Free Range Ain't Free

I have been experimenting with free ranging my poultry.  My imagination ran wild with the notion of a symbiosis, birds picking gently through vegetable beds and removing unwanted insects.  These chickens and ducks are supposed to relish slugs, snails and insects, right?!  I started this garden because I wanted to feed my family!  So far all I have succeeded with is feeding my birds!

First was the ducks... They gobbled up all my greens and seedlings before they even had a chance.

Then I tested out a couple chickens... They didn't eat the seedlings but they did scratch up the dirt, disrupting any chance the seedlings had at life and ate the seeds that had not yet sprouted.

Lastly, the turkeys and our pekin duck.  For weeks it seemed like this was ideal!  Our Royal Palm hen even made a little nest in one of my beds (she's laying like an egg a day!) without disturbing the squash or sapling growing there.  But alas, this last Friday I came out to see all three of them climbing my herb spiral and nibbling my herbs down to the nubs.  Bahhh!  Up to this point the herbs seemed like the only greens I could successfully grow.  That didn't last.

I am going to try one more time to re-fence the garden area and encourage the turkeys to hang on the lawn with the rabbit tractor. I don't feel like I have many other options because the turkeys are too big for the chicken run and the ducks are not fond of strange birds.  Its too early to butcher these suckers so they better start behaving!

Vege-troubles

I feel like I haven't written very much about gardening and that is for good reason.  I seem to have some pest issues (althought some of my pests are domestic).  I have yet to catch any wild pests but I know they are there.  My attempts at growing cold weather veggies was laughable.  I started some broccoli and cabbage inside and then when I moved them outside they were stripped down to bare stalks.  My garlic has even been picked through and I have perhaps a quarter of what I started with. I should be harvesting radish and lettuce now!  Instead I am mourning over beds of whimpy, perforated leafy bits.

I seem to be having better luck with my warm season veggies.  I put out tomatoes en mass and have only suffered a few casualties but that was due to the weather.  Corn is coming up (now that there aren't chickens pecking it up), beans, squash, cukes, melons and quinoa.  I had been religiously keeping track of what I planted where until my notes seemed worthless because I had to replant beds so frequently.  Now I have a new resolution.  If it grows, it grows.  If it grows well then I will hopefully be able to save seeds from it for next year. 

Discouraged by annuals I went and boosted my spirits with some perennials.  More currant, elderberry and (new) some goji berry shrubs. 

Baa Baa Baad Goat

We have been working on leash training our goats by taking them for walks to the park.  Some days they do well, some days we have to practically drag them the entire way.  It helps when Adam takes the girls and walks ahead so the kids have something to follow.  Carmen is growing a lot she is a bundle of spindly legged energy.  People who see us walking down the street are often intrigued and ask to pet the goats.  We oblige, but warn that Carmen is sassy.  She invariably lunges at the poor people and jumps up, prodding them with her stiff hooves.  Rico just sidles up, fat and agreeable.

Adam and I recently replaced the dog crate with a more permanent housing structure, a three sided lean-to made from pallets.  I thought that four feet would be high enough to deter the goats from climbing up on top.  But that Carmen, she is incorrigible! For the summer we are leaving it as is but when fall comes around Adam is going to insulate at least two of the sides. I haven't put in a permanent feeder yet but we are getting close to weaning them.

Rico and Carmen, little miss sassy pants

New Home!

They only have approximately an week separating them age-wise and yet their sizes are still very different.  I thought that Rico, being a male, would have had a growth spurt and caught up to Carmen in height.  It hasn't happened yet but maybe that is the effect of castration at such a young age.  This slow growth is making me curious about the lineage of my goats.  Rico very much looks the part of a Boer goat but I expected him to be putting on weight more quickly if that were the case.  Maybe he will escape the butcher block and I will sell him as a pet... We will see how much weight he puts on by September.

I am constantly perusing Craigslist to see if there is a deal on goats that I just can't pass up.  At this point I am leaning towards purchasing a doe and buck, so I can get Carmen serviced without taking a blood sample and going through all that business.  In theory it makes sense, if I can get a decent deal, that I would get a two goats from the same place. Keep the buck around long enough to impregnate Carmen and then send the new buck and Rico to the butcher together.  Logistically we will see what works out.  I just hope that September won't be too late in the season to find some decent goats.

