Movin' and Cleanin'

The Creepy Meats and Barred Rocks are two weeks and three days old today.  And the Meats are far surpassing the Barred Rocks in size and stature:

Time to move them to separate pens, not only because the Meaties are taking up a lot of the space, but because they tend to crowd out the other chicks at the feeders.  Rhiannon helped me transfer the Meaties out from the little pen into the larger pen and they'll stay in there for another two weeks or until I get the chicken tractor up to snuff again.  Then I'll give the larger pen a good cleaning and put the Barred Rock pullets in there until they're ready to join the rest of the flock.

In theory, once the Barred Rocks start laying, the Rhode Island Reds, which I am none too fond of lately, will be crated up and put on the sale page.

The Creepy Meats are supposed to be ready in as little as eight weeks, but since we accidentally got males and females I tend to think we'll be keeping on the females for another two weeks or more.  And if we get to the eight week point and the males aren't huge, we'll keep feeding them as well.  Last season I was so fixated on getting the birds in the freezer at exactly eight weeks that we butchered them before they were our ideal size.  A few of them even weighed under four pounds.  That's not going to fly with a family that absolutely love-love-loves roast chicken supper with leftovers for chicken salad sandwiches the next day.

Since I was cleaning out the chicken pens I figured I may as well work on the other areas of the barn.  Lots of dust, chicken feathers, spider webs, spilt grain, mouse turds and mud wasps.  There was flying dirt & empty feed sacks being hurled out the doors.  Goats crowding around the doors in hopes that something GOOD would come flying out.  They did manage to get a few nibbles of leftover grain in the not-quite-empty feed sacks and quite the ruckus was made when a new one was tossed out.

Clover looks on and laughs.
Chop Suey isn't the brightest goat in the pen.

The chicken coop side of the barn still needs cleaning as does the goat loafing area.  There's lots of accumulated wasted hay and goat turds that need to be shoveled out of there and put into the garden beds but it's just so dusty that I'm kind of waiting for a rain to make it not so horrible on my asthma.  Even a dust mask can only do so much.  I'm thinking that it would be a wise move to invest in a  respirator so I put one on my Amazon "to buy" list.

Don't forget; if you haven't already done so, click on this post if you want a chance to win some homemade lard soap :)  You have until Sunday night!

Fragrant Fall

I love the clean, crisp scent of fresh pine shavings.  We put the shavings in the pen for the Creepy Meat chicks and their substantially smaller Barred Rock brood-mates.  They are only a week and four days old today so it still smells like the shavings and not chicken poop.  I suspect in just a few weeks that I will be unable to smell the pine over the chicken poop.

If I recall correctly, last year I was cleaning out the pen every other day....and it probably could have used a cleaning EVERY day.  I don't plan on keeping them in the pen as long as I did last time, mainly because of the amount of labor involved in keeping the bedding relatively chicken-crap-free.

Once they're feathered out, I plan on putting the Creepy Meats out in the chain link kennel and then moving them into the fenced garden to pick at any greenery left after all the tomatoes and peppers are finished producing.  The drawback to putting them out in the kennel & garden is the fact that they will be vulnerable to raccoon and opossum attacks.  We've been lucky so far as in Charlie seems to be keeping most of the night time chicken murderers away from the hen house, but something has taken two older hens and three youngsters that refused to go into the coop at night.  I'm not sure if it is worth the risk putting them outside or not.  Nothing is worse than going out in the morning to a pen full of dead chickens.

There's another scent that has taken hold in the back section of the goat yard.  The gawd awful scent of a buck goat.  Herman is STANK-y.  Studly smells, but not nearly as bad.  Apparently he hasn't quite got his goat-mojo on, although Herman does have a few more years experience under his belt.

After being around the buck pen, it was enough to make me break the promise I made to myself not to indulge in ANYthing Pumpkin Spice'ish until the actual Autumnal Equinox.  I caved in and took a shower and used the fancy Pumpkin Spice bar of soap my Mom bought me a few weeks ago in order to erase all olfactory memories of the stanky-ass male goats.

Speaking of smelly stuff, I have some GOOD smelly stuff for my blogging buddies.  That is, if I still have any bloggers following me.  I've been a bad blogger as of late and haven't been reading yours or keeping up with mine.  So in an attempt to buy your loyalty back, I'm going to do a giveaway for some of the soaps Paul and I made a while back.

These soaps were made from all that pork fat we finally processed into lard a few months ago.  Normally I make our soaps using vegetable oils, but since we have lard coming out of our ears, I thought it would be a good idea to try using lard for the soap.  Well, and because I'm cheap.  The lard was "free"; the vegetable oils I'd have to buy.  We made the soap the first week of July, so they are ready to use.  We've been using them for weeks now and haven't burned our faces off, so don't worry, they're plenty cured!  I will say that the all-lard soap turned out much harder than the vegetable based soaps and they do not lather nearly as much.  I think I'll add some coconut oil in the next batch.

