Turkey Time-Out!

Welcome back!

I hope you had a good week.

We've had a little trouble keeping our turkey in the yard. I don't know why. He usually stays around the chickens and the goats. He usually sleeps on the fence by the goats in the winter, and he sleeps on the fence by the chickens when the weather is nicer in spring and summer.

We had a few neighbors see him in their yard. Yesterday before we started to milk we got a call from a neighbor who saw him across the street. I love our good neighbors! This time Mr. Turkey was two blocks away!

I wish there had been another person with Matt and me to take a video of us catching the turkey. Our neighbor was there, but he was helping us catch the turkey, too.

It took three of us to corner the turkey, catch him, and get him into a dog crate to bring him home. We followed him through four back yards and down the street for a little while. We don't usually run after animals that we're trying to catch because that scares them and they run faster. We usually follow them and try to get them into a corner where it's easier to catch them.

Mr. Turkey doesn't fit very well in the dog crate.
It's big enough to bring him back to the farm in the back of the car.

This is big enough for him to live in for a few days.
We call it "Turkey Time-out!"
Maybe I should call it "Turkey Think Time."
Hopefully after spending a few days inside the big cage he'll decide it's better to stay close to home instead of wandering the neighborhood.

If he decides to wander off again he may end up as Turkey Dinner. Our neighbors are nice, but they don't want a turkey wandering around in their yard digging up their flowers and gardens.

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I was able to catch and hold the new hen that hasn't grown her feathers yet.
I thought you might like to see what it looks like a little closer.
Do you see those small black 'sticks' coming out of her skin?
Those are new feathers.
I'm not sure why she hasn't grown her feathers back yet.

This is another one of the new hens.
Her feathers have almost all filled in. There is only one small bald spot by her tail.
All the small shiny feathers on her back are the new feathers.

These two hens are 'broody.' That means they want to sit on a nest and hatch out eggs. They are in the same nest every morning and every night. They won't leave.

I keep taking their eggs, anyway.

I may put some eggs under them next week and let them hatch.

This hen is a banty. She's a mini-chicken. She can hatch out 2-3 large eggs.
She's small so she can't keep very many eggs warm.

This hen is a regular size hen.
She can sit on 5-6 eggs and keep them warm.

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I haven't collected any duck eggs lately. I thought one of the ducks was broody and sitting on a nest that she had hidden somewhere. Ducks get broody, too. 

The ducks aren't broody.
They were hiding their eggs.

How many eggs do you see?
They are a little dirty.

I gathered up the eggs and floated them to see if any were nasty. None of them floated so I washed them and checked them with my special flashlight to make sure they were still good to eat.

It's been chilly enough outside that the eggs are all still good to use!

All clean!
Next month I'll send a bunch of eggs so you can see and feel the difference between duck eggs, chicken eggs, and turkey eggs.

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Matt and I needed to work on the bucks (boy goats) last week. We don't do much with them because bucks are stinky in the winter! 

They all needed their hooves trimmed.
Curly needed the 'tags' cut off, too.

'Tags' are mud and stuff stuck to his curly hair.

He didn't want to stand properly in the milk stand so I trimmed him while his front feet were up on the stand and his back feet were on the ground.

After a while he decided that was uncomfortable so he got up on the stand so I could finish.

It took about an hour to trim and clean up all three bucks. Now they are ready to sell! We're ready for some new bucks this fall. We'll miss Curly, Zeek, and Thor. We know they will be happy where ever they go!

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I hope you have a great Spring Break!

There will be baby goats when you get back. We've kept an eye on Serenity, River, and Misty. They are ready to have their babies any day!

Jake Attacks!

Welcome back!

I hope you've had a great week.

Did you figure out what we use all the poo for? If you thought that we use it in the garden, you're right. We have so much poo that we share it with other families that want it for their garden's, too.

Would you like to meet some new animals?

I thought so!

This is Storm.

This is Fern.

We don't usually name our chickens. Our friends are moving and so they gave us all their chickens because they can't take them to their new house. That's so sad!