In other news, Lavender is doing well. She is hopping differently, keeping her tummy aloft as she gingerly moves around her cage.  I have been trying to leave her alone for the most part, ever since Adam reached in and she snapped at him.  It could be that I am imagining it, but she seems to be enjoying herself, like this is what she was supposed to do in life.

Candace is sitting on a nest full of eggs! Last time I counted there were twelve, it could be there are more now!  I am excited for ducklings! I don't want to get too excited though, the Muscovy duck incubation period is 35 days, gasp! That is a long freaking time!  I can't tell but I think Lucy started laying too.  Both are looking ragged from breeding.  The feathers on their backs are grimy and shredded.  Ducks really get the short end of the stick with mating.  At least I don't have a water feature for Ken to drown them in as he does his stuff. It's bad enough that he is twice their size.

I have been incubating quail eggs too and the first set should hatch tomorrow... If they are going to hatch... ever.  I am not holding my breath.  The second set looked more promising when I candled them.  I might have to break down and buy an actual egg incubator.

I pickled seven quail eggs today.  I wasn't satisfied with any of the pickle mix recipes that I found or did not find.  So I kinda winged it.  I took apple cider vinegar and added sugar, salt, coriander, cloves, and ground red pepper. I microwaved it all in the mason jar and stirred, microwaved one more time just to be sure I got it hot enough and of course that was the time that I didn't watch it and it boiled over.  Then I added the hard boiled and shelled eggs to the hot mess and screwed the lid down tight.  I put the jar in the fridge and when I checked it a couple hours later the lid had sealed.  I am debating how long to wait before I try a pickled egg.  I hope to forget that they exist and surprise myself with them in a month or so.

Nothing helps me forget current projects like take my goats for a walk.  It is possible that walking the goats would be enjoyable if I did not bring my children along.  Not that my girls aren't adorable and lovely, because they are!  It's just their legs.  They have these little short legs and it takes them FOREVER to walk anywhere.  Unless, of course, you carry them.  But maintaining hold on two goat leashes and carrying one of two toddlers is a precarious endeavor.  Not that I haven't managed this task, I would not say I succeeded at it, but I have managed it out of necessity.  It requires a lot of guiding goats with your feet (to the untrained eye it might look like kicking), skillfully leveraging children onto hips and muttering frustrations always helps class up the operation.  I have tried to delegate and carry Aida while giving a tether to Mildred.  Most of the time Millie just drops the leash the moment the goat pulls against her.  The last time however, I was coaching her to hold on to it, hold on tight!  And a second later the leash was gone and she was picking herself up off the pavement in a deluge of tears.  Awwww, poor Millie.

Multiplying like Rabbits

At the beginning of April we had two American rabbits, Lavender and Jefferson.  Now we have five total.  I wanted at least a trio, two does and one buck, but when I went to pick up our second doe I couldn't help myself.  I found a breeder in Sun Valley that had 6 week old Californian/New Zealand crosses for sale, $15.  She made me a deal and for $25 I brought two does home.  Adam helped me name them Grace and Stevie.

Grace has slightly darker coloring compared with her sister

Stevie is a little more docile, the sisters currently enjoy sharing a cage

About a week later a woman on Craigslist was looking to unload a Californian buck because of a messy divorce. I thought it might be nice to have a back up stud.  Via text she told me he was five months old.  I was surprised to find him a little small for my taste but rationalized that perhaps he was not free fed, and the constraints of his cage could affect his growth.  His current digs are a big change of pace from the indoor cage equipped with a litter box that he had before.  Now he is sharing the rabbit tractor with Jefferson.  I named the newbie buck Harvey. He has beautiful markings and is gentle when handled.  He has a couple months before his stud services will be needed, hopefully he can pack on some pounds by then.