Anyways, these lard-based soaps are scented with sandalwood, lilac, orange and almond fragrance oils (as opposed to essential oils), so they're not ALL natural, but hey, it's free soap, right?!

So if you're still reading my blog and wanting some homemade lard soap, just leave a comment here.

And here's the "Fine Print" for the contest:

Contest open to U.S. Residents only.

One entry per person, UNLESS you say something nice about cats.  Then you get two.  Entries.  Not cats.

Winning name(s) will be chosen by a scientifically credible procedure to ensure a purely random winner or winners (i.e. I put all your names on little scraps of paper, throw them in a kitchen bowl and have Rhiannon close her eyes and pick one out).

Contest ends on 9/27/15 at Midnight, or sometime around then.  Because it's my blog and I can do whatever I want.

Cat(s) not included.

Good luck & smell ya later!

Zombie Fish

Last year - or was it the year before - we finally put in a stock tank for the ever-increasing number of goats we have to provide water for.  It stayed relatively clean for a while and when the water level got low, I scrubbed it out & refilled it.  But the Sub-Tropical weather we had recently had been making the chore of cleaning it out more difficult.  Not to mention the fact that there have been mosquito larva and some sort of other weird swimmy bugs frequenting the tank.  Instead of trying to scoop out the larva / swimmy bugs / algae or dump the entire contents of the tank out, I thought I'd try something I've heard from other livestock owners that wouldn't cause me quite so much trouble.

Rhiannon has a fish tank in her bedroom.  We bought it, along with five tiny feeder goldfish about 2 1/2 years ago.  And since then the tank-to-fish ratio has shrunk.  The fish have grown into something one might actually consider filleting and frying up in a pan.  After consulting with Rhiannon about her feelings for the goldfish, we decided that we'd put two of the larger fish into the stock tank.

I topped off the tank with some fresh water and we unceremoniously dumped the fish into the tank and watched them swim around in their new home.  The goats came up to see what we were doing, not so much interested in the bright orange creatures now inhabiting their watering hole, but fixated on the simple fact that we were carrying a bucket.  Because in the mind of a goat, buckets can mean only one thing; grain.  They were disappointed.  

Come actual goat feeding time later in the day, we checked on the status of the fish.  I'd say "fishes" but as you all know, "fish" is the plural of "fish".  Except there was no "plural" to speak of.  It was just "fish".....as in ONE fish.  How the hell did I lose a fish in just two hours?  Of course, the different scenarios flooded my brain.

Did a heron find our newly-stocked buffet so quickly?  Would a raccoon be out at this time of the day?  Could our bird-brained chickens actually figure out how to catch one?  Did the goats slurp one up???  I looked around to see if there was a dead goat on the ground, asphyxiated by a pet fish stuck in her esophagus.  I was trying to think of anything else that could have caused a fish to be missing, but the bawling from the all-still-living herd of "We're STARVING to death" goats did not allow for much more quiet contemplation.  So Rhiannon and I clipped and fed everyone and then that's when I heard Rhiannon say "I found Bulgie!" (he has a bulging eye, hence the name).  Apparently he was in the grass about three feet from the stock tank and managed to get out of the tank - either by his own volition or "assisted" by some other animal....we'll never know.

Rhiannon put him back in the tank....where he dropped to the bottom....like a dead fish.  We waited a minute, then I told her to scoop him back out and throw him to the chickens.  Which were totally uninterested in.  So we went back to goat feeding chores and when everyone was unclipped, I went back to fish carcass to throw it into the compost heap.  I picked it up and was about to fling it over into the garden when it's gills moved.  Shit!  This thing had been out of the water twice now, the first time for nobody knows how long and the second time for about five minutes.  So I shove it back in the water & "swim" it back & forth to get some oxygen through it's gills.  It didn't seem like there was much progress, but it was progress.  So for about ten minutes I swam that stupid goldfish in the stock tank and it eventually flipped it's fins & tail a little, then eventually swam out of my hand under it's own power.  

It's been four days since the Resurrection of Bulgie and I'm happy to say that he's still alive and clearing the tank of algae and bugs.  

They're Heeeeeeerrrrre!

Finally.  After waiting on the edge of my not-so-comfortable computer chair and refreshing the USPS Tracking screen every thirty-five seconds, the chicks have arrived!

Granted, it took two days for them to travel the 117 miles from the hatchery to my local post office.  Last year they got here in less than 24 hours after being shoved into their little cardboard box, but for whatever reason, this year the chicks traveled from one post office to another then to another....then to our post office.....for a total of just over 600 miles.  And you wonder why the post office is going broke.  But what do I know about the logistics of sending millions of pieces of mail cross-country.  Nothing.  But still.  I'm just glad that they didn't end up going all the way to LaGuardia before getting to their final destination.

