Saturday 8 June 2013
Went to the Marshfield swap meet today. Took the turkey poults and Archie and Edith, and one pair of the year old geese. Didn’t sell Archie and Edith, but were able to sell the geese and several of the poults. Didn’t get as much for any of the birds as we had hoped, but we got rid of them, and that was the main plan.
We were thinking of going to the auction in Bolivar and just get rid of them, then realized there was a swap meet in Marshfield. Had a great time. Jeanne got sunburned, Gavin got some more Jeff Gordon cars, we all had a great time.
Gave a way some business cards, and hopefully sold some dressed birds for Thanksgiving. That is how we started, with the intention of selling processed birds to eat. Selling the babies to those who grow their own was kind of a logical off shoot. And I think more and more people want the pure Bourbon Reds to grow themselves, and try to breed on their own. So next year hopefully we can raise more of those.
So right now at on the farm, this is what we have. Out in the field, we have the 12 chickens we raised as meat birds. Not sure if we will harvest them before or after vacation. In the large pen, we have one of the Red hens with 3 Broad Breasted Bronze babies, and about 4 others. In the small part of the peacock pen, we have Brownie and 3 chicks, 1 Red and 2 mixed. In the house we have 5 younger babies, 2 Reds and 3 mixed. So right now we still have plenty of birds for our needs. We are going to need to replace one of the Red hens, and we may choose to add two of them for next year. We had one hen hid some where and I couldn’t find her to put away for the night. I found what was left of her the next day, scattered around the edge of the fence. Something got the white rooster, but he was being a pain. And one night some thing got into the large cage. I couldn’t find any birds the next morning, but by that evening, almost all of them were back. Think we lost a few turkey poults, but none of the chickens. They all went and hid somewhere. In the grass or some place until the next morning. Those are the only casualties from predators this year. Not sure Marshmallow has done a great job protecting the birds, but so far it has been less than any other year. Just need to figure out how to teach her she is supposed to protect the birds, not try to be our best friend. Imagine.
17 November 2012,
The Saturday before Thanksgiving, and we processed turkeys this morning. OK, so ALL DAY! We thought we have 10 sold, but then not everyone claimed their birds, and if the aren’t confirmed, we don’t harvest them. So we got up this morning, checked email, and no change. Went out and processed 6 birds. We started about 0830, and it was just after noon we went to town. Came home and checked email again, and we were back on for the other birds. So we got dressed up again, and went out back and processed 3 more toms and a rooster. The only bird left is Gimp, the one that got his leg broken. We will have him for Christmas at Granny’s.
Took us until about 8pm to get the birds all finalized and packaged, ready to go.
Things to work on for next year: Getting a plucker, and a basket for dipping the birds in. We also need better killing cones, and more than one. We did pretty good though. I’d hang one up and start it, let it bleed out, then remove the head before we scalded it. We used the propane stand and the new pot, at just under 150 degrees f. and it worked great. Check the wing feather and when it comes out easy, they are done. Then put them into a big tank to chill until I can clean the insides. Separate the gizzard and heart, along with the neck into a different container. We got a lot of the little pin feathers outside. Doing it in the big tub with a gentle over flow of water to flush the excess off worked great. Then we chilled them and finished the small feathers and made them all nice. We had just enough shrink bags for this year and they work wonders. The problem that I find is the vent hole is at the bottom where it is flat, and the air doesn’t come out well there. Works better with the vent hole on the top, but that is where the wrinkles are and makes it difficult to seal over. Also need some freezer tape to seal them with. Have to be sure to fold the neck flap over the neck bone and do something to remove the point from the tail or else they poke holes in the bag. Just shrinks right over them.
For the last two weeks or so we weren’t sure about birds. We put the geese in with the peacocks to have peace in the coop, in hopes the turkeys would go in there more easily. But not. Came home and they would be in the trees or somewhere. And trying to chase them into the coop only makes matters worse. So we weren’t sure if we would have enough birds to sell. But I came home early Friday and got them all in the coop. And them all having an empty crop sure helped make the processing easier. Now we need to check out the geese and see how difficult they are to pluck. Roasting goose will be the next challenge.