The size difference is particularly noticeable in this picture of the bucks side by side,  keep in mind Jefferson is a month younger than Harvey

Yesterday we bred Lavender and Jefferson for the first time.  I was apprehensive.  Maybe Jefferson wouldn't know what to do, maybe he would be territorial and attack her... I need not have worried.  As soon as she entered the cage and he got one sniff of her, Jefferson was all about business.  It took a couple mounts, Lavender was playing hard to get.  Finally he succeeded, though he did bite her once to achieve compliance for the final act. I was happy that things had gone so well and then immediately distraught when Lavender did not respond to Jefferson's post-coital kisses. He was hopping around snuffling her face, very sweet.  But Lavender was just lying there eyes closed, breathing alarmingly slow.  Rabbits are known to break their backs easily, maybe Jefferson's loving had been too rough! I yelled for Adam.  I lifted the tractor lid and he whisked her back to her cage. She was lethargic in her cage.  We just left her alone.  Maybe she was just processing her deflowering, physically and emotionally.  An hour later  I checked on her and she was hopping around same as always, whew! Tomorrow we are going to let Jefferson have another go just to confirm the breeding. In about a month we should have a nesting box full of fuzz balls!

Wall 'o Water Hick Hack

I have been attending Grow Your Own, Nevada! which is a gardening class put on by the local cooperative extension.  A couple weeks ago the lecture was on growing tomatoes.  The Wall o' Water was a key tool the presenter suggested using.  Quick intro to Wall o' Water, it is a circular cone made out of plastic that has cylindrical pockets that you fill with water and then the water acts as a barrier and season extender for cold sensitive plants.
 


 I wasn't ready to transplant my tomato starts yet but I had received my Burgess Seed Co. purchases and included in that was my hardy kiwi.  I was worried about the kiwi because its young leaves are cold sensitive regardless of its name.  I dragged my family out to a local nursery but, alas, they were sold out of these precious Wall o' Waters.  This gave me an idea, why spend money when I can make my own?  I had seen several of my mom friends post of Facebook about the DIY Backyard Waterbed (http://www.playathomemomllc.com/2012/02/giant-outdoor-waterbed/) and this inspired me.  I used the sturdy red plastic bags that Burgess sent my plants in, parchment paper and my iron to whip up a couple.

Not as pretty but getting the job done!

My Happy Hardy Kiwi Female Snuggled In

The plastic was not as sturdy as a legit Wall o' Water so I added some structure by placing cut up milk cartons inside.

My neighbor called me over to offer me some used bird cages.  We went into his backyard to grab them and he showed me their modest garden beds.  Their nursery started tomato plants were already two feet tall, sturdy and showing signs that flowers would be setting in a few days.  I was discouraged, thinking about the tomatoes that I had started from seed two months ago that just now were putting out true leaves.

Cardoon, Tomato, Cantaloupe, Eggplant, Okra and Peppers

Tomatoes, Eggplant, Cuke and herbs and onion (that aren't really thriving)

Tomato Starts

If his tomatoes discouraged me his radish and cabbage utterly debased my inner gardener.  They were perhaps a week from harvest.  My attempts at cool weather crops had so far been largely a failure.  Ants and sparrows were stealing my seeds and decimating my seedlings.  *Sigh*  I was also challenged by this revelation of neighborly success.  I immediately wanted to move some tomatoes outside, who cares if they are tiny?  If they grow outside they are still growing.  I had used all the red plastic making the two barriers for the kiwi.  I googled diy Wall o' Water and someone had said they used packing ballast. So I gave it a shot.  I took some milk jugs wrapped them in ballast, duct taped it together then transplanted some seedlings, set the jug/ballasts atop and snipped some holes in the top of the ballast pockets.  I filled the pockets with water using a funnel and water can. I moved a total of four starts out side, three Plantano and one Purple Cherokee.

These are the most flimsy. I have to top them up almost every day.  I am using them as modified cloches, putting the jug caps on overnight.  The tomatoes seem happy so far.

The weather has been phenomenal lately and I have been tempted enough to start planting.  The experts at my gardening class said that between May 15th and June 1st is the optimal time to plant warm weather crops like corn, melons and beans.  I just can't wait anymore.  The 12th of April I did a test planting of summer squash, cucumbers and watermelon.

