end.

On the bright side, I got my naked neck frizzle! We have at least one little Turken chickie who is starting to grow some whirly wing feathers. Happy. :)

We discovered my little dream baby when Scarlet and I were undertaking "butt patrol". Pics of the baby (not butt patrol!) are forthcoming. Right now the poor little monkey is rocking back and forth in a corner, actively trying to repress the memories of his first aggressive bum-cleaning.

The Wheel in the Bog Keeps on Turnin'

We lost two more roos this past week. Uhg! And we had house guests at the time who wanted to know, (perhaps interpreting our seasoned acceptance of a farm animals untimely deaths as a something like callousness toward loss?), how often does a critter kick the bucket around here?

Too often.

We're learning as we go, and even though we try our darndest to give our critters the longest, happiest lives possible, shit happens. Like our surprise litter of bunnies, born in January. Had we any idea that Goldie was in fact a boy and had impregnated Cinderella, we could have moved them inside or at least better prepared the hutch for the babies' coming. But we didn't and we couldn't, so we lost them.

And now it's the chickens that we're struggling with. Our last Polish rooster just up and died, as did Queenie the Turken, who turned out to be a roo, but didn't live long enough to receive his name change. :( We're not sure what's happening. We've just started letting them out in the run daily, and we've recently switched them up from crumbles to pellets. Is it too much change too soon? Who knows.

To answer our guests' question, we did a hasty, grim count of our critters that have passed on since we established this little farm in August. I believe we arrived at 29 souls. Sheez! That's more animals than we had altogether when we moved to this place.
Most of that number are chickens, including the evil roos that did not die naturally, but ended up being someone else's dinner. Only one was a goat, and she was stillborn, though she looked tiny but perfect to my biased eye.

All of the passings have been met with sadness, but I think that over time I've become somewhat tempered to the gutting despair of a loss by the recurring guilt and shock of it. You can't have a stay-in-your-pj's-and-cry day every time a chick doesn't make it. The kids don't tend to take it as bad as they used to, but every once in a while a "special" animal dies and they lose it a little. I hope that they are never hardened or take lightly the passing of a life, but I do hope that their little spirits aren't dented by this life too much either.

Murder by Agua - A Poultry Tragedy

This morning while tending to the baby chicks, I noted the absence of Peanut, our little Silver-Spangled Hamburg hen. Our only Silver Spangled Hamburg hen. Well I found her, and as I'm sure you've guessed, the outcome was not good.

Poor sweet little Peanut was under the waterer. Under it. A one-gallon waterer, which, when full, weighs in the neighborhood of 8 pounds, versus an 8-ounce chicken. :(

There is no point in assigning blame for the tragedy. We all make mistakes and even though this was a serious one, what can be gained by from knowing the dirty details of Peanut's demise?

So I'm going to tell the kiddos that Peanut passed away, and leave it at that for now. I picked up a few Barred Rock chicks to replace Peanut & Mrs. Floopy, which will hopefully give the girls something to focus on besides the all too short life of dear Peanut.

At the end of this year, when I tally up our gains and losses, monetary and animal, well... it's going to be a rough day.

What's Happenin' - 3/8/11

Forgive me if I ramble a bit here and jump topics. I am both sleep deprived and massively over-caffeinated which results in herky-jerky thinking. I've also been wiping chicken butts all morning which is maybe not the finest way to start your day. Anyway, I'm a goofy, babbling dork and I know it. :p

The new chicks arrived yesterday, and all but one survived the journey and transition. We lost a little silver-laced Polish pullet, Mrs. Floopy, due to a bad case of pasted butt which rendered her too weak to stand, eat or drink. I kept her close to my skin and tried to feed her sugar water, drop by drop, but she didn't seem to have the knack of swallowing. Poor baby. The hatchery was kind enough to refund me for her, but now we're down to just one silver laced Polish, darn it, and I really wanted a pair.

