Life on the farm continues

Well, Autumn is official here, and October is more than halfway over. It's been more than a month ago that I got my new left hip, and I'll be in physical therapy for a while longer yet. However, that doesn't mean things have stopped here.

The Barred Rock chicks that I have in one of my grow out sections, are growing beautifully. I feel like they should be bigger than they are, but they are only about 6 weeks old, so really they are probably on track. The straight run Rhode Island Reds I ordered back in August are doing great. I ordered 10 of them, and have 5 boys, and 5 girls. I also picked up some ISA Browns from Tractor Supply around the same time, and I'm truly impressed with them as always. They truly are my favorite hybrid.
All 6 of my girl ducks are laying. Some days, I only get 2 eggs, and some I get 6. So, I guess that means. I will get eggs from them on an every day basis.

Our farm plans are moving forward. I'm hoping by Spring to have a website built and ready to launch. We will be selling hatching eggs. We're starting small at the moment, but will be selling Rhode Island Red, Buff Orpington, Barred Rock, and Red Star. I plan on eventually adding Black Star, Black Australorp, Delaware, Dark Brahma, Copper Marans, and Speckled Sussex. We want to be able to offer more, however that may take us buying a bigger property, which we would eventually love to do.

So, keep your eyes open for the big announcement, and wish us luck as we get deeper into this!!!

Duck eggs!!!

Finally...or already, I'm not sure which it is with the excitement I'm feeling over getting my first duck egg. They weren't babies for long at all, they grew so fast, that I didn't get to enjoy baby ducks long at all. They really are just as cute as adults, but I almost wish they could have stayed babies just a little longer.

So, I had to throw in a couple of shots of my boys just because they are my boys!!

Still going strong

Here we are in the middle of August, and I'm far from slowing down!!!! I've bought the final chicks I plan on getting until I'm off of my walker from my hip replacement surgery I'm having next month.
I got some fun pictures this week, and thought I'd share them with you all. The black and gold colored bird is one that I had hatched out back in the spring. She is an Orpington \Australorp mix. I call her my Orpalorp, and it's a lot of fun to say.
My ducks appear to be full grown, and I'm finally positive on the genders. We have an even split, it's 6 and 6.
Junior still has a lot of growing to do, but it appears he takes after his daddy.
Yes, I took a selfie with a chicken. This is one of my older Rhode Island Red girls, and by the feel of her, she has been eating well. She is nice and solid. However, I think she is old enough she does not lay anymore, so she's living the good life.
My chicks that I got from Ideal and TSC are feathering out and growing quickly. I cleaned their broader today, and they were a bit flighty still, so it was hard to get a good picture.
Yup...more chicks!!! I went to TSC for chick feed, and came home with 20 straight run Barred Rock chicks. I was rather excited to find them, because they are one of the breeds we planned on having this spring. So, I got a head start. They will be outside before I have my surgery next month!!!
That's about it for now. I hope all of my readers who are anywhere near or in Texas are staying safe!!!

Finally Pictures!!!

So, it would seem, I need to use multiple devices to be able to write this blog if I want to post pictures! I am back to using a Galaxy, and it let me load the pictures right up!!!

We had a rather rough July on the farm. I lost over half of my flock to a couple of raccoons and some possums. I reinforced my run, and set bunches of traps. I even lost my beloved rooster, Wesley. Thankfully, I had done a hatch out and have his son, who is almost an exact replica of him. I even lost half of the chicks that I had gotten from Ideal poultry back in the spring. Now, we are working on rebuilding the flock.

This morning, I got to go to the post office to pick up some Rhode Island Red chicks that I ordered from Mt Healthy Hatchery. I ordered 10 straight run. (Because after everything, I was left still with no Rhode Island roosters) They always toss in an extra chick, so I have 11. I got a small order because I need to get them grown out and moved outside before I have My hip replacement surgery next month. Once I'm healed up and ready to dig back in, I'll work on replacing other parts of the flock. However, I will probably wait to do that as we get our new housing built. We have an entirely new plan.

So, the new plan is a rather fun one. We are going to be building hoop houses, and will be using the kennel panels to close everything in. Eventually, it will all be in one big enclosed square. The ducks will get to be out in the middle every day, and I will have 1 house of birds out at a time. I plan on rotating them through the day. When each house is out, I'll go in and clean that house, and inspect it. I will so inspections of every house, every day, but you can do a better one without the birds attempting to help.