Summer Squash

Charleston Grey Watermelon

Seeing these seeds take off has given me courage to go hole hog planting warm weather crops. From May 1st-3rd I planted beans, corn, cantaloupe, summer squash, winter squash, cucumbers.  I also planted more peas, beets and greens. 

I planted this entire bed with vining crops, I am hopeful that this will be a blanket of intertwining squash and melons

Here is a natural trellis (apple branch) that I stuck in the ground for my peas

My next garden challenge is to create row covers to protect my crops from these bothersome sparrows.  If His eyes is on the Sparrow and I know He watches me.  Then God is watching be get pretty pissed. I have been all over town looking for Remay (light weight fabric that can be used as a floating row cover), another tool talked of often at Grow Your Own, Nevada! Yet every nursery or garden center I go to has no idea what it is.  Perhaps I have had bad luck and the employees I talk to are dolts that are uneducated about their field.  Or perhaps remay is like a unicorn and the more I hunt for it the more rare it is, I just need to stop looking and it will appear one night in a meadow, lit up by the moon is a silvery glow... Probably not.  Next stop thrift store to get some gauzy used curtains.

Musky Ducks

Candace (my oldest Muscovy duck) laid her first egg, hurrah! That was on the 23rd.  I took the first three eggs and to eat and see if they were fertile.  They weren't. Then she took a break.  The she laid two more eggs. These were fertile. She took another break.  I noticed she was looking panicky and trying more vigorously to escape their pen.  I thought that perhaps she wanted to find a nest that was more secluded. I let the ducks start free ranging again.  She laid an egg behind the compost pile a few days ago and apparently abandoned it.  After two day of her not laying, I moved the egg to one of the nesting boxes in their pen.  Two days passed and nothing.  I am still letting them free range, my hope is that Candace has found a nest so sneaky that I haven't found it.  I kind of doubt it, our yard is pretty small and I know it like the back of my hand. I can still hope.

Two of my Muscovy ducks, Ken (left) and Candace (right). Candace is giving me some attitude.

Kahh-tuuuur-neeeks!

I started getting fed up with my quail.  They were getting pretty loud with their obnoxious "Kahh-tuuuur-neeeks!" One of the Texas A & Ms was startling all the time and flying up into the ceiling of the cage, effectively scalping the feathers from his head.  Just looking at him was stressing me out.  So one day I took a trip onto BYC and found a step-by-step tutorial on butchering quail.  It helped that the user employed the help of a six year old to model each step.  If some first grader can do it so can I!  I was a little challenged emotionally because I had raised them up from eggs and they are so small, they fit in one had, how could I kill something so dainty? 

The first one to go was the scalped A & M, but he did not make it easy for me.  I went to grab him out of the cage and he flew out.  So then I spent fifteen minutes chasing him around in the yard.  I finally pinned him under a stray rain gutter that I had lying around.  By that time I was SO ready to chop his head off.  Aida was taking a nap but Millie was awake and as I held the panicked bird over a 5 gallon bucket she wandered out to me.  I told her what I was doing and then grabbed a pair of hand pruners and clipped the quail's neck.  She surprised me with her casual attitude.  "You killed the quail," she said and went to play on the swings.  Huh, I guess she is getting used to this whole urban farming thing. 

Plucking a quail is so easy!  It's almost enjoyable!  No scalding required; some people just clip off the wings and skin the bird, but I left the skin on.  Even though I was totally inexperienced I was completely done cleaning the carcass in about five minutes.  Time for number two.  I grabbed one of the Jumbo Browns and vented it, just to see.  You can injure a bird improperly venting to determine sex, so until now I had been too timid, but in a few minutes this bird was dead meat anyway so perfect timing.  The second butchering was uneventful, took a little longer to pluck because of the brown feathers.  I went to grab the last A & M, flipped it over to vent and was surprised to see a much different picture than I had seen with the previous bird.  The cloaca was large and swollen... Hmmm... I guess I should leave these two alone. 

The two survivors

A week later I was rewarded with my first quail egg. Yay!  I had it over easy.  The second week of laying I started collecting eggs for an incubation experiment.