These two chickens are really friendly! I love the fluffy feathers on their heads. They are Polish chickens. Chickens have different breeds just like dogs.

Do you see the cage wall? It's about half-way back in the chicken coop.

Chickens aren't very nice to new chickens. When we get new chickens we put them in the back and shut the little door between the two rooms in the coop. We make sure the new chickens have food and water in the back room. We keep them in the back room for two or three days.

Chickens aren't very smart, either. Once the old chickens wake up with the new chickens in the back two or three times they think the new chickens are part of the same flock. Then the old chickens won't pick on or beat up the new chickens.

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We have new ducks, too!

The ducks really belong to Quin and Xander but the ducks are happier in our barn yard than they were in the little chicken coop they were in.

Can you see the difference between the two ducks? What things are the same, and what things are different?

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Thank you for writing me questions! I think your handwriting is getting better.

Annie was born 25 March 2010.
Misty was born 26 March 2011.
River and Serenity were born 9 April 2016.

Can you use a calendar to find out how old they are?

Echo was born 10 February 2014.
She had her first calf on 25 April 2016.

How old is Echo? How old was she when she had her first baby?

Sometimes I wonder why we have lots of animals! We have lots of animals for a few reasons. We like the milk from the goats and the cow. We like fresh eggs, they taste better than eggs bought in a store. We like the things that we learn while we're working on the farm.

We like having animals because most children don't get to see what farm animals are like. Our neighbor children love to come over and visit the animals. Pre-schools, scouts, Activity Day girls, and families love to visit the farm, too. We love being able to share what we do with other people.

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I have some sad news, too.

We have to get rid of Jake, the duck. He was such a nice duck but he has turned into a bully. We can't keep a bully on the farm. It isn't safe for us, or our visitors. Jake will find a new home this weekend.

Can you see him attacking me?
I have layers of winter clothing on so it doesn't hurt. 

He has a strong beak, and long claws on his feet so he could hurt children that come to visit.

We found a new home for him on a farm that doesn't have visitors.

I'm sure he will be happy there.

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Here's a fun picture of Stew!
His coat is so thick that he doesn't mind being out in the snow.

His wool has something called 'lanolin' in it. It's an oil. Oil and water don't mix very well so the snow stays on Stew's back until it melts and drips off. He doesn't get very wet when it rains, either. The water can't stick to his fleece!

Next week I'll show you a little more about wool. I have a spinning wheel and some wool from our sheep. It's so much fun to spin wool into yarn!

Have a great week!

The Hay Shelter Is Up!

Welcome back!

I hope you had a wonderful week and learned a lot of new things.

We've been busy getting ready for winter on the farm. That means we need to get a lot of hay! We needed a new place to keep the hay dry.

The frame has been up since last fall, but we haven't had time to get the rest of it finished.

We used clips to hold the back of the shelter on.

Matt is finishing the 'earth anchors.'
Earth anchors are a way to hold the metal frame from blowing away.
The white tarp at the bottom of the photo is the roof and sides of the shelter.

We got the tarp on. It took all four of us to pull it over the top of the frame.
After we got the tarp over we clipped both ends
and used straps to hold the sides to the frame.

Here comes the hay!
We use a tractor to lift those big bales and put them where we store them.

We have four big bales inside the barn.

Two bales are in. You can see how long the shelter is.

There are 14 bales of hay in the shelter.
We covered the end with a tarp so they hay stays dry.

How many bales of hay did we get for the animals?

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We made cheese this week, too!

Quin is cutting the curd for me. It's one of his favorite jobs.

We made Squeaky Cheese!
Yummy!

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We have turkeys on our farm, too!
The big, brown one on the left is a Tom Turkey.
A Tom is a boy turkey.
The two turkeys on the right are hens.
Girl turkeys are called hens, just like girl chickens.

Do you see the chicken in the photo?
That chicken thinks she's a turkey because one of the hen turkeys 

sat on some chicken eggs.

That chicken is the one that hatched! 

Do you see the small chickens on the left?
They were hatched out of their eggs on August 11. They are about 5 weeks old.

The chicks still sleep with their mother hens to stay safe and warm at night.

