Don't Mind Me

If you're wondering how long it takes for any furry animal to learn that a special cupboard holds treats, it's less than 24 hours. I keep all the treats for the goats, donkeys and cow locked away in a cabinet none of them can get into - well Fiona could if she rammed it, but she won't. Anyhow, all I have to do to get everyone ready for bed is to open that cupboard. All the hooves start rumbling into the barn and all the chickens run out scared they'll be trampled on. 

First, Fiona gets her cattle cubes. This isn't really a treat as she needs that as extra feed, but the donkeys cannot get it, so I hand feed it to Fiona. She even allowed me to pet her some while I fed her. You'll notice from the pics, others were thinking they were missing out during this time. 

Once all the animals were either inside or outside the barn determined by their assigned sleeping places, we closed the gate and I went into the goats stall to give them their treats. I sat down on my chair and soon, I had eight mouths begging for goat treats. I only have five goats. Yep, Fiona and the donkeys came into the stall as well. Oh boy!

It took a bit of prodding, but soon everyone got all their designated treats in all their designated places. I got lots of love and petting time. I'm so happy! 

PS Don't mind me in the pic please. It's hot and the benefit of farm life is not caring how you look!

Spectacular Day!

We spent the cooler hours of the morning just hanging out in the barn letting all the new girls get used to us. Fancy (formerly known as Tulsa), is the biggest sweetheart and loves attention. Patches (formerly Rosebud) is a bit more shy and while she likes to be petted, she's more fond of snuggling Fancy. Fiona loves looking at her beautiful reflection and being told how pretty she is. All my girls are beautiful and I love them so much. 

The biggest news of the day, there is not a furry animal we have that will not eat out of my hand! Fiona was the last holdout, but tonight she finally relented for not only myself, but for Rob. She sure loves those apple treats! 

Welcome Home Fiona & Friends

Through months of looking and dreaming, Rob let me get Fiona, Rosebud and Tulsa. Yes, he let me. These are not for the frugal. Today, they came home to us!

First, meet Fiona. She's a Scottish Highland yearling and an absolute doll. I fell in love with her instantly. She's a little skittish, but I'm sure she'll warm up to me soon. 

Next, is Rosebud. She's a two year old miniature spotted donkey. Apparently, spotted donkeys are highly sought after (which I didn't know), but I was lucky to be chosen as her new mama. She's the most curious of the three, but happily accepts petting and treats. I'm thinking of renaming her Patches from a children's book I remember from my youth that I loved. 

Lastly, Tulsa. She's also a two year old donkey, but considered a micro mini. Just like our little Kenzie dog, Tulsa takes charge and doesn't let her small size matter. She made the other two wait on the food until she had enough. I am not crazy about her name either, but waiting to see her personality more before changing her name. I'm in love!!!

More pics tomorrow once the girls are settled

Rain and Beaus

We finally got rain this week! Two nights in a row, we made it through tumultuous weather with everyone safe and sound. We learned where we have leaks in the roof of the barn and we learned how much mud our pups can track into the RV. I'll take both for the rain any day. 

We've also determined we only have one female quail and four males. We've collected a few quail eggs this week and I'm going to try my hand at incubating them. One little quail egg is not going to provide enough to eat, so we're populating instead. 

For fantastic news, all five of my sweet goats are eating out of my hand now! We've ordered some halters for them, and once they arrive, we'll begin training them to walk on a leash. The more I can teach them, the better it will be for everyone. I love them so much!

Sundae

Milestone Moments

As an animal lover, I enjoy focusing on all their triumphs. Two days ago, we got our first quail egg! Now, I don't know how many females we actually have, but now we know we are least have one. The egg was a little cracked and soft, so we know to give the quails some oyster shell to firm up some. 

Today, I got to take part in S'mores first time eating out of my hand. It's the first thing I teach my girls to do. Cookie Doe is the only one left to learn now, but she's the youngest anyway so that's normal. The second thing I teach them is to accept my petting them. Sundae is a pro at this, and Cocoa and Scotchie tolerate it for now. Soon, I'll start teaching them the third thing: accepting a halter. This will help them learn to be walked; whether to go into the vet's office, to learn new areas of our land, to get their hooves trimmed, etc. I've been fortunate to make a new friend who is well versed in goats and she's a great asset in learning proper training and care. 

Lastly, all the animals are getting the nighttime routine down pretty well. I'm managing four out of five goats coming into their stall without asking and ten out of eleven chickens. One of our baby Plymouth Rocks (probably the one who got in Kenzie's mouth the other day) fights us to go into the aviary nightly. We're hoping she'll learn soon though as she's a tricky one to capture!

Quail egg

Kenzie & The Hen

Each day on the farm, you never know what you're going to get. Our latest adventure, the goats have decided they like the aviary and the chickens like the goats stall. We made a compromise, all the animals have to sleep in their assigned places at night, but they can go wherever they want during the day. One Plymouth Rock decided to test the boundaries yesterday. 

So the chicks aren't full grown yet and currently able to freely go through the gate of the outside pen. This penned area is for the protection of those inside as the dogs and anything else can be outside that gate. That particular bird found herself caught in the mouth of Kenzie, our psychotic Belgian Malinois/Corgi mix. To Kenzie's credit, she only held onto the bird and allowed me to remove her and bring her safely back to the pen. The chicken has a war story to tell all the other chicks now and we're grateful Kenzie didn't hurt or kill the bird. Kenzie is trying desperately to understand life on the farm, but she is much more relaxed playing with Mango in the cool air conditioning of the RV!