Beautiful slightly green with brown speckles

My experiment: To use my yogurt incubator to hatch quail eggs, I will be doing sets of 4 eggs, with a maximum of 16 eggs.  In about 17 days we will see if I get any babies.  I am doing to the staggered sets because 1) I am not completely certain of the fertility of these eggs, 2) I am super impatient 3) eggs can only sit around for ~1 week before being set.

Here is my incubator next to my beside so I remember to turn the eggs frequently.

Excited for more babies but I am not holding my breath.  I will report on the results either positive or negative.  I will warn you, if you believe in premonitions, I had a dream about exploding eggs.

Boo Hoo Hoo!

Within twelve hours of the chicks being moved into their new home one of them died.  I didn't think it was a big deal.  50 freshly hatched poultry? Some just aren't going to make it.  When the death toll got up to five I started to feel pretty rotten.  I was checking the chicks twice daily for pasty butt and cleaning them gently, I also employed the technique of applying Vaseline after cleaning.  My mom came to visit and I thought the chicks had finally stabilized, the weakling had been weeded out.  I proudly led her out to the brooder and she took one look it and turned to me, "Katherine, two of your chicks are dead."

I was really starting to flip internally, what was going on?! The day before I had gotten some probiotic for their water to jump start their little flora populations.  The turkeys and ducks looked awesome and turkeys poults are supposed to be super sensitive! I had started to notice that some of the chicks appeared to have trouble breathing before they died.  I watched a few expire before my eyes.  I would notice that the chicks' breathing was labored and then they would fall on their side and seize a couple times before they bit it. The next morning I went to check on them and do my pasty butt detail.  A few of the chicks appeared to be breathing more rapidly than the others but all of them were up and moving.  I went to the other side of the brooder and I saw the Ancona duckling throwing her head back gasping.  I almost lost it.

I went to google and typed in "why are my chicks dying", I read through a list of possible illnesses and determined that it must be aspergillosis.  I wanted to punch myself in the face but it already felt like someone punched me in the throat as I choked down some tears and frustration.  The cause of aspergillosis is environmental.  The babies most likely inhaled mold spores from the wood chips (that I being thrifty borrowed from my backyard) and then the infection started.  The incubation period is 2-5 days.  Adam and I removed the wood chips immediately then sprayed bleach all over the brooder, we temporarily housed the chicks into large rubbermaid containers.  The duckling flipped onto her back in the rubbermaid and seized a couple times before she flat lined. She was one of the cutest things I have ever seen and watching her die before my eyes because of a mistake that I made cut me deep.  A decision that seemed SO arbitrary!

There are two kinds of aspergillosis, acute and chronic and even though I scoured the web there aren't any official treatments.  Acute as you may guess is rapid onset, that is what my chicks were presenting with so far.  But if some of them were infected the odds were that they all had it.  One website suggested Nystatin in the chick feed.  The same website said the mortality rate could be anywhere from 5-50%.  I took off for the feed store to see if they had any Nystatin before church.  It was there at the counter while I talked to the woman at the register that I lost my grip on composure.  All they had to do was ask, "What's wrong with them?" and then the tears just started flowing.  I seriously love the staff at our feed store.  A married couple works there, this ethnic looking dude with an accent and a beard and his wife who is a pretty plain jane with mousy hair.  I told them what I had found on the Internet and the wife told me they didn't have that medication in house, as her husband handed me a box of tissues.  She suggested I try Tylan.  I was torn.  The birds cost $60.  Should I really spend $40 on a treatment for a supposedly untreatable condition or should I just let it runs its course naturally and shell out another $60.  Money wise I should have gone with option b but in my heart I had to do something.  I lost four more chicks after I started the Tylan treatment, one was a turkey poult.

As of today the count is 31 chicks, 1 turkey, 1 duckling.  I think we are out of the woods ((knock on wood) haha, that's kind of punny).  Most of the chicks that I lost were bantams and the more exotic looking ones.  Kind of a bummer.

The day after I started treatment on the chicks I called Cackle Hatchery, just to see what they could do for me.  I was kind of relieved when the customer service woman told me that they would re-ship 12 chicks and 1 duckling if I bought two other poults, since their minimum shipping requirement is 15 birds.  I was set to get two more turkey poults when her stupid manager came over and put the cay-bosh on the whole thing.  So instead of replacements I got an apology.  I expected that from the beginning but I wish they hadn't yanked me around first.  Later in the morning I bought myself a pick-me-up present.