Sometimes the chicks are hard to see when the mother hen is keeping them warm!

This his our crazy hen. She likes people.
She came to visit me while I was sitting on the patio.

We also have one duck.
She lays a lot of eggs in the spring.
Chickens lay eggs almost all year.
Most ducks only lay eggs in the spring.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a wonderful week!

If you have any questions, please write me a note or leave your question in the comments below.

Photos from the Farm * 28 August 2015

Welcome to our farm!

Two wonderful things happened last Wednesday.

You started First Grade, and we had two little chicks born.

Can you see them?
Do they look like their mother?
Do they look like each other?
What's different?

Each week I'll show you a picture of them as they grow up. You can watch them change from little fuzzy chicks to adult chickens. We hope they grow up to be hens, not roosters, because hens lay eggs.

These small chickens are growing up.
They were born 19 July 2015.
They look like small chickens, not like fuzzy chicks.
How many weeks old are they?

Did you count the weeks on a calendar? If you counted 5 weeks and 5 days, you are right!

I thought you might like to see where most of the farm animals live. Next week I'll show you a map of our barn so you can see what it looks like inside.

Here are a few of the other animals that live on our farm.

This is Curly. Why do you think we named him Curly?
He is a buck, a boy goat.
There is another buck in the background, his name is Zeek.

These ducks live on our farm, too. They are not our ducks, they belong to the neighbor, but they come across the road to our farm every morning for breakfast.

They love to eat the chicken's food, and the turkey's food, so I have to chase them home every day.

Here is another animal that lives on our farm.
He doesn't live in the barn.
His name is Miles.
Miles and Matt are best friends. When Matt is gone to work, Miles sits by the back door waiting for him to come home.

I'll tell you more about Miles and the other animals on the farm every Friday when you are in school. I'm excited to show you around and tell you about all the things that happen here at Welcome Home Farm.

I hope you enjoyed this short visit! I hope you come back every Friday to see what is happening on the farm.

You can ask me questions, and I'll answer them. Your teacher will bring me your questions, and if your handwriting is neat enough that I can read it, then I will post your question here and answer it for everyone to see.

I hope you visit again next Friday! Have a great week!

Photos from the Farm #30

Welcome back!

Do you want to see a few more photos of Harry?

We love him! He is such a sweet goat kid! He's so friendly and very soft. Often our goat kids are shy and we have to catch them to pet them. Not Harry! He comes right up to us.

He often sits on my lap while I'm milking Annie, his mom. I wish I could get a picture of that! I'm not very good at taking selfies while I'm milking.

Here's Harry! Did you notice he has a collar on now?
He is almost 4 weeks old.

Misty is on the left, Harry is in the middle, and Annie is on the right.

The mama goats don't mind letting Harry have a treat.

Goat kids love to climb and play, just like you!

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We had a visitor earlier this week. This is a turkey hen. I don't know who she belongs to.
We saw her on Sunday, by Monday afternoon she had gone home.

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I found one of the nests the ducks made! I found 3 eggs!
They decided that since I found their nest, they would hide their eggs again.
I found another nest in the garden under the raspberries.
They didn't lay under the raspberries very long.
It's like an Easter Egg hunt every day!

Last week I showed you a graph of how many eggs I collected over almost 6 weeks. I thought you might like to know how much all those eggs cost us.

We collected 348 eggs.

There are 12 eggs in each dozen.

348 ÷ 12 = 29 dozen eggs.

A 50 pound bag of food costs about $16. The chickens and ducks ate 2 1/2 bags of food during the 6 weeks I was counting eggs.

$16 x 2.5 = $40

To find out how much each dozen eggs cost I divided $40 by 29 dozen.

$40 ÷ 29 dozen = $1.38 for each dozen eggs.

I'm not sure how much eggs cost in the store since we haven't bought eggs from the store for a long time!

We like our chickens, and we like fresh eggs a lot! They taste much better than eggs from the store. We also like that the chickens eat all the bugs in the pasture. We don't usually have many grasshoppers during the summer.