So our turkey flock for next year will start with 6 birds. 4 Bourbon Reds, 1 Tom and 3 hens, including the old Redd mom and the 2 new ones. We also kept Brownie and one of the mixed toms. So we can either let them all run free together or we can make two trios. Thinking about putting a trio in with the peacocks. We also want to let Redd and maybe Brownie set on nests, so I’m thinking about building new pens to put them in and they can build their nests, lay their eggs and then set on them. When the chicks hatch they can just stay in there with mom for a while. We had a real problem with losses this year, with the babies just running loose. Not sure what happened to them, if something got them, or if they just got lost and couldn’t keep up with mom. So next year, if we have a better plan to contain them all, perhaps more will survive.
We also need to build a few more pens to put the babies in when we put them outside. We have the 3 brooders, and need more pens for outside. Need at least one with a built in light and nesting area at one end for smaller babies or when it is colder out. The big pen is too big, so the new ones will probably be 5x10 feet, and figure three new ones. Put them in the field and just move them everyday or two will do great. And could be better than simply dividing the field up. Will still need to build a coop out there for them to sleep in when they get bigger. But any way. Those are some of the plans for next year.
ck here to edit.
Two weeks before Thanksgiving and we are getting ready. We don’t have as many birds this year as we did last year. This weekend Deer season opens, and then next weekend we need to process the birds. We only have about 10 of them this year, as opposed to 15-18 last year. So we will separate them Friday night, then begin processing them Saturday morning. Sunday we will deliver them to our customers in the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart.
The change from Daylight Savings time has really been difficult. It is daylight again when we leave in the mornings, but not it is pitch black when we get home. Makes getting some of the birds back in the coop a real pain. Tonight there are a couple birds on the roof of the coop, and a couple in one of the trees. I tried chasing them out last night, and I’m afraid it just makes things worse. So we are trusting the dog to keep them safe at night until I can convince them to go inside again.
The chickens are not doing well, either. I think there are ten hens, and we have been averaging 3 eggs a day. Every third or fourth day we get four. The other night we only got one! And then we’ll get five or six. I plugged in the light in the coop, so that will extend the daylight hours for them. I think some of them may have already started to molts and we will just have to weather that until they start laying again. When the turkey numbers are reduced after Thanksgiving it should make a big difference also. We are going to have to reduce the number of geese also, even if it means trying roast goose for the first time. Those 5 geese are running rough shod on everything.
Click
It’s been a while since we have been on here. On one hand it seems like nothing has changed, yet on the other it seems like everything has changed.
We started the spring with 3 dogs out in the field and did not have any losses to predators. Eventually, we had to find new homes for the two pups, leaving only the mom. Since then we have lost a few birds. Part of it can be blamed on some of the birds that refused to come into coop at night, and instead roosted in the trees. Possums got a couple chickens.
We put the geese in the pen with the peacocks a while back, and it has worked well. We had been letting everyone out to run during the day and then putting the away when we got home in the evenings. But with the days getting shorter, we had extra difficulty at night getting them in the coops. So during the week, the peacocks stay in their pen all day and night, and the geese stay in the main coop with the chickens and turkeys.
With the end of the season here, I’ve let the birds all into the garden during the day. They have gone over it really well, scratching things up and cleaning up most of the growth. Pulled up all the dead corn stalks today, so I’m sure they will love that tomorrow. Still need to dig up the potatoes, and there are a few herbs still growing. The mint seems to have survived the frost last night.
I moved one of the baby pens into the garden to protect the winter crops from the birds. I had a couple of cabbages that I moved under it, and planted a few seeds. Only 2 appear to have grown, and hoping they survive these cold nights enough to keep growing. I have a tray of plants in the house I started that I’ll put out after this cold snap passes. Think I waited too long to start them. Again. So maybe one year I‘ll get that figured out.