A few of the other babies' tushies got a bit pasted overnight, but I gave them my standard treatment of a warm water wash-up, followed by a drop of olive oil rubbed into the feathers around the bum-bum to help prevent further sticking or build up. Oh the glamor! ;)

We've made some adjustments recently with the kids and their critter patrol duties. Up until a week ago, I'd had them doing critter chores both morning and night. Nothing major, just feeding and watering everybody and turning the chickens out. But I started to notice an increase in the amount of stress in the girls, building and occasionally interfering with school and sleep, so I relieved them both of critter patrol duties for a week and took them on myself. I lost 5 pounds doing what they used to do every day, so I know that I made the right call for them and for me. We're trying to strike a delicate balance between home life, school, extra curricular activities and educational opportunities/teachable moments without over scheduling them and slurping up all of their free time. It's a struggle, but we're working through it. Anyway, the girls have resumed their evening critter patrols, which is a significantly lighter duty than morning patrols, and does not have the added stress of trying to get everything done in time to catch the bus. So far so good. Unfortunately for me and my gigantic lazy-streak, this also means that I am on morning critter patrol for the foreseeable future. Have I ever mentioned how much of a morning person I am not? ;)

The hens are enjoying the increase in sunlight, filtered through the grey clouds though it be, and giving us about 2 eggs per day now. Gracie has yet to lay at all. I hope she steps up soon because we have lots of folks who'd like to buy our eggs and can't meet the demand. Hopefully our babies will be laying by the end of summer/beginning of fall and we'll be overwhelmed with eggs.

The goats are all looking pretty good, except for young Mr. Blackjack. He's got a very snotty nose, which I have not seen before, so I'll need to scour my books and the interwebs to see what it is he might have, and go about treating him for it. I had really wanted our farm and all of its critters to be 100% organic, antibiotic free, etc., etc., but when this baby, or any of my other critters need intervention to live a happy and whole life, who am I to deny them that? I wouldn't hesitate to give my children antibiotics if I knew they needed it. It pretty much follows my philosophy about vaccinations. I don't love the idea of shooting mostly dead bacteria/viruses and lord knows what kind of chemicals into my little ones, but having seen some suffer and die from something horrific and preventable, like Bird Pox, I begrudgingly give in and vaccinate everybody.

That being said, I am very much against the non-organic standard procedure of feeding or otherwise administering antibiotics, hormones and stimulants routinely. It's a very short-sighted "solution" that will eventually have some pretty dire results for the critters that are being treated (and who's bugs are building immunity against one antibiotic after another) and for the people consuming those animals.

I'm going to do the best that I can by the animals and humans that are in my care. I'll keep on feeding them the best food that I can find, tend to their illness and injuries, provide them with a safe place to lay their heads and stay warm, and shower them with love and snuggles and hope for the best. I feel the weight of each of these lives on my back, but I also feel a joyfulness and depth of love in excess of anything else I have ever known. As much as I whine and as hard as this life we've chosen can be, I am thankful for it every day.

The Saga of the Boggy Hollow Bunnies

This week has been slightly rabbit-centric.

First, the bad news. We lost a baby bun-bun two days ago due to what looked like a prolapsed colon/rectum. By the time we noticed her lethargy and saw the protrusion, she was already extremely weak. She passed away within an hour.

In happier news, the rest of the baby bunnies are looking really good. They all had opened their eyes and started hopping about by the 23rd, which means that they were probably born on the 7th of February, even though they weren't discovered until the 11th. This litter started out at 7 and is now six, only one of which we're probably keeping. Scarlet immediately staked out one of the albino babies and named it - uhg - "Milky-Silky Jackson". We've agreed that her middle name/nickname is Snowdrop, since I refuse to call the poor thing such a humiliatingly cheesy name as Milky-Silky. Not to mention that it makes her sound like a disreputable character from Starsky & Hutch.

Last night after dinner we brought in all of the bunzos into the house and made them an impromptu hutch out of one of the goat kennels (yes, we have goat kennels) and set them up in the dining room. Everybody seemed very contented by their new surroundings, some, maybe a little too comfortable, as it seemed to be a bunny honeymoon going on in there. Prince Charming must have known what the next day would bring.

Bright and early this morning, PC went to the vet to be neutered. He was as calm as can be, calmer than me in fact, when the vet tech told us that the odds of Princey not making it through the surgery were substantial enough for us to pause and possibly rethink going through with the procedure. Apparently "prey animals", like rabbits are prone to shock. But keeping him seperate from his Cinderella for the rest of his life didn't seem like a viable option either, so with frazzled nerves, we consented to the operation.

When we got a call from the vet this afternoon, we were all strung as tight as piano wire. But we needn't have worried, PC came through the surgery just fine and is now back at home resting comfortably. The girls have been fawning over him and bringing him his babies and his lady-friend over to visit him one-by-one, so that everybody knows that everybody is ok. He's such a good Papa! The babies snuggled right up to him and one even shared his nibble of lettuce.

With all of the frisky bunny action last night, (I can't mentally handle the image that might be the sort of thing that goes on every night, so indulge me here) I suspect that we will have one last batch of babies in another 4 weeks or so. The first 6 won't be ready to leave Mama bunny until they are fully weaned at 8 weeks old, so if she has another litter, it's going to be bunzo madness around here.

