Homestead One Day

The cutest geese arrived! I’m infatuated already!

On September 13, 2022

I have been wanting geese for years. I had fond memories of my little goose, Goosey, who fell victim to a bobcat before he even got all his (or her) feathers. I remembered Goosey as following me around the yard and interacting with me. The little goose attitude was cute too!

I also had some not as fond memories of a Toulouse goose named Mooch. Mooch also had attitude but not quite so cute. It was many battles of will, a few goose bites, and a bunch of squawking (from me) before we reached an agreement about who could be where…as in no, we can’t both occupy the same space. We figured it out though and all was forgiven. I developed eyes in the back of my head pretty quickly though!

Last year I tried to order some Buff geese in March, only to discover that everyone was already sold out. This year, I decided that I was not going to miss out and placed my order in December for summer delivery.

After a very very long wait…they came in! They were ready to get out of the box even when I peeked in at the post office to do a quick head count. They’re so cute! I’m looking forward to raising these guys (and girls). I ordered 2 males and 4 females hoping they are accurately sexed so I can have 2 trios.

Isn’t he adorable?

New adorable babies joining the homestead

By nsmar4211

On September 12, 2022

In Livestock

I took a few animals to a local farmer’s market to make some room this weekend. I joked last month how the vendors end up buying from each other as much as the public does…and I did it myself.

These are Cortunix quail, different colors. 2 days old in this picture, basically little cottonballs. Quail can be tricky to raise and unfortunately I’ve already lost a couple…but I’m looking forward to raising as many as I can out of this batch. Aren’t they cute???

The next picture has two combined groups…the ones with the wing feathers are my new Serama chicks. Tiny chickens, eggs a bit bigger than quail eggs, introduced to me by the booth next to me at the market last month. I also bought a couple adult pairs but that’ll be another post. These are actually several weeks old!

The red ones with barely any feathers are Leghorns from Tractor Supply (that’ll be yet another post lol) and are probably a week old. The reason the two groups are together is the Seramas were huddled together despite it being over 90 on the porch so I decided to see if they’d like a heat lamp. Yep, they did!

The quail were my final critter I wanted on the homestead. The Serama chickens I’m hoping with either help with feed bills through sales or will be single serving sized meals. The leghorns were not in any plans, so I’ll have to see how they grow. I may just raise them and sell, depending on the market and what gender they turn out to be.

But for now, I’ll just enjoy the cute baby stages of all of them 🙂

Fearless little problem brats got out again. And more!

By nsmar4211

On September 9, 2022

In Funny, Housing and confinement, Pig

I walked outside and noticed a slight problem…instead of pigs in their pen, I had goats in the pig pen??? And not a pig in sight! Below are the caprine (goat) culprits, Molly still inside and Bambi already chased out. Seems the goats have figured out how to shove hard on the pig pen gate and slide through.

But….where are the pigs???

I went back to the site of the original crime and not only had they gotten out in the same spot, they made it bigger and pushed the post I had in several feet away. Talent!

But…still no guilty looking pigs…until I walked over to the side of the main area and found these two. One contentedly making herself a digging zone and one pretending she belonged out. Looking on from the door of their pen are Bambi and Lizzy (for once, Lizzy didn’t cause any problems). Sigh….

So, once again utilizing magical objects aka pig treats…I lured the girls back to their pen.

This time…I put in a piece of cattle panel in front of the tree stump and wired it to the sides. They are strong but so far not strong enough to bend a cattle panel. Means they lost a foot off that side of the pen though… once the weather cools off I’ll be working on a new area for them that’s bigger.

Badddd piggies!

My pretty nice pics August 2022

By nsmar4211

On September 7, 2022

In Photography

Pictures I took during August that I particularly liked :).

Duck in the pond (while it’s filling)

Pretty flowers! I’ll do a post on this one later

Young ducks attempting to evade capture, including a shelf I use as a chicken ladder that they knocked over.

View down the road as a storm is moving in

All images (c) Susan L. Marsh unless otherwise attributed, please receive written permission.

Smart piggies make their escape…where they did it

By nsmar4211

On September 6, 2022

In Pig

Came home and found the female pigs waiting for me at the animal area gate…NOT where they were supposed to be.

So I utilized my animal superior kung fu…yea…I got a couple of treats and proceeded to lure them back into the pen. I figured I’d go out of sight for a minute and they’d head right back to however they got out.

