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