Keep in mind that our current six will be ready to be re-homed right around Easter, folks. Call me! ;)

My Maternity Ward Runneth Over

Our girl, Fritzen, finally had her babies today. It was rather anti-climactic when compared to Chardy's labor and delivery, as I just missed the big event and though we were expecting something like half a dozen little babies to come flying out of her, Fritzen had just four.

I found them when I brought down their afternoon snack. I heard lots of baby bleating and squinted against the drizzle to make out the shape of a teeny-tiny black and white baby against the dark outline of Fritzen. By golly, she'd gone and done it all alone.

In total she delivered four kids, three does and a buckling, but one tiny black doe was stillborn. I picked her up from the straw to see if there was anything at all to be done for her, but there wasn't.

The other three babies were fairly perky, though on the small side. The itty-bittiest one has been named Oreo


Oreo, a doeling, less than an hour old!


To give you some sense of how teeny these babies are, the hulking beast at the green bucket is 9 week old Blackjack. Left to right - Blackjack, Buckley, Oreo and Fritzen, peeking in.

Oreo is quite thin and extremely screamy when you pick her up. I shot two squirts of goat drench down her throat to perk her up a little, and it seems to have worked, though I'm still worried for her. I'm not sure I'll rest easy tonight.

The other babies are also both small, but measurably more robust than Oreo. They are Valentine, a doeling, and Buckley, a buckling. They are nearly identical, with the main difference being that Buckley has a bigger white top knot than his sister. Unless they're right next to each other, I can't tell who's who!


Fritzen checking our her newborns, Valentine in the foreground, and Buckley just behind.

These guys got some goat drench and supplemental colostrum too, but seemed pretty perky of their own accord. I iodine-dipped everybody's umbilical cords, brought out the warming blanket, and brought all of the Mamas lots of extra grain, apples and hay. I'm hoping that this will tide everyone safely over 'til morning.

I can't believe this Boggy Hollow baby boom! Did I mention that we also had another litter of baby bunnies born this weekend? We've had 13 healthy babies born in just the past four days. Thankfully, unless Blackjack or Prince Charming sneak one by on us, we shouldn't have anymore babies until Gertie delivers in May, which is fine by me, because right now I feel like I'm hanging on by my fingernails. This old gal has had enough excitement for one week. Now the countdown to milking time is on! :)


Fritzen, plus all six babies, Valentine, Blackjack, Buckley, Oreo, and heaped in the corner Barley & Hop.

Can't anything go our way?

This damn cold front that's come through took our poor baby bunnies in the night. And of course, poor Scarlet had to be the one to find them.

I feel responsible for not bringing them inside, but everything we read said that under no circumstances should we mess with/touch/move the babies, or Mama bunny would likely kill or abandon them. So we gave them extra bedding material and lots of extra food, and prayed that it would be enough to see them all through safely. It wasn't.

We will bury our sweet babies later today under the same tree as Eglantine, George & Charlotte.

I know that loss is an expected part of farm life, but it feels like with so many losses, that the world is just against us.

Dead Birds Walkin'

The last of our rotten roos have flown the coop today. They took an early morning ride with Bill to the same place that their brothers went, to a very grateful fellow who was glad to have them for his table. I am especially sad to see Mr. Jeffries go, as he was my little honey, but that jolt of testosterone that came at maturity turned him into a great big meanie, who, along with his brothers, all of a sudden simply lived to harass our hennies. Sorry, my boy, this here farm is partial to the women-folk and that sort of shenanigan doesn't fly.

The parting of these boys means that the last of the bantams that we hatched out in the incubator last spring are all gone, and we didn't get an egg from or get to eat a single one of them ourselves. What a bust that little trial turned out to be.

If you'll forgive a little gallows humor in my moment of reflection, let us review the trials, tribulations and eventual fates of the bantam eggs, formerly known as the dirty dozen.

May 2010- 9 out of 12 eggs hatch within 24 hours after having been fawned over and candled daily for three weeks. A few of the babies had early difficulties, trouble pipping, pasted vent, etc., but all pulled through.

July 2010- Near catastrophe as the brooder's heat lamp gets knocked into the brooder and the pine litter very nearly catches fire, filling the garage with smoke and giving us a good scare.

Multiple foiled escape attempts.

August 2010- The big move. All critters are initially traumatized.

October 2010- Our first baby is lost. Eglantine is hit by a car. The terror twins, Scout and Harold are sent to "freezer camp".