We put in a lot of cedar posts and some fencing, so the field is enclosed well. Next year I’ll need to teach the birds to stay out there and eat it more, instead of looking for coming up and looking for feed. Think it will make for better birds and will lower food costs for sure. There are still more fences I need to get up, and more area I need to enclose, but that will come. I also have plans for building a new field coop that will house the turkeys next year. This year, we put the chicks out in the PVC pens as soon as they were big enough to go out. When they got too big for those, we moved them to the field during the day and locked them a small container at night. It was when they got too big for that container that we ran into problems. We tried putting them in the PVC pen at night, and that worked for a while, but they got more and more difficult to put in at night. Moving them to the main coop proved too difficult and complicated, besides, by this time the birds had developed a tendency to roost in the trees. Perhaps developing a routine early next year will help to get them behave better.
We have been watching the wild life out the back window in the woods behind the house. There has been a doe and her fawn all summer long. She had two, but one got hit by a car. This fall there was another doe came along this fall. Today we saw a buck. And there was a group of about 5 wild turkeys come thru twice. Haven’t seen them for a while, but nice to know the are still around.
here to edit.
 Well it is summer time here in Missouri. The fire flies are out in the evening and the owl is in the woods. Since I didn’t grow up around them, I find them very fascinating. And the bats are out.
We went out the other night and the pups were playing with something in their pen. Jeanne called me out and it was a small bat. Not sure if it was a baby, because they are all small. And then we realized there were 2 of them. We got them away from the dogs and they were able to grab a stick and hang upside down. So we left the stick on the trampoline. I went out later and there was only one, then in rained that night an in the morning, the stick was on the ground and no sign of the bats. I think they were small brown bats. Small buggers, but they got some real teeth!
Then there are the Spurs. The San Antonio Spurs. Riding a 20 game win streak and we fold. Not so much to a better team, just one that can keep up with us. We loose 2 in a row, and hope our season doesn’t end on a 4 game loosing skid. Only time will tell. Another Championship team or another Spurs melt down?
 Saturday, June 02, 2012
We went to the poultry swap meet at Jacob’s Cave today for the first time. We have been to a couple of smaller swap meets around here before and maybe not so much disappointed, as didn’t get the results we were hoping for. So we did some researching and checking and even though this one was a little further away, we figured it was worth it. The swap meet runs for 4 days, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So we made plans Friday night as to what we were taking and got everything ready, then got up early Saturday morning, loaded the van and headed out. The trip up took us right at an hour and a half.
When we first got there, we’re thinking, “Man, this isn’t very big” and then we realized we were just looking at the entry section. The real swap meet was up around the corner, and stretched out for a long way. We were told a good place for us to set up, but told we could set up anywhere some one else wasn’t already set up. We found a place way in the back at the end of a row. The good part was the porta-potty was diagonal across the road.
We didn’t get there until just before 9, and it took only a few minutes to get set up. We took all the baby chicks from the brooder, including 1 chicken a few days old. Plus we took all the babies from the small pen outside. We took the 2 chickens from the duck cage and a pair of Barred Rock chickens. On the way past, there was a Narragansett hen sitting on the pen, so I grabbed her and she went, too. We also took all the turkey eggs we had, and 3 dozen chicken eggs.
The problem was that I hadn’t really planned on how I was going to set everything up or where things were going. The big babies went in the small cage we had, but the smaller babies had to stay in a box. Had to put the two bigger chickens from the duck pen in with the big babies. The Barred Rocks stayed in the small cage and there wasn’t room in it for the turkey. I figured that I could tie a small rope on her leg and she would kind of stick around. The rope didn’t work so good, so Jeanne ended up sitting in a chair kind of holding her between her legs. Later we switched and the hen ended up on the ground next to me, and later she jumped in my lap.