Carmen and Rico Our Newest Additions

 With my mom and daughters in tow I went out to Lemmon Valley to meet some hippie chicks with goat kids to spare.  Adam had made me promise not to get goats until after Burning Man.  I negotiated with him and ultimately we decided that "practice goats" would be a good idea.  The price of a good quality doe could be anywhere from $150-300.  That's a pretty big investment for us.  So "practice goats" were a good compromise.  These particular goats are drop kids from a dairy.  My understanding of a "drop kid" is that they are the kids produced when dairy nannies are freshened.  Typically dairy farmers cross breed their milkers with meat goats like Boers so that the offspring are dual purpose.  The kids that were available were mixes of Boer/French Alpine/Nubian.  I told the woman that I wanted two doelings and I really wanted to be able to get them disbudded.  There was one female around three weeks old that was presenting good dairy characteristics; slim hips, longish teats (proportionally), and a good "bag size".  The other doelings available were older with more prominent horns.  I had read that disbudding was possible up to three weeks old.  I didn't want to push it buying an older doe.  So I also picked out a two week old buckling.  Both kids had horns nubbing up through their fur, I called the equine hospital the farmer suggested and made an appointment. The soonest I could get was Friday.  The receptionist asked what their names were... uh...names?  My mom suggested Tacos.  It's never good to name your food.    In Pullman, our college town there was a bar called "Rico's" and a goat head was the logo.  I thought Carmel would be a good name for the girl because of her coloring but we couldn't decided whether to pronounce it Car-mel or Car-a-mel.  Carmen was just simpler and seemed a good pairing for Rico.  So after a day Adam and I decided Rico for the boy and Carmen for the girl.

I had read that breeding early can stunt growth.  Which might be a bad thing for some people but seemed strategic for us since our square footage is a premium.  Maybe I could keep Rico intact and just let nature take its course... Then I read further and that aside from impeding growth the chances of complications in labor increase exponentially.  So, yeah, add castration to that disbudding appointment. 

The kids had been bottle raised for a week and then put with a nurse goat.  So their bottle feeding skills were a little rusty.  We tried feeding them twice the first day.  Carmen went to town on the first feeding, Rico had no interest.  Later we tried again and neither of them took the nipple. 

My Hubbie has the Magic Touch

Rico Chowing Down

Tuesday Mom and I took the girls to the thrift shop and I got harnesses for the goats.  I really want to leash train them.  How cool will it be to take my kids for a walk with my goats.  SO COOL!  I was afraid that the harnesses I got would be too small since it seemed like most of the harnesses were for chihuahuas originally.  When I got home I was surprised to slip the harnesses on and watch them hang off the tiny kids.  Oh, well, they will grow into them.

I kept treating the chicks religiously and around Wednesday I discovered that aspergillosis is also called "Brooder Pneumonia", so I'm not the only person in the world affected. The chicks that had made it thus far seemed to be growing fine.  They had feathered out enough for quick flutters from one side of the brooder to the other. Even though their numbers had thinned, I still love just watching them peck around.

Friday arrived and I took the kids to visit a friend before the veterinary appointment.  The goats got chased around the back yard by hyperactive kids and an ornery dachshund.  It was pretty funny to watch.  My friends watched the girls while I took the kids to their appointment.  I was confronted with bad news at by the Vet.  Their horns were too big already.  She could try to disbud them but chances are that it would be a long painful process and the horns would grow back again since they were already established. Ugh!  She was able to band Rico, poor guy.  After she placed the band around his scrotum he bleated pitifully and crawled into my lap. She estimated that at maturity Carmen would be around 150 lbs and Rico would be close to 200 lbs.  Hmm... She said that breeding at five months would be fine particularly if I was breeding to a mini or dwarf buck.

So my new plan is to fatten Rico up all summer and when Carmen is five months to get her serviced by a breeder and hopefully that breeder will have a doe or doeling available. Rico is super cute right now but he is looking more delicious daily.