November 2010- Molly disappears one day, during the day. We suspect the neighbor's cat after a pile of feathers are found under the rhododendrons.

December 2010- Bird pox hits us just as the remaining five "babies" are reaching sexual maturity. We're down to one hen and four roosters at this point. Sky the rooster and Charlotte, our last bantam hen, die of the pox. The other three boys are isolated from the laying flock until it is clear that they are healthy.

After being cut loose from quarantine, the boys go completely nuts and start pestering/chasing/injuring our hens non-stop. WAY beyond boys will be boys, more like a hostile takeover. A coop coup, if you will.

Back into separate housing the boys go until today, when they went on their final journey.

What a hot mess this whole experience has been. Wasted time, wasted effort and plenty of wasted money.

Here's a look at the ugly financial aspects of this experiment -

Incubator set up - $100
Dozen Fertile eggs - $5
Brooder pen, lights, bedding, etc. - $60
Food for 6 months- ???
Vet bill for Sky (including having him put to sleep)- $70
Grave stone for Eglantine, our first ever critter to die- $30
Horrifying Total =$265+ for jack squat in terms of food for us.

Besides the monetary dings, we've also had the unfortunate experience of having one of our chickens die practically every way imaginable short of the electric chair - car "accident", predator attack, pox, lethal injection and "guillotine" (if ya know what I mean).

We are by no means desensitized to the tragedy, but seriously, if you can't find something funny somewhere in this mess, then you'll just end up kicking yourself to death over the ridiculous waste of time and money that this whole project was. I know I've learned from it, but still. Mostly I've learned about what NOT to do. Don't mix bantams and standard breeds, don't forgo vaccinations, don't bother with roosters unless they are angels because they're more trouble than they're worth, etcetera, etcetera. Anyway, this chapter is now closed and we're down to six hens that I will be guarding with my life from now on.

I knew that the life of a farm girl wasn't an easy one, but some days it can feel like fighting the tide just isn't worth it. Wild animals, strangers and farm supply stores are all benefiting from my grow-your-own approach, alas I am still buying my eggs and meat from other farmers. I'm going to have to buckle down and turn this mess around come Spring, otherwise I'm going to lose my marbles.

Mother &%$#@&* Raccoons!

The bastards got poor Georgie. :(

We found a pile of feathers out on the edge of the bog with some raccoon scat nearby. Bill has just set the humane traps out, three of them. I hope that we've caught our perp by tomorrow morning so that we can all sleep a little better tomorrow night.

I am so bummed about losing George. He was as sweet as can be and so loyal to his Gracie. We are consoled knowing that George no doubt laid down his life protecting his girl, as a good rooster should. I only wish that if we had to lose him, that we could have bred him first, since he was so pretty and had such a sweet temperament.

Rest in Peace, sweet Georgie. Your girls are locked up extra tight tonight and Daddy's got blood in his eye for that raccoon. You will be avenged!

The Hardest Part...

...is saying goodbye. We lost our first chicken today. In fact, it was the first loss of a pet that my children have ever suffered. Today we had to bury our sweet Eglantine.



Eglantine was originally named "Rocky", as she was the first egg to wiggle, and in her struggles to pip, moved around the incubator a great deal, bumping and thumping her siblings along the way. I actually had to help her hatch, as some membrane had dried on her from her prolonged, weak efforts at pipping her shell open. I have a really hard time believing that that was just 5 months ago. It feels like we've had these "babies" forever.

Eggy somehow found her way out into the road and was struck. The most upsetting part of which was that whomever did it did not bother to stop and tell us, but left her there for Scarlet and I to happen upon while going to get the mail. No kid should ever have to see their beloved animal like that. I can still hear my poor girl's wail.

While I took Scarlet inside to break the news to Olivia, Papa buried our chickie girl under the biggest Alder tree that he could find in the back pasture. I told the girls that that means that Eggy's body is a part of our farm forever now, and that she will, in a way, grow with the tree. But most importantly, that her lively little spirit has gone to heaven to frolic with Grammy's dog, Shadow, and to eat endless corn and red worms.

We're all still having a little trouble getting past the sudden trauma of her passing, but the goats coming tomorrow has helped brighten an otherwise very dark day. Please keep my kiddos in your thoughts, their hearts are saddened and strained as they struggle to learn and accept the rules of life and death. I could pray that this would be the last such traumatic loss that we'd suffer, but accepting the realities of life on a farm means accepting the brutality of sudden loss. I just wish that I could save my girls from the pain of it.