So the bird I brought as an after thought ended up being the star attraction. All the kids wanted to pet her, and we got a few pictures taken. Other people took their own pics. So we were the people in the back with the pet turkey on the ground or in my lap. If you saw us, then you know who we are.
We left just before 3pm, so spent just over 6 hours there. We sold all the chickens, all the big babies from the pen out side and several of the babies from the brooder. Plus we were able to pick up 3 Bourbon Red turkeys. We think 2 of them are Toms and the other is a hen. Will go well with Redd and Brownie, and together they will be the basis of our flock for next spring. So the plan is to go back in the fall, probably go up on Friday afternoon, spend the night and stay most of the day Saturday. The plan, anyway. Need to start working on what we plan to take.
 Well, we experimented with letting the hens set on eggs and hatch them, and all in all we did pretty good. Hard to say exactly on some of them, think they had just as good of hatches as me, and maybe better for some. The geese for sure. But we also had some real issues pop up that we are going to have to deal with and prepare for next year.
First is where are we going to have the hens set on their eggs? We had the geese set in a corner of the coop and then a Narragansett tried to make her nest in the same spot. That resulted in the geese standing on her eggs during the night, and getting poop all over them. She never did set on any of the eggs. Not a good thing. In the peacock cage we had Edith make a nest on one side and the Narragansett make one on the other side. Eventually the Narr. Would move over to Edith’s nest and lay her eggs there, then she finally just tried to sit on the nest with her. In the end I pulled the Narragansett out of the cage and gave her 4 poults from the incubator. One Narragansett hen set on eggs out in the tall grass in the front yard and hatched 7, including 1 chicken. Finally, Redd made a nest out in the Black Berries and set on maybe a dozen eggs.
The next problem we had was keeping track of how many eggs were under each hen, and preventing others from getting in and laying additional ones. I tried to mark some of them, especially when I could watch them lay the eggs and wait for them to set on them. I didn’t so much have a problem with more than one hen laying in the same nest, in fact it helps build the number of eggs in the nest faster. The problem comes when one of the hens finally decides to set, how do you keep the others from continuing to lay there?
And the last major problem we had was what to do with the mother and babies after they hatch? The natural instinct is to take the babies into the brush or grass and hide. And I didn’t think the moms were up to that, and I didn’t trust them or the wild animals around here with that. So I put her in a cage, but the babies kept getting out. So I ended up letting her roam free. Cost me 2 of her babies some where. When the Narragansett hatched in the front yard, she started taking them to the woods, so I put her in the cage, where she still is. She started with 7, the dogs “played with one during the night and she had 6. Then the other night we lost 2 more. They looked like they were trampled in the cage. Think Nikita was loose that night and may have harassed mom in the cage, or something else came around and scared her. So she is down to 4, and one of them is a chicken, go figure. Redd hatched out at least 7 that I counted, but she also had that many dead babies under her, several looked like they were half out of the egg. Then the white rooster got in the yard and chased her all over, and I think she lost some of the babies. When I went out tonight and looked she only had 4. So now we have to decide what to do with her and the babies and how to protect them best we can. I’m thinking about letting the Narragansett out with her 4 babies, they are a little bigger now and they should be ok, and putting Redd in the cage until hers get bigger.
What I have learned this year is that you can only have one hen in a small cage, either in the peacock enclosure or in the small cage I built. They will share nests when one of them is setting and after the babies hatch one will bully the other. And they don’t like to be caged after they the babies hatch. The babies don’t stay near mom. And I still worry about the babies getting enough to eat and drink, and have no way of controlling or making sure they get the game starter they need. The other thing that concerns us is there is no way of really securing mom and her babies for the night. So what do we do?
