Hi folks.
DH and I castrated 5 piglets today. We have 9 piglets, 3 girls, 6 boys but one boy has an umbilical hernia. I’ve heard it isn’t good to castrate a boar with an umbilical hernia because they could bleed out or their guts could start coming out the castration incision because their...
We held a little funeral for Peep and its buddy. Peep is the little spoon chick in the photo. Had the kids get some flowers and greens to bury with the babies.
The kids were all torn up for a bit. I let them hold the chicks’ bodies and pet them. Thing 1 kept trying to wake Peep up by talking...
Thanks! I am feeling a bit better now. The almost dead chick recovered and I can’t tell which one it is anymore. I was at least able to save one of them.
I’m so sad right now. I meant to go back out to the coop 30-60 min after I showed the chicks where the food and water was this morning. I went out just now and 2 chicks were dead and one was mostly dead. One of the dead chicks was Peep. I feel so bad for the little booger. We’re going to have to...
The kids have enjoyed playing with the baby. Poor thing got really lonely.
The meat chicks and a “free rare chick” that looks like it might be an olive egger came today… from Iowa… in less than 24 hours. 14 of 15 meat birds plus the free chick survived the journey. I’m getting ready to move...
The best mama hens I’ve had were buff Orps, Cochins or mixes of those. Nice and fluffy for keeping the babies warm and very nurturing. I did have one leghorn that raised 5 chicks and mothered them all until they were bigger than her. She never went broody a second time though.
In my experience, heritage Cornish aren’t great moms. They can sit well but their close feathers make it hard to keep babies warm. Particularly this time of year. They also aren’t good at not stepping on babies.
I had a surprise this morning. We were coming back from chores and I heard a periodic “bock-bock” noise coming from under our shed. One of our Cornish hens had made a nest under the shed and went to brooding. The reason I heard her is because she was talking to her chick. One chick. When I...
Thing 1 is in 10/12, our new kiddos (Things A1 and A2) are both in size 8, Thing 2 is in 6/7, and Thing 3 is in 4T. I think Thing 2 will be joining sizes with Things A1 and A2 soon and surpassing them eventually since both their bio parents are shorter adults.
Hi guys. We had an interesting week.
The first mama pig lost one of her babies. I think to being squished. So down to 5 babies. The second mama, the biggest, pushiest girl of the lot, had 5 on Thursday evening. Friday morning we were working on getting pig pens revamped and decided to make an...
We had surprise bacon seeds this morning. 6 vigorous, healthy little babies. One so vigorous, she found her way out of our pig port and into the middle of our backyard at less than 12 hours old. We have one other girl that looks like she’s going to pop. The gilts’ brother broke in and got busy...
They are getting along about as well as boys generally do. Thing 2 is in his feelings more often recently and has been feeling more territorial but that’s to be expected. He’s 5 and everything is a big deal to him. Thing 1 is constantly competing with FS1 (foster son 1) for position as the...
Hi guys!
We’ve been busy for the last month. Second week of June, we went on vacation to the DC metro area and we took the boys to the Natural History Museum, the Smithsonian Zoo, the Baltimore Aquarium, and the Udvar-Hazy air and space museum near Dulles airport. They had a lot of fun. We had...
I had a long day today. I left here at 5:45am and got back at 9:15pm. I had to do the trip for work.
Final tally is 27 healthy chicks!
Out of 10 of my shipped LF White eggs that made it to lockdown, I got 8 chicks. Out of 25 of my chickens’ eggs that made it to lockdown, 20 hatched. I did...