Nothing like hearing quacking under your window to get you moving. Especially when your window opens out to the dog pen!
No, there should not be a duck in the dog oen. At least not if it wants to stay intact. Lucky for the duck, the dogs had not been let out yet.
A few minutes of outsmarting a duck and success! Here’s a picture of the culprit…who has now been chicken wire fenced out of her secret fit through spot. Bad duck!
These pictures came up as I was scrolling through my phone and I realized I never posted them! My first ever homegrown goose egg! It was a bit odd shape as the factor was just starting…bit very cool to find .
Of course, the parents were protective and for several months after wards I had to convince them to leave the nighttime pen so I could collect eggs. Looking forward to this year’s batch soon!
Sammy and his group were “helping” me today as I was wiring in the new bird area. By helping I mean making sure all the tender grass in the sod I dumped was devoured, as well as reminding me they were there randomly.
When I sat down for half a second, Sammy came over giving me his opinion of my break time. Sp I scooped him up for some Sammy snuggles and reminded him that they take way more breaks than I do!
After a quick picture, it was back to yanking off all the grass pieces! And back to work for me….
Just for a bit of fun, here is a comparison between a blue runner duck egg (left), a brown leghorn chicken egg (middle), and a serama chicken egg (far right). I would have included a goose egg but my handb isnt big enough!
And a big bowl of duck eggs in the fridge. These are waiting to age before being boiled, fresh eggs are harder to peel!
The goats needed some new things to play on, so an eagle eye spotted a pallet with a solid top and brought it home.
This is how I’ve started treating pallets in an attempt to slow down rot and insect damage:
Put the pallet out in the sun and ensure it’s dry.
Purchase a gallon of Boracare. It’s a borax and glycerin mix that soaks into the wood and will cause any insect that eats it to cease living. Once dry, the wood can be painted to prevent the weather from leeching the Boracare out (mostly by the sun). It’s safe to use for garden wood too (per the manufacturer, I called and checked). I don’t use it around animals that chew (looking at you rabbits) but I wouldn’t use pallet wood around them anyway as you don’t know what has been on it.
It’s a tad pricey, but you mix it 5 to 1 with water (water 5 parts boracare 1 part) for new wood so it goes pretty far.
Here’s my jug (and below is a link to amazon if you’d like to support my blog)
Amazon link: https://amzn.to/3U6Kt1N
Then I use a cheap paintbrush and coat the pallets with the Boracare. You only have to do one side of each wood piece as long as they are under 4″ thick as it absorbs that far into the wood.
Then I let the pallets dry and paint them with whatever clearance paint I have on hand :).
Just kidding…pretty sure no matter how much pineapple you feed a pig it’ll still taste like pork.
Besides, these two aren’t destined fir the table. I plan on them being my breeding stock. They are quite funny at times!
It occurred to me as I was bagging up crushed eggshells that if someone were to come to the door right now I’d have to attempt to explain the scene.
Scale that measures in grams…a stack of baggies…piles of white (ish) powder…and me in the middle watching a cartoon. Ok, it’s Lilo and Stitch, I’ll confess!
Just wait until I get to my big bag of crushed sage leaves! But the only thing knocking on the door is a lizard catching bugs…whew! At least, I think so?
I read in a book that geese grew quickly….but every book I’ve read says that about every animal. I didn’t think anything of it, especially since they don’t eat a ton of food compared to the ducks.
Well…I’m officially amazed. Look at them! Just look! They don’t even have feathers but are already double, if not more, their size! I’m not going to be able to use this milk crate for very long to carry them…
Like the ducks, they look hilarious after dousing themselves in water. The temperature is in the 90s so I am not concerned about them getting chilled.
Well, the problem with the wild pig destroying my freshly planted corn and my neighbor’s yard is solved. No more piles of manure 5 feet from my pig enclosures carrying who knows what pathogens or worms with them…no more fencing being pushed down. He came too close too often and caused too much damage.
I spoke to a friend who knew someone experienced in such matters and they came out and took care of the problem, including leaving me 2 legs and a tenderloin
I have never cooked a wild pig. Heck, the last wild thing I cooked was a rabbit a couple of decades ago and that was over was over campfire! I’m pretty sure you could cook a tire over a campfire and make it taste good.
I decided to roast one of the legs in the oven. I hit up my friend the internet and got some advice (some of it,as expected, conflicting). I ended up resting the meat in the fridge 24 hours in a stainless stock pot. Then I made a salt water brine and soaked it another 3 days in the fridge.
Then I took a baking dish and lined it with enough foil to wrap the leg. I added a stick of butter (cut into pats). I then poked the meat all over with a knife, sprinkled garlic and pepper on top, and rubbed the slices and butter into the slits.
In the meantime I had the oven preheating to 400. I added some Cajun seasonings and put the leg in the oven uncovered for 30 minutes. This was to brown the top and crisp some fat.
After 30 minutes the top was brown so I pulled it out and wrapped it up tightly. I returned it back to the oven and turned the heat down to 250. I was told by several people to cook wild game to 190, so I figured 8 hours as it was about 8 pounds.
After 8 hours I pulled it out and wow! Sorry, no picture of it fresh from oven because I was too excited! There was a lot of juice, I drained that off into a small saucepan and added Wondra flour until it was gravy like, stirring the whole time.
As soon as the gravy was done , I grabbed some bread and made myself a bowl. It was delicious! To me it tasted a lot like slightly overdone roast beef. The gravy was good enough to eat on its own!
Ended up grilling/smoking smoking the second leg on a homemade smoker, wrapped and with butter. It was also very good, although I think the oven roasted was better…did I mention yummy gravy?
Next time, if there’s another leg offering, I’ll check it sooner as a small portion was dry…with the bone in I think it cooked faster than any directions or advice mentioned. 10/10 and would do again!
Since websites like to randomly disappear and take information with them, I’ve decided if I type out a long reply to someone on Facebook etc I will also copy it here as a backup.
Someone in one of my Facebook rabbit raising groups asked how rabbits survive when their temperatures are going to be (max) 85. Here was my reply:
85 is cool for us! It was 95 in the shade on my porch yesterday and it’s just starting, and we have 90+ percent humidity so sprinklers and misters don’t help on the pens. My rabbit area is a tarp topped , open wire sided (I added) canopy in partial shade. Shadecloth (beige) to within 1 foot of ground on most of 3 sides. I have two of these setups (one is the chickens’ that I’ve added cages in). Main setup has 3 fans-one on top of cages blowing hot air out, one directly on the rabbits (at one end of cages) and an small oscillating that blows on lower cages. The main fans are sealed motor models against hair, one fancy from amazon and one $65 version from walmart-both are fine. I am currently using water bowls after noticing how many like to lay against them (mostly plastic, but some ceramic) and how many will soak their feet. Would be a lot less work to hook up my auto system but if it’s cheap cooling I’m for it! My rabbits are Dutch (not some fancy purpose bred heat breed) but most of my line has been in the state for many generations in non a/c rabbitries. Rarely I will do anything near the rabbits (or any other animal) other than a quick visual check in the middle of the day, it’s too hot and I don’t want them excited. Yesterday I dumped some water on a few rabbits, but it is a mom and her large litter that for some reason were cuddled together…they are getting big and need to be pulled. That will be fixed shortly as I just got more cages to build in. I did remove 3/4 of the hair and bedding from a litter that’s in the next box so they don’t overheat.
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