Ideally each hen would have their own space. Don’t think that is going to happen. I also need to separate the different birds, so the geese, chickens, ducks and turkeys each get their own living space. So we make pens of some sort and put 1 Tom and 2 hens in each one. When one of them shows a willingness to set try to remover her and out her on eggs in another space. When the second hen begins to set I can remove the Tom. If the spaces are planned right, the hen can just stay there with her babies until they grow some. Just need to think about how big the enclosures or what ever need to be. Obviously need to be tall enough for the Tom to get on a hen and partially covered to protect from weather. Both Redd and the Narragansett set on eggs out in the open with minimal protection, through storms and rain and such, so it can be done, but prefer not to force the issue. Have to think about it.
Well, it’s been a while since I wrote, so let me update a few things. Redd is still sitting on the eggs in the bushes and last I checked she was doing good. She has too many eggs for me to count without making a big scene, so I’m just leaving them alone. The other two nests have been destroyed. Something started eating the eggs, and I took most of them out and put in the incubator.
The Narragansett sitting on eggs in the front yard managed to hatch about 7 of them. Bear got one of them, so there are only 6 left. She was leading them around the yard and into the woods and such, so we took them and put them in the large cage I built a couple of years ago. Put it out in the field.
The Narragansett hen in the peacock cage was laying eggs and pushing Edith off the nest. Well and first there were 2 nests, as I’d planned. But then she started jumping nests and pushing Edith off, and leaving eggs uncovered. So I took her out one night and gave her 4 chicks that had just hatched. At first I put her in the cage with the other hen, but they fought, too. So I let her out. I was checking to see if she would abandon the babies, since they were kind of foster kids. She took off for a few minutes and then came back. So I just let her run with her babies. I tried to pen her in, but the wires let the babies thru but not mom. And these babies have no intention of sticking near to mom. Tried putting her in the chicken yard, but she managed to get out. So just left well enough alone. She started with 4 chicks and is now down to just 2. Not sure what happened to the others, think they wandered away to check things out, and they got separated.
Edith had 5 eggs under her and one of them hatched this weekend. So she has 1 chick, and 4 eggs. Not sure how long to wait on the other eggs, and I’m not sure if they will hatch either. And I’m not sure what to do with them, because the peacocks don’t seem to like the babies, and don’t think that she could protect the babies from the peacocks. I’m thinking about taking the chick and putting it with the ones from the incubator and seeing if the eggs are dead. Archie and Edith need to stay in the peacock cage. The big chickens will not accept them, especially the roosters. So they are destined to be confined with the peacocks. Not sure why the peacocks have accepted them other than they grew up together.
And these are the problems we’ve had with getting hens to sit on eggs. Had it with the geese to an extent. First, where do you put the hen to sit on the eggs so the others won’t bother her or try to lay eggs in her nest or force her off the eggs? And it isn’t that easy do control. I didn’t try moving a hen this year, but last year it was all but impossible to move them. One of the things I did was allow them to sit on the eggs in the trees or in the front yard. It also helps that we have dogs we can let run every night. Until we get them trained better just leaving them with the birds all the time is out of the question.
So even after you get them to sit on the eggs, the next question is what do you do with them after they hatch? Where do you put mom and babies so that she can raise them? The other requirements are that the babies get feed and water. That isn’t the same as getting it for mom. And if you are setting out chick starter for the babies, you have to keep everyone else out of it. Not concerned if mom eats it, she probably needs it after setting for so long. For the geese, we just left them in the coop. But the geese are bigger and a lot more aggressive and I worried less about others bullying them. For the turkeys, the one in the front yard I let wander until she started going into the woods a lot. Guess I should have expected that, and it is natural, but we just are not prepared to allow her to just wander around in the woods. Getting fences around the perimeter should help in that. But still, mom can fly over just about any fence I put up. The problem comes when the babies can’t follow, or don’t follow.
So end result is I have one hen caged, and she has 6 chicks. One keeps getting out and I have to put it back. Not sure where it gets out either. She lost 1 chick, to the pups. I have the other hen running free, and she has 2 of 4 chicks left.
