Filed under: Chickens
Holding chicks makes me happy
I think I’m going to like being a chicken farmer. Here are two that will probably never make it to the stew pot. 🙂 Such sweet little fuzz balls!
This was really no big deal as we had over 24 hours notice. We just made sure we had groceries and battened down the hatches. It lasted for about 24 hours. Here are some pictures of what I saw when I went to check on the horses this morning.
A woodpecker warming himself after the blizzard
Mouse eating Jazzmin's hay. Barn cat must have migrated to Florida.
The girls in the corral
Snow drifted on the north interior wall of the barn
More drifted snow in the barn
Chicken coop in the background almost completely obstructed by a drift. The drift is covering the future garden area.
The cars
Thomas atop a drift
Looking south over the garden area
Filed under: Chickens
I had made a date to look at dairy goats at Big R yesterday. Personally, I like animals that produce fiber. I don’t want to milk something twice a day, every day and then worry about breeding and selling to keep it all going. It was fun, though. Here’s a sampling of what we saw.
Kid at Big R
After we were done, we went to look at a two week old Arabian filly at Quintessential Arabians. Now that’s a cute horse way out of my price range but very friendly and curious and since it’s spring and I’m posting pictures of animal babies…
Two-week old Arab filly
The real reason we went to Big R, though, was because my chicken mentor mentioned that they had chicks available. 🙂
Chicks from Big R
So we picked out a few chicks and took them home knowing that we still needed a container to brood them in. Turns out the alpaca farmers up the road had an old stock tank they were no longer using and we picked that up for the more permanent solution.
Since then we have just been cuddling chicks in between chores and there has been a serious decrease in X-Box time with the boy and Facebook time with the girl. Hmmmm. If you could hold this, would you be on a computer? Actually, I figured out a way to do both! I have a little pullet asleep in my lap right now. So cute.
Chick
Holding a little black chick
Blogging with a chick in my lap
Pullet on the computer
Filed under: Chickens
Thomas and I finished cleaning the coop. We put lime all over the floor and the roosting area to make sure we killed any dangerous microorganism that might have been lurking there. We visited a chicken-raising, organic-gardening friend of hours on Wednesday and after that we were ready to get chickens! We are going to mail order some of them and we are hoping to pick some up locally this weekend. At first I thought we would have a modest flock of 25 birds or so, but it looks like it’ll be closer to 60. I’m sure we’ll find someone besides us who would enjoy fresh eggs.
Yesterday we picked up brooding supplies, a heat lamp, feeders, waterer, feed and shavings, and we will be using a friend’s old stock tank for a brooder box. Tomorrow we’ll go into town and pick up some chicks.
Just in case you’re interested in chickens of your own we ordered from McMurray Hatchery.
Filed under: Horses
I am so flattered to learn that people miss it when I blog! In my last post I alluded to more farm-related news that was waiting for me to find time to post. Unfortunately, I needed to vent and you, poor readers, were forced to suffer! I’m feeling much better now. 🙂
Julie
It’s about time I introduced you to Julie. She’s a sweet 28 yr. old Arabian mare who likes to keep her feistiness under the
Julie and Jazzmin
radar. Don’t let her age fool you! We actually got her just before Christmas to keep Jazzmin company and to have another horse to ride since it seems Thomas has taken a liking to horses. She is missing her back teeth so she has to be fed horse food that’s the same consistency as someone in a convalescent hospital might require. She can gum carrot slices, though!
It has been very helpful to me to see how horses interact with each other. They are really not very nice to each other. Jazzmin is the dominant one and constantly threatens Julie by pinning her ears or nipping. One night when I was out feeding Julie had her belly full, spun around and nailed Jazzmin in the belly with a nice kick. Jazz looked kind of stunned, shook herself and left Julie alone—until later.
I had Julie out for a ride a few weeks ago and she is the easiest horse to get going. It doesn’t take much at all to get her into a trot or even a canter. She leads beautifully. It’s great to have a gauge for training. After riding her you can see how green Jazzmin is. Hmmmmm. I wonder what they think about me?
The City Girl Farmer 