Chick Update

A mixture of fun and frustrating is how I could sum up the chick raising process for us this summer.  I decided I would give an update now that we are probably at the mid-point.

Yesterday I took some pictures of our latest chicks to hatch.  This White Rock hen hatched 14 