It's An....Egg?

It was nice and kinda warm today, maybe I good thing I guess.  I walked out to see what my ducks were doing, after noticing they had been quieter then normal (the Pekin love to chat.)  Walking up to their pen with their breakfast they rushed toward me like normal so I thought maybe they had just been enjoying the sunshine.

Nope.

 

Apparently someone laid an egg toward the front of the pen and they were scared of it.  Food of course won over the scarey egg thing.

Now I have this duck egg in my kitchen and I'm not really sure what to do with it.  Hubby did want to try duck eggs, but it's the girls first egg so I dunno.  Eat, bake with, or see if they lay me more and try to hatch them out...such choices.

I love the Spring Time

Sadly it's not even close to spring yet.  Winter did give me a nice break today so I could go outside and look at the herb bed I've been building.  Right now it's just walls and a bunch of leaves, grass clippings and other compostable matter, but come spring it will be a rather large bed with 6 different flowering herbs. (Honestly right now it kinda looks like a mess of stuff.)  Still the weather was nice enough for me to add more stuff to it to break down, and allowed me time to realize how much more work I need to do on it.

Being grounded inside to to ice and cold isn't any fun, but I've been passing the time by herb shopping online both for prices and for uses of herbs.  Thanks to my husband's want of bees I've been learning what herbs they love to and what ones will help them. (For example did you know if you don't want your honey to crystallize you can plant sage and the pollen they will collect from that will help keep honey as a liquid.)

Still spending all day shopping and learning isn't helping to keep my urge to grow plants in check and I found myself starting some catnip in a window box planter.  If nothing else I'll have some healthy catnip for teas for myself till spring, and my hope is I can take the plants I start now and repot them as needed, and eventually move them outside to a new home.  Though I got my first 'new plant' seeds in this week, lavender for a bed, which now has me wanting to try to grow a few seeds of that now too.  I say say new because I already have seeds for Echinacea/Purple Cone Flower and a few others from my own plants.  Oh well, I guess I'll just need to find something else to occupy my time as a way to maybe kill my planting bug.

I assume I'm not the only one out there counting down the days till they can get outside and play in the dirt. 

The Boys (Meet the Cast 2)

Second part of what should have been consecutive posts, introducing the cast and crew around here.

The kids.

Two little Alpine wether goats.  They're brothers, twins, Pendragon is the one standing in this picture, Arthur is the one laying down.  Arthur is a bit smaller then his brother.

We originally got them to keep my horse company and to help keep the pasture down since they eat things the horse doesn't find to tasty.  Some time next summer I want to use them to help us clear land for my rabbit barns.  They'll get to eat to their heart's content, and I'll get nice clean land ready for me to build on.

 The horse.

This is my 22 year old Appaloosa/Welsh Mountain pony.  His name is Sparky.  He's got the stubbornness and smarts of the Appaloosa, and the strength of the Mountain Pony.

He's a good little horse, at this point in his life though I consider him more of a pet horse then much else.  I once told someone he's like an over grown puppy dog.  He gets love, pets, treats, food and doesn't have to work for it.  He was green broke when I got him and I could never get him fully trained so he just kinda hangs around.  He likes it, I like it, it works well for both of us.

Pretty much this is the end of the long awaited post of the boys, so I'll end it with a picture of Arthur in front of the barn from this summer.

 

A Temporary Ducky Home

Well the Pekin and Rouen hens and drakes finally got moved to their new winter home.  It's just an old dog pen that's been winterized with a duck house inside till spring.  Come spring everyone will be moved into what I hope will be a duck barn with divided stalls so the Pekin will be separate from the Rouen.  As for my drake per hen ratio, I only kept one drake of each breed with my hens (for the hens safety.  To many drakes in with hens can be bad to the hens and can hurt or even kill them.  The safety of all of my girls is always important to me.)  Come spring I'll be getting more ducklings of both breeds so I have more hens (and baby ducks are just so cute to raise up, even if they can be messy.)

The ducks are actually very happy with their new home.  They have grass in it, which they ate all of in the other pen, and lots of room.  It's warm, comfy, and snuggly, though they can still play in the rain if it falls right for them.  It took them about one day to settle into the new home and start 'redecorating it' to make it their own.

Bedding Them Down For Winter

So we finally got almost everyone settled into their winter pens.  I say almost everyone cause there's always going to be that one set of animals that needs to be moved it looks like.

The main flock of chickens is all set, their run roof is fixed, everyone who's supposed to be in there is settled in.  In addition to the rooster from the Meet the Cast post  there are now two other young ones, a large Buff Orpington named Roy by my husband because the rooster used to live with my horse till he got a bit older, and we would randomly see him riding the horse.  We also added a Barred Rock rooster, not named that's a sweetheart.  We had to remove our Road Island Red rooster earlier this year after he decided stalking me would be a good idea so I wanted to replace him.  I try to keep a child safe area here, and a rooster that decides he wants to attack people is one thing I will not allow.  That and since I hatch out my own chicks I like to keep fresh blood in my stock. 

The little Bantam chickens got moved into part of my veggie garden in a house for this winter.  My soil in the garden is very very sterile, it's more rocks and sand then soil right now.  I'm letting my chickens stay in it, that way they can build up the soil and work it for me.  I mix in loads of leaves into where their staying as well, and come spring I'll move them and turn over the soil and mix in more organic matter like grass clippings or wood chips. 

The only ones not ready for winter are my Rouen and Pekin ducks.  The pen I want to move the hens and the drakes I'm keeping into for the winter was damaged last spring, and we've been working on it.  Right now the only thing it needs is part of the roof replaced and several loads of leaves before everyone can move into it.  That ideally should be ready in a week or so, so my ducks can be nice and snuggly warm for winter.

Chicken Math Example

Pictures are always worth a bit I think, even if it's just an 'aww' moment for everyone.


This is an example of chicken math.


The mama you see on the left decided that she had to have babies, right when it was due to get cold. 


After trying multiple times to tell her no I finally gave in and let her sit out some eggs thinking she wouldn't actually stay the entire time.


About a month later...

Chicken math at work!

Chicken Math in Action

There exists a thing known as 'chicken math.'  What is this you may ask.  Simply put, one chicken plus one chicken will end up being twenty chickens.

Yes, it works like that.

We have a minor case of chicken math in action here now.

I had meant to write 3 posts introducing all of the animals on the farm back in September. 

Then chicken math struck.

I've now got 3 hens with chicks, more ducks, and of all things turkey.  Add to that today I was out and saw a little Old English Game Hen I had to bring home so she's here too now.

I keep taking pictures to share everyone, then get more, then want to wait to do a blog post when I have all the pictures, which in turn pushes everything back because before I can I end up with more birds.

Ah, chicken math at it's finest.

Perhaps what's really in order is a monthly update of new additions for that month.