Some Progress... Finally

I never know when I'm going to write the blog, so I apologize if it comes in sporadic intervals. This past week was a busy one around the farm which left little time for writing. 

We've managed to get the holding tank for our well done! No more sulfur smell! It took two months and a whole lot of money, but being able to turn on the water without gagging makes it worth it. 

Our house plans have made it to the contractor. Now, we're waiting for him to get all his contractors lined up and then hopefully we'll break ground soon. Some people may enjoy living in an RV full time. I'm not one of those type of people. 

All our animals are doing well. Cookie Doe and S'mores are getting into the hang of things and have integrated with the other girls well. Sundae, Scotchie and Cocoa are fully coming into their individual personalities now which is such a great pleasure to see. 

We're still on an egg a day basis with the chicken our neighbor gave us. Our ten baby chicks should start giving us eggs around Independence Day, but I have a feeling a couple of reds will be sooner than that. They're growing so fast!

I'll close this up so I can do my rain dance. Since we've moved here, we've watched rain fall in every direction around us, but not on us. Maybe today's the day! 

S'mores & Cookie Doe

Last Friday, we drove up to Stephenville to pick up our latest girls, S'mores and Cookie Doe. The former being seven weeks old and the latter at five weeks. We brought them home, introduced them to the others and then had to run a quick errand. 

I should confess there are no quick errands around these parts. Everything takes at least an hour and we were gone for ninety minutes. So much can happen in those ninety minutes. 

When we got back, the dogs went over to a patch of gourds growing near the outside of the barn. There, limp and appearing lifeless was Cookie Doe! Somehow she had found a way out of the barn and pen, and without finding water on the 100 degree day, collapsed. I picked her up, sat her on my lap and while holding her head upright, I did light compressions on her chest. She started breathing! Then, I rushed her to the baby pool to get her all wet and then held her in the windy shade area while Rob got the car. Next, we drove her around to let the air conditioning slowly revive her. Lastly, I coaxed her to finally take water to drink she had been refusing until then. Once she was back to bucking around and hollering, I knew she was okay. 

Throughput the miserably hot weekend, we kept everyone cool and hydrated with ice cubes, the baby pool, and endless fresh water. Cookie Doe is completely fine now and all five of my girls are doing well. 

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the keets. The first day we lost three, them the others kept dropping through the weekend. The last of them died overnight last night. We did everything we could, but either the temperatures were too high for them, or they were a sickly bunch, we just don't know what happened. 

However, our injured quail are fully healed and we're just waiting for the feathers to grow back before they rejoin the others. This is life on a farm!

Cookie Doe left and S'mores right

Ten Keets

Something I learned when moving out here: guinea hens eat bugs and snakes. 

Something I learned this past month: there are over a dozen varieties of guinea hens based on their color. 

Something I learned last week: Keets are baby guinea hens and usually only hatch around July. 

Something I learned today: ten keets are incredibly small and fuzzy and quick. But we've got ten new keets in a variety of colors to keep our land bug and snake free. Well, at least help in that endeavor!

Clinical Updates

It's been one week since Cocoa went to the vet, and tonight was her last shot of antibiotics! We also got a very healthy dose of gunk out tonight which we think is almost the end of it all. We went from a softball size down to a golf ball before cleaning it tonight. Now, it's down to quarter size. Cocoa finally learned we were helping her and tonight, she even gave me her first nose kiss! She rubbed her snout on my nose, I'm taking it as a kiss. 

This afternoon though, was Scotchie and Sundae's turn to see the vet. Luckily, this was only for vaccinations and they didn't even have to get out of their cage. All three are due back in a month for the booster shot, and then they're good for awhile. I don't normally discuss financial matters, but the vaccination only cost $3 per goat! There is no reason anyone should not get their goats vaccinated. You can even buy the vaccinations at feed stores, but then you have to catch the goat and give it the shot. I am just fine paying the three bucks. 😊

Birds Are Fowl/Foul

There's a reason birds like chicken are called fowl, they can be utterly foul. After the snafu yesterday with the aviary, we had separated the quail from the murderous chickens. Well, tonight we had to separate the hurt quail from the unharmed quail. Why? Because birds will attack the weak. Lesson learned. 

Now, we have a sick bay for two quail, a normal pen for the three healthy quail, and the aviary for the chickens. I was going to switch out the chickens today, but they've already nearly destroyed my barberry bushes and the quail are now separated, so we'll wait and see what happens. At least Chickadee China (the chicken I got from my neighbor) is dutifully giving us an egg a day. She reminds me to have patience with my other monsters. 

An Aviary

I'm a dreamer. I thought building a great aviary would be simple, magical, and safe for all my feathered friends. Sigh, nope. 

The metal part of the aviary was easy, no question. Of course, the instructional pictures without words weren't helpful, but we could intuit what to do. Putting the chicken wire around the cage was a different issue and we did the best we could. We planted a couple of barberry bushes, loaded up the chicken chateau and quail cage and got all the birds together. Then, we went out for dinner and came back to tragedy. 

Turns out, my sweet little chickens are monsters. They were nearly pecking my quail to death. Two have wounds on their back that look dreadful, but hopefully not fatal. As darkness was fast approaching, it was easier to get the five quail back to safety in their cage and in the barn. Early this week though, the aviary will be solely theirs and the chickens will go back to the barn and free range. Wait until the guinea hens we ordered get here!

pictured with everything except the tarp we added after