This year I have tried to use the “Dry Incubation” method, but the hatch rates have been really bad. Not sure what the problems are. I do know that I have issues with temperature control. To start with, I’m not sure I trust my thermometers. They are digital and seems to be a difference in them some times. Not sure how much of it is that temps vary by height in the still air incubators. But then again I haven’t had really great hatch rates from the forced air incubator either. Not sure how to calibrate the thermometers, or if I should have a thermometer in each incubator or just use one and move it from one to the next. Also, next year plan to use incubator #2 as the hatcher. It has a plastic tray on the bottom and about twice as much head room for the chicks. So will be better. Also, Next year I plan to put eggs in the incubators twice a week instead of just once. I have noticed that the eggs that are hatching the most are those put in the incubator within a day or two of being laid. So I’ll try that. They other thing I could do is find a better way to store the eggs between the time they are laid and the time they go in the incubator. Some place cooler than the house. My closet has the incubators in it, so that isn’t good. Not sure if Gavin’s closet would be any cooler. I’d like to put them under the house if I could figure out a way to accomplish that.
There are a few eggs in the incubator need to throw out, and then 2 more incubators full of eggs. Then that will be the end of the hatching season for this year.
In the garden, things are doing good. A week or so ago I planted a lot of corn. Sweet corn in the garden and field corn out by the birds. The field corn isn’t fenced in so not sure how well it will do, but figured it was worth trying. I’ll let it dry and then use it to feed to the birds. May have to pick it to protect from the deer and the raccoons and finish drying it inside, but we’ll see. Yesterday I planted watermelon and pumpkins. Need to plant more cantaloupes and such. Have lots of tomatoes planted, and herbs. Lots of basil, 2 different types; oregano; tarragon and rose mary. Saw some spicy basil and Thai basil at Wal-Mart the other day that I think I’d like to try. I also put out a cabbage plants I’d started, and some plants I had at school. Also have several beds of potatoes. Squash is also doing good. Have several Zucchini and at least one Acorn squash.
Took 20 turkey eggs out of the chicken coop and put them in the incubator. The Narragansett kept laying and sitting on them for a while during the day, but then she would get off at night and the geese would sleep on them. And poop on them. There is a Narragansett sitting on eggs in the front yard, about 8 I think and they should be hatching in the next 10 days or so. Redd just started sitting on a nest of eggs in the chicken yard the other day, so figure they should hatch about 25-27 May. There are 2 other nests in the Black Berry bushes, one has about 6 eggs and the other more. Not sure if any one is going to sit on them or not, but plan to just leave them be and see what happens.
Edith in the Peacock cage is sitting on several eggs also. There was a Narragansett in there also and it was getting crazy. There was one nest in the small house in there and one next to it. At first they each stayed on their own nest, but then they started switching and sometimes no one was on one nest, so I took some of the eggs and tried to separate them. Didn’t work. So this weekend did some major re-arranging of birds. We took the cage apart that had the Barred Rock babies in it. They are getting so big can’t really be called babies anymore, so we call them “Broilers”. We set up a new 4 foot fence in a new area, and moved them to it. The coop went with them. The cage got moved to a new area. We took the Narragansett from the peacock cage and put 4 new hatched poults under her to see if she would adopt them. Well, tonight she was out of the box and had at least 2 under her. I got in the cage and lifted her wing to make sure they were there and ok. And that was enough.
Trusting the birds to be good moms and know what to do is just a little new and rough for me. Because some of them have shown they don’t even know how to stop laying and sit on the eggs. As for babies, right now we have 4 babies that hatched a week ago, and 13 that hatched Saturday. It is 4 of the 13 that went under mom, so we still have 13 babies in the brooder in the house.
