Mutants?? No Muscovies!

Muscovy Ducks are possibly not the most beautiful of all creatures, with the red rubber like skin on their faces and around their bills, and they don't make the most melodic sound, actually they sound more like someone with a terrible head cold with their hissing. That being said though, I highly recommend having a few muscovies on your land if you have the room. They come in a variety of colors, usually black, white, chocolate and blue or a combination of the colors, and can be found in pied variety, solid or even barred. They are highly entertaining to watch wattle around the yard with their large tails swaying from side to side, and bobbing their heads back and forth. They eat slugs that may bother your garden and they are fairly self sufficient  in the spring and summer months. Muscovies are also one of the few breeds of domestic ducks that can fly for a greater distance than a few feet, actually they are very good flyers with a massive wing span. Some people prefer to raise them as pets to wonder the yard with their chickens, but Muscovies are actually bred to be meat ducks, and they are good ones as the males can grow up to 10-15 pounds!! Hopefully you will fall in love with the breed and will want more, because chances are if you start with a pair (a male and a female) you will have more before to long. The Muscovy ducks are great mothers! They can cover a lot of eggs and have a lot of dedication and usually have a really high hatch rate. Let's face it there really isn't much cuter than a bunch of ducklings following their mother around the yard. 

 In my experience even the father gets in on parenting with muscovies, which is strange for most ducks and chickens, usually the father fertilizes the egg, but doesn't really keep tabs on the ducklings growing up. My males follow the females around with the ducklings and frequently can be seen walking the ducklings around themselves. I don't know if this is standard practice for most males or if my males are just great father material, but it is funny to see them wondering with the "kids" following them while mom goes off to swim alone.

Even as the ducklings grow they still run to mom to seek warmth at night, regardless of having their own feathers to keep them toasty, they prefer to sleep underneath moms wings. Which is a pretty funny sight when they are almost the size of their mother and 15 of them are still trying to huddle close to her, but the mothers are very tolerant of their now preteen ducklings still wanting to be coddled in their pre-adulthood stage.
This summer I was surprised with three mothers that sat one eggs, one presented me with 17 ducklings, one with 13 ducklings and the final one descended from her nest with 8 ducklings. Sadly, but not unexpectedly we did loose 5 total from the three batches, but the rest grew and are still growing. Many are black and white, some solid white, and some gray(blue) and white. Some have found new homes, because I am pretty sure I would go broke trying to feed all of them this winter, but I did keep some. They are full size now and some have broken off from their mother and go about their day hanging out with other young ducks, but there are still four that like to stay near their mothers, all of them are females and I am sure come spring they will venture away from their mother and sit on eggs of their own and emerge with 15 darling ducklings of their own!

If you are considering getting ducklings please consider Muscovy ducks, they are a treat to have around and provide entertainment for everyone as they waddle through the yard looking for slugs and bugs to top off their meal.

Building Goat Fence (Always an adventure!)

She looks cute and innocent, but she is very sneaky...

Yesterdays project was to fence in the alfalfa strip dad plants in front of the garden. I didn't think it would be that big of deal, except I have a goat that is a professional escape artist. I am pretty sure she is a decedent of goats trained by the great Houdini. So every fence I build (even this fence that is temporary) has to be Houdini proof.
  

So I gathered my equipment which consisted of:
- Plastic fence posts, which had to be removed from a previous fencing project and led to me getting into the nettles
- Spool of wire
- Wire cutters

 As soon as I got out to the goat barn and started reassessing my situation and figuring out what I wanted to do I realized I was short of equipment. I forgot that I would need insulators to connect the fence to the barn, do you think I could find insulators? No of course not! So I improvised. I found an

old piece of hose no longer useful for transporting water throughout because it had some minor holes, and ran the wire through it then looped around the beam of the barn and tied it off. It worked better than I thought it would! My father always called this streak of brilliance "Redneck Ingenuity"
So I got the fence jumped (attached it to the other electric fence so it would also be electrified) and ran it from the barn and post to post. It took me about half an hour to do this project on my own and that was running two strands (you know because of Houdini goat). I think pushing the fence posts into the ground took the most time, we have A LOT of rocks. . . . .. . . . But now that the fence is done the goats are happy. I am limiting the amount of alfalfa they get to prevent any health issues. They seem very content grazing and the ironic thing is little miss Houdini goat doesn't even venture out into the new pasture, she's content to stay in the regular pen all day while everyone else is out enjoying the nice green grass.