It worked! Only took about…oh…a minute for them to head into the corner…behind a stump…under a tree…and look..they pushed out the bottom of the fence. First picture is the two guilty parties after I came out of hiding, second is the area they pushed. They didn’t even FIT behind the stump so I’m not sure what magic they used!

I decided to fill in the hole and add a pole there (not pictured) and hope they wouldn’t try again.

Pineapple bacon anyone?

By nsmar4211

On September 2, 2022

In Funny, Pig, Uncategorized

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!

Feeling hot hot hot

By nsmar4211

On August 30, 2022

In weather

It got a little warm. Yes…that says 102. And no…it is not in the sun!

Then this happened…

And within 20 minutes, the temperature dropped 18 degrees. Now if it would only stay there…..

And so far, all the animals are OK despite the heat.

Good site with a ton of reading material on “stuff”

By nsmar4211

On August 26, 2022

In Other Sites

I like to try and bookmark sites I want to go back to and read; it always seems I find them when I’m short on time! Meanwhile, my bookmark list is so long I can’t find anything I’m after!

Below is one of those sites. He even has it set up with an alternate site in case this one gets hacked (smart thinking!). On it are links about seeds, animals, survival, gold, his random rambling thoughts (warning: a bit of politics, but easy to skip those), old time stuff, and a lot more. (Opens in a new tab)

https://grandpappy.org/

I am not affiliated with him in anyway, but highly recommend this site. Bonus: No popup ads or self starting audio/video!

Here’s his backup site just in case (opens in a new tab):

Http://robertwayneatkins.com

Sugarcane growing experiment…total failure!

By nsmar4211

On August 24, 2022

In Garden and growing

Imagine a sweet smell. Sweeter. Keep going. Sickly sweet…now add in undertones of the bottom of a garbage can. Top it off with old aquarium water that needed changing a month ago….

Yea…that was what the sugarcane smelled like in 2 weeks. One tiny bud tried and gave up…root nodes swelled and then rotted…no matter how often I changed the water white scum was on it.

No pictures because once I picked up the containers on the final day I had to get them off the porch to save my nose. Fail!

What went wrong? Well, after looking at the cane that didn’t get planted I noticed it was covered in white mold! So it seems it came with the canes.

Also, looking back, I didn’t wipe the saw blade down with rubbing alcohol like I probably should have.

I will do this again…sugarcane is one of my wish list items. What will I do differently? I will scrub the canes with soap and water and then wipe them and the cutting implement with rubbing alcohol. I may also dip them in rooting hormone and use soil instead.

That’s why it was an experiment! Until next time…..

Scary moment-Goat choked on feed!

By nsmar4211

On August 19, 2022

In Animal Health, Goat

I’m not sure which one of us was more scared at the end me or her… It was just a normal feeding time. They get a small handful of pellets at night only because the smallest one needs the extra nutrition and there’s no way to feed her without giving the other two a little something.

I stay pretty close to them while they’re eating to keep the big two from pushing the little one out of her bucket. I was feeding the other animals and watching them and noticed Lizzie dad started shaking her head. As I watched her she started flinging it more frantically but was not crying. She is a very vocal goat so this made me realize something was wrong.

I ran over and scooped her up into my arm-luckily she only weighs 20 pounds at this point. I put her head along my left arm and thumped her sides with my right hand while tipping her facing downwards. I then slung my arm toward the ground hoping to dislodge whatever she was choking on. The 2nd time I did it a huge wad of powdered powdered pellets and slime flew out of her mouth.

She started yelling bloody murder and freaking out despite my attempts to calm her down so I ended up setting her on the ground. She staggered a distance away and stood there pitifully yelling sounding like she had a very hoarse throat. From the way she was swaying on her feet it was clear that she was close to having passed out.

About 5 minutes later later she decided that she wanted the rest of her dinner and slowly approached me approached me to get more pellets. I only gave her a little bit because I figured her throat would be sore after all that.

But 20 minutes later she was more active and ran for the hay feeder although she was not still her normal hyper self. I’m hoping everything’s OK but I’ll feel better after some time has passed. Managed to scare the heck out of both of us. I’ve had to do the sling method to clear the throat of a choking duck before but this is the 1st time I’ve ever had to do it on something that big. I’m thankful she’s small enough I could pick her up.

Update: I watched her closely the next few days and she appeared to have no ill effects. I asked my vet about it and he said if she’s not coughing or running a fever, she’s good. Next up, finding a way to slow her down from eating huge mouthfuls.