In the smaller cage outside are the 3 ducks we bought and 2 chickens that hatched about that time. Figure they will grow up together. Got their pen all set up and ready last night and then we had a thunder storm about 3am this morning and had to go bring them in. It was their first night out, but not the first time they’ve been in the cage, but instead of being under the light and warm and dry, they were in the opposite end of the cage, in the rain, wet and cold. And ducks are worse than geese when it comes to making messes with the water. So I’ve decided that we are going to make a special pen for the geese and ducks around one of the low spots out in the field. I’ll dig it out and put what is left of the old large plastic pool in the bottom of it to help keep water in it. I’ll plant some cat tails I think. Anyway, that is where the ducks and geese are going to be, and Next year I’ll let them sit on their own eggs and raise their own babies, and what ever we get is what we get for babies. Not sure I want to brood them any more; Let mom do it.
So I including the 20 eggs I just put in the incubator, there is probably about 70 eggs or so in them. So far this year think I have been averaging about 50% hatch rate. Not good, and I’m working on that. But that would still mean I have about 30 poults coming, plus what ever we get from the 3-5 nest birds are sitting on. So I’m placing my first ad on Craig’s List to sell the poults I have now. I mean, that has always been the plan, to sell as many as I can, and keep about 15-20 to raise and sell. And if we can get the birds to care for them as they grow up, why not? The thing we hadn’t counted on is where to put mom and babies after they hatch. How do you keep the separate and safe, but still together, you know?
Friday. We all had off and so the weekend seems out of whack. I had my first job interview for a teaching position in the morning, was nice. In the afternoon we went out in the field and used our new post hole Auger digger to make holes for the cedar posts we bought. There were a lot of rocks in the first one and it kept binding and didn’t do well. Then we broke the shear pin and had to stop. So we went to town and got new, bigger pins. Not just the one we broke but both pins. We also got some landscaping timbers to put around trees and stuff in the front yard. The rest of the day was too cold to do very much, so we took the afternoon off and watched TV.
Saturday. We had waffles for breakfast. Hopefully we had what was our last frost of the year last night. I think it only got down to 37 or so, what the forecast said anyway, but they warned of patchy frost. And when I went out this morning to let birds out I checked, and sure enough, there was frost on some of the grass and the top of the little chick’s cage. We covered up the roses, and the pups pulled the covers off. Think we did more damage trying to protect them than would have happened if we just left them alone. Oh well, live and learn.
Spent the day out in the field putting posts in the ground. Started with the hole where we broke the auger, did them by hand with a crow bar, and it went pretty fast. There were some huge rocks and glad we didn’t try the auger again. All total we dug 3 holes by hand. The corner post and 2 bracing posts. The rest of the posts were pretty rock free and the auger worked great. Dug the holes in just a few minutes, then we put rocks and dirt in and packed them down. Figure in a day or so when they have a chance to dry some they should be pretty solid. The ground was still kind of wet. A few days ago, or last weekend we had torrential rains and everything was flooded. So it is starting to dry out some. All total we put in 12 posts and laid out the field fencing for 2 sides. The other 2 sides will be 2 inch chicken wire that is 4 feet high. It is in the shed, and we’ll have to decide how soon to put it up. We got wire to do the bracing posts. I’m not sure yet what I’m going to use for the cross member for bracing, but it can wait just a little. Also started pulling the staples off the little coop so we can move it tomorrow to a new area, with more grass and such.
The first of our turkey poults for this year hatched today. Right now there are two in the hatcher and about seven more to go. And this is just the first week. I have been putting eggs in the incubator every week, so they will hatch every week. This is just the first batch. I haven’t opened the hatcher to take them out yet, but as soon as I do I’ll post some pictures.
What else? Came home one night and the geese were alone in the coop with their babies. So we took the baby ducks and the baby geese and put them out there. Mom and dad didn’t like the ducks, so we put them back in the house. But they accepted the geese, so now all 4 babies are with mom and dad, walking around the yard and such. So cool to see them all out there. Today two of the babies got in the one of the drinking pools. I think they are too young, but I’ll leave it up to them to decide.
Took the rototiller and tilled up the garden, hoping to get some stuff planted in it tomorrow. Have a bunch of plants on the deck that are started and ready to go. And it is still pretty early in the season. I’ll try to get some more pictures of things as I can and get them posted.
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