A Donkey Tale

I have always wanted a donkey, who wouldn't? They are cute, funny and make an awesome sound!!
So an opportunity arose for me to purchase a donkey and I did. I can't say my parents were to amused with me, and I can't blame them. I was at college when this "oppurtnity" came around. So I asked my father and he said he did not want another animal to take care of while I was off at college.
So I called a friend and arranged for my little donkey to come stay at their farm until I got home to take care of him.

Two months later I came home and my donkey was dropped off. I put him in with my dairy goats for company and there seemed to be no problem with him adjusting to his new friends and surroundings. I even took him to our local 4-H event Old McDonald Farm, which is set up so children (and adults) can be educated on agriculture and it gives them a chance to interact with farm animals and learn about where their food comes from. He was a great and a crowd favorite with his long braying. He let kids pet him and give him kisses and he loved getting pats behind the ear.

   I have now had Willie for two months and love taking him for walks, letting him out to graze, brushing him and most of all listening to him HEE HAW HEE HAW. There have been little problems in the past, but recently Willie has been causing some problems in goat paradise. don't exactly appreciate this kind of behavior.  So Willie has been cast out of goat paradise until he gets "the big snip". I don't want the goats to be under any stress while they are milking or carrying kids. He doesn't enjoy being away from his friends, but he is adjusting. The goats don't really seem to miss him at all, but I'm sure they will welcome him back once he has his "manhood" under control a little better. It's not fun to be woke up at midnight when your brother hears a goat screaming in the middle of the night, you rush out in your pajama pants and flip flops to find a goat cornered and a donkey holding it by the neck trying to "get it on" with her.... The goat was a little traumatized, but was not injured fortunately.  I wanted to give Willie another chance thinking he was just in a "mood" that day and it wouldn't happen again. WRONG! It did and once again the goat (a different doe this time) was screaming and cowering in the corner with Willie trying to create a new species...... So Willie is currently in solitary confinement until the vet comes out

Welcome to my Crazy Life!

I have never had a normal childhood, not that I'm complaining. Family time to me is going out in the garden and pulling weeds, unloading wagons full of hay, canning tomatoes and working with livestock to get ready for upcoming shows. I have always loved family time, but let me give you a little run down of my life:

Mornings:
- Get up around 7:00 and have coffee with mom and my brother Fred (after dragging him out of bed. . . not a morning person at all!)
- Fix breakfast so when dad gets in from his morning chores at the dairy farm
- Let dogs out (1 border collie, 1 husky/sheperd cross, 1 beagle/sheherd cross and 4 beagles. Yes that is a lot of dogs)
- Feed and milk goats, Right now I only have two in milk and five more to kid. I have a set of twin kids I am bottle feeding (can you say adorable?)

- Feed the four pigs their grain and milk (we feed our pigs milk because it makes them grow faster and they love it!
- Feed, water and let chickens out (we have over 20 different breeds in pairs or breeder pens, we raise meat birds, show birds and layers so our total is somewhere in the 250+ range)
- By this time it is normally around 12:00 and usually we have customers for chickens or are doing random jobs (i.e. castrating pigs, trimming hooves, weeding the garden) today though it's kind of rainy and mom and I are making goats milk soap.

Then it is lunch time and depending on how mom feels (we will get into that later) I will be fixing lunch or helping with lunch. Then my brothers do the dishes and put laundry away.)

3:00 p.m. is kind of my downtime, usually I do English homework (I am finishing up a few classes and then will be completely done with my Bachelors degree in Animal Science.) Occasionally I will use this time to do other odd jobs. Around 5:00 you start chores all over again, hopefully finish up by  9:00 if all goes according to plan (lets face it it rarely does) be back in eat dinner and be in bed by 10:00. Often times I look forward to nothing more than curling up in bed with my two dogs and getting sleep so I can start all over again in the morning!

So now that you know what a BASIC day looks like, I hope you follow my blog so you can see what else I do throughout the day. I will be offering tips on things such as trimming goat hooves, making soap, preparing chickens for show, feeding poultry, the importance of local meats and many other things. I will try to post everyday and show you the exciting things going on in my life.