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I thought you might like to see the flowers that are starting to bud in the front yard.
It's spring and everything is growing!

Here is the flower bed by the front door.

Do you see the tall, fluffy, white flowers?
That is a rhubarb plant.
This afternoon I'll cut the stalks and bottle them in jars so we can make pie with it. Rhubarb is sour so the pie has a lot of sugar and berries in it to make it sweeter.

That's all for today.  Make it a great week!

Photos from the Farm #17

It was so much fun to visit you in person last week! I wish there had been more time for your questions.

If I didn't have a chance to answer your question I hope you will write it down in your best handwriting and I'll answer it here on the blog.

I thought you might like to see some photos from last week.

Sometimes chickens can get a little bit wild. If I hold them upside down by their feet they calm down very quickly.

We tried very hard to make sure each child got a chance to touch a chicken....

and a duckling.....

so you could feel the difference between feathers....

and down (those are the fuzzy feathers that they are born with).

The ducklings have grown since you saw them last week. They are starting to get their feathers, too. By the time they are 12 weeks old they will have all their feathers.

Here is a great link to show you how to take care of ducklings from right after they hatch until they are adults. How to take care of ducklings. Your teacher might not have time to look at it, but you may have time to look at it with your parents.

The ducklings have water to drink, but they don't have water to swim in yet. Did you know that baby ducklings will drown if someone other than their mother lets them get into a pond? Their mother will 'preen' them with her beak. She has special oil glands that coat her feathers and help her float. She can put some of that oil on her ducklings by rubbing her beak on herself then on her ducklings.

Ducklings don't develop (grow) that oil gland until they are about 6 weeks old. When they are about six weeks old they will start preening (spreading water-resistant oil) on their feathers. Then they can swim and float on the water if they want to.

You can try an experiment: put a little bit of oil in a cup of water. What happens to the oil?

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Do you remember that I told you about trimming goat hooves? Just like your nails have to be trimmed, goat hooves have to be trimmed. Many animals need to have their hooves or nails trimmed. Our cats need their nails trimmed, once in a while we need to trim the dogs' toenails, too.

It is always easier to trim hooves after we have had some rain. The goats don't mind walking around on the damp ground and that softens their hooves. Your nails are softer after you get out of the bath or the shower.
I hope your nails never get as dirty as goat hooves do!

Sandy's hooves are all trimmed and she stands evenly on all her feet.

I can tell when I've trimmed enough hoof because when the goat stands up the bottom of the hoof is parallel with the hairline at the top of the hoof.
I can see that I trimmed a little too much off her toes because her toes don't touch the milk stand.

If you don't know what parallel means, look at the red lines on the back hoof in the photo. If I keep drawing those lines they will never touch each other. Neither line is tilted towards the ceiling or the floor.

Did you know that farmers have to know math? We do! We need to know all sorts of math or we can't put up fences or plant gardens or know how to properly feed an animal or how to properly care for a sick animal.

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Here is what the inside of Clover's new coat looks like. It looks like a giraffe! She doesn't care, she is very glad to be warm.

Are you smarter than a goat? Do you wear your coat outside?

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Do you see how big the chicks are getting? They are too big for their other home.

Do you see the board behind the white chicken? It closes off a doorway between the front part of the coop and the back part where the new chickens are. We kept the new chickens in the back with food and water until the old chickens got used to them. 

Chickens are bullies, and they are stupid! Hmmmmm..... do you think all bullies are stupid? I wonder about that.

The new chickens stayed in the back for 3 nights. Now the old chickens think they have always been part of the flock. Everyone gets along now! 

I think children are smarter than chickens because they can choose to be kind to everyone whether they are new to the neighborhood or classroom, or if they have been around for a long time. I hope all of you choose to be kind to each other. I know it's hard to be kind when you are having a bad day, but I think you are smarter than chickens and can do it!

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Next week I will show you what we have to do with Scout. He is a good dog, but he's not very smart sometimes. He loves to play and work and be outside. He gets so excited to do those things that he doesn't always eat.

Miles and JJ always eat, the goats always eat, the chickens, and cats eat, too. They are smarter than Scout!