Since I've swapped roles with Paul (me now being the nine-to-fiver and he being the farm grunt), he and Rhiannon picked up the chicks at the post office.  This is the first time I have not been there for the chick-picking-up.  I actually felt a bit left out.  But the feeling went away when I got home and all the chicks were alive and already in their pen, peeping and pecking and pooping as baby chicks are wont to do.  Rhiannon is, at this exact moment, out there playing Momma to her "chickies".  I can attest to the hardiness of the chicks as she picks them up and puts them down and pets them and kisses them no fewer than a hundred times.

I ordered twenty-five Cornish Cross Creepy Meats, ten Barred Rocks and ten Black Sex Links.  I swore I ordered all MALE Creepy Meats, but the invoice said unsexed.  Which is disappointing, regardless of who made the mistake (probably me) because the males do get much larger.  And we do love a big o'l roasting bird.  I guess we'll just keep the females around longer until they're more Yummy-Sized.

The temperatures, of course, have dropped since the chicks arrived and we're having to run two heat lamps in the pen.   Last night we got down to 60 degrees, but tonight we're dipping down to 48 degrees.  I may have to put them in the garage.

Although it may be a bit cool for the chicks, the humans and goat are really enjoying this Fall'ish weather.  It's nice not to sweat yourself out of a t-shirt three times a day.  And having a hot cup of tea doesn't seem so strange now.

Laboring Day

So.  Did you all enjoy your "Day off"?  You know.  Labor Day.  When (some) people don't have to go to work.  When (some) people go to the lake and picnics or just sit home and laze about all day.



 

Silly humans.  You know that rarely happens.  Even if you're not "working", you're probably cooking a feast or packing a picnic or doing something or other requiring laborious tasks so you can enjoy that "Day Off".  Seems we got it all backwards, hugh?

 

Well, we were up with the rest of you on Labor Day.  Paul was brush hogging the entire "long weekend", and Rhiannon and I busied ourselves with school work, barn chores and house chores.  But at least we were able to stick around the homestead.

 

Don, the FFA Boer goat we brought back home, is doing much better now.  He's still really skinny, but his bottle jaw is gone, his eyes are much clearer and he seems to be more active.  We had him in a quarantine pen but finally moved him back in with the rest of the herd a few days ago.  Of course, he's getting butted and pushed around, but he's holding his own and learning who to avoid and who he can snuggle up to.  Rhiannon has been loving on him something extra, but it does make me kind'a sad.  Rhiannon knows that he's a butcher animal, and I remind her of that on an almost daily basis, but why, why, WHY are the nicest goats the ones we're going to eat?!?  Is it just the Universe punishing me for being a carnivore?  Oh, you're going to kill that goat??  Well then, let's make sure he's the cutest / nicest one then so you feel like complete shit when you put a bullet in his head.  Oh, and this goat over here, the one you've spent countless hours with, trying to get her to be tame & gentle so you can milk her?  Let's give her a total piss-on-you attitude.

 

Rhiannon says she loves her goats, but she also
says that she really, REALLY loves BBQ goat ribs.

We also cleaned out the smaller pen this weekend and got it ready.  Ready for what, you ask?  For CHICKS, of course!  I placed an order (late, imagine that) for some Creepy Meats and some replacement layers.  A year & a half ago I bought 20 (or so) Rhode Island Reds to replace our dwindling layer flock and I haven't been very happy with them.  They are noticeably smaller than my Barred Rocks as are their eggs.  And the fact that one, or more, of them are eating eggs is ticking me off.  So in my order of chicks, I got ten more Barred Rocks and ten Black Australorps, two of my favorites & IMO, best of the brown egg layers.

The chicks should be here any day now and even after ten years of chicken-raising, I still get excited when they arrive.  Eight weeks from now when I'm cleaning out chicken crap every single day, the tune will change, but until then I will enjoy the little shitting machines balls of fluff.  And post picture after picture of cute chick antics.

There is a Time & Place for Everything

Dear Fall Freaks and Northern Nutjobs,

It is the fourth day of September.  I know you are all excited about kicking Summer's bikini clad butt out the door and dragging Fall in by it's auburn hair, but it is not yet time for Pumpkin Spice.

Don't get me wrong. I love Pumpkins.  I love spices.  I love Pumpkin Spice.  I love Fall and the weather changing and the beautiful fall colors and fall smells.

But if I'm still eating watermelon & drinking sweet tea and sweating my ass off in the 90+ degree heat, the last thing I want is to be inundated with is Pumpkin Spice EVERYTHING.

So, please.  Can we at least wait until the Autumnal Equinox until we stock the store shelves and plaster the interwebs with everything from Pumpkin & Cream Flavored coffees to Pumpkin Spice hemorrhoidal creams?

Thanks,

Swampass In Arkansas