We have finally made a firm decision on the breeds we plan on to get our small hatchery up and off the ground, and I can tell you we had a lot of discussions about what I wanted and what Frank wanted. We did come to an agreement however, because some of what I wanted will happen, just not right away due to needing to get started in general. So, we will be doing Buff Orpington, Rhode Island Red, Tetra Tint, Red Sex Links, Delaware, and White Leghorn.
Once those are established, we will add Black Australorp, Koo Koo Marans, Dark Brahmas, and Light Brahmas. Eventually, we will add other breeds, but we have to take it one year at a time.

Now, I want the Dark Brahmas in honor of Dot, my one chicken that was truly a pet. She had honor status because she was one of the first. She passed away back in June, and unfortunately she passed in front of me. I still watch for her every time I introduce new birds, because she was always the first to greet them and let them know, she is in charge. I'm not certain what she would have made of the ducks.

Well, I shall end this for now, as I always fear I'm rambling on a bit. I'll talk about the rabbits in another post!!!

June is at an end

This is the last day of June, the last sleep of the month. It's been a bit and humid month at that.

I've started working on getting my house ready for my hip replacement surgery that is happening in September. I found a couple of groups on FB, for people that have the same hip condition that I've lived with for most of my life now. I cannot express just how wonderful it was to finally talk to others that have had to deal with it the same way I have.
What I have is a joint disorder called Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis. It happens to children between the ages of 10 and 15 for the most part, as they are growing their growth plate starts slipping, until the hip joints look like a melting ice cream cone. The first initial pains felt are in the groin area, and most parents just think the kid is having growing pains, well you all can Google it if you really want to know any more.  But needless to say, I'm going to feel like an entirely new person. I think the thing I'm the most excited about, other than having a lot less pain, is being able to the my shoe again. I've not been able to the my left shoe for the last 10 years.

I've lost 75 pounds, and still have 35 more to go before I make my big goal of 110.  I'm hoping to take off another 15-20 pounds before my surgery. That will put me at 165-170 pounds. Yes, right now I weigh 185 pounds. I'm not ashamed to say it, because when I started this train, I was 260 pounds.  I was about to have to buy the next size up in Jeans, which would have put me in a size 24, I was squeezing into my jeans, and I can't lie, they were quite painful.

Now, onto farm stuff!!! It looks like most of what hatched out, that I'm raising up are Rhode Island Red\Buff Orpington mixed, 3 pure buffs, and a Black Australorp \Orpington mix. I think the Australorp mix is a female!!! It's really neat looking, and if it is a she, I'm going to have to keep it.
Frank and I decided to keep the male Orpington. I realized that if something happens to Wesley, I don't have an Orpington rooster to take his place until I quickly hatch whatever eggs my Orp girls lay within a couple of days. So basically, I would be without a rooster to replace him. I've already started calling him Junior, because he seriously takes after his father!!! If his mom is the biggest Orpington hen, this guy may end up bigger than his dad.

The ducks are 13 weeks old already. They have slowed in their growth majorly. I don't know if they will grow any more or not. I'm assuming they probably will, because at just 4 months old they are rather big, and will probably grow a little more. As you all know, this is our first go with ducks. So we are learning as we go. We still have no clue how many are what gender yet.  I'm going to have a really hard time when butcher time comes for the excess boys. I'm not going to lie. I actually love these ducks more than chickens. They are the happiest animals I have ever come in contact with.

Well, there really is nothing more for me to ramble on about tonight. I'll close this up, and hope you all have a happy and safe 4th of July

So much

Hello there!!! June is moving right along, and before we know it, July will be here. This has been a full year so far, which is one of the reasons I've not been blogging much. However, I miss writing this blog, and am going to try to set aside more time for it. I've learned a lot more about chickens, because truly I don't believe we ever stop learning. I'm still learning about ducks, and rabbits. I have also started reading up on Turkeys, and quail. Frank wants quail, because apparently those tiny little eggs are wonderful. I want to raise a couple of turkeys a year, 1 for holidays, and one to part out for the freezer. We are still wanting to get involved with bees, and hogs, and milk goats.  I think we are going to end up needing more property!!!

So, to report on all the creatures and people currently in our lives, there is some fun stuff to report on.

Back in May, I set over 80 eggs to hatch. That was 1 rooster with more than 60 hens. I had 15 hatch out. Most of what I had set weren't fertile. However, I did expect that. Only 2 from what I can tell are pure Buff Orpington, 1 boy and 1 girl. I may have 1 or 2 more girls that are pure, however I can't tell because everyone hands out in the shade of the little coop and run that they are in. Next month we will be butchering the boys, they will be part of our winter meat stock. Plus, as we all know you want to get the boys before they get too chewy.

The chicks that we ordered from Ideal Poultry that came in about a week before the hatch are all doing and growing well. We ordered 5 Rhode Island Red Roosters, 5 Buff Orpington Pullets, and 25 Delaware pullets. I had no clue I was going to fall so in love with the Delaware breed like I have. They are so laid back, and they never went through the ugly teenage stage that most chickens do.  I cannot wait until they are fully grown!!!

We have been working on buying kennel panels on a regular basis so we can work on everyone's separate runs.  We are also going to have several different grow out sections for raising started pullets. For starters, we plan on red sex links, Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpington, and Tetra Tints. We eventually plan on breeding Delaware, White Leghorn, Dark Brahma, Light Brahma, and Marans of some sort. I really want to raise Black Australorp, however we will have to wait and see how all of the expansions go first. We will be adding the other breeds over a course of a few years. We are going to have all the housing going around what used to be out back yard garden. That way, we will have a yard that we can let them out into one breed at a time. It will let them free range a bit safely.

We have decided that we are going to faze out our Easter Egg hens. They are not the best layers in the world, and unfortunately seeing as I cannot sex a chick the way they do in the standard hatchery, we can't sell them as chicks because nobody wants to buy them as straight run. Then it takes so long to grow them out to tell the girls from the boys that nobody wants to pay what it cost to raise them up to that size. I unfortunately live in an area where people are cheap, so selling a 4-6 month old Easter Egg hen  for $15-$20 just doesn't always happen. Really, that's not that expensive when you see what they sell for in other places. Anyhow!! Moving on!!!

The ducks are good!!! I've changed their feed from starter grower, to the finisher. I'm feeding them Dumore from Tractor Supply. Generally, I feed all of my animals feed from the co-op, however, they don't sell unmediated feed there, and even though different people say you can give them medicated feed now because the formula has changed, I just don't care to risk it. I still don't know the genders yet, but I do know, they are still the happiest creatures here, as well as the messiest. I should be able to tell in hopefully the next 2 months.  Just waiting on those drake feathers to curl.

Not much to say on th rabbits. We haven't done any breeding this year. Frank's work schedule has been really insane thanks to all of the overtime he's had to work.  Fingers crossed they get help soon.

As I've talked about before, my Father in law has cancerous tumors that are inoperable. He's been getting a once a month shot for over a year now. The shot is doing great, and is keeping everything right where it needs to be. His bloodwork last month came back great!!! I'm really happy to be able to report such great news. His hearing however, has gotten a lot worse. His hearing aids help very little, but he doesn't let it slow him down.

I went back to the UVA (University of Virginia) this past week. I'm waiting on the Surgical Coordinator to call me. I will be getting a new left hip at the end of August!!! I am super ready for this to happen. However, I'm starting to get rather frustrated with this guy, because getting a call from him, is kind of like waiting for Christmas. He seems to take a good amount of time off or something. I have the one nurses number, and if he doesn't call me back by the end of this week, I'm going to call her and see what the problem is. From what I'm told, they don't normally actually take this long to call back to schedule things.

So... Now you are all caught up!!! Sorry if I got a little wordy, but I'm rather good at going on about stuff!!!
Until my next blog, keep cool!!!

Rain Rain

Well, it's calling for rain all week long. It looks like I won't be moving chicks outside this week. I really wish Frank's work schedule wasn't so packed. We haven't been able to get anything built, or anything. We have a house for the Orpington pen, that still also hasn't been out up, and the list goes on.

I've noticed this trend in some of the facebook groups that have to do with farming, or chickens. Someone has these more expensive chicken breeds, and a dog gets in and kills them all. So they do the big sob story and ask if anyone could sell them some replacements for free or cheap because they can't afford to spend a lot now. So someone falls for it, and then a few weeks later I see these same birds on another site for sale for full price by the person who lost them to begin with. I'm pointing this out because if you raise and sell chickens, I don't want you to get suckered in.

My peach trees are full of fruit, I'm really hoping they make it to maturity. I want to can some this year. I bought some from Walmart last year to try and can, however they had no flavour and were hard. So I put them in a dark place and thought I'd let them sit overnight and see if they got ripe. Wouldn't you know, I checked them the next morning, and they were all rotten on the bottom that fast. I should have went to the fruit stand and bought a case. It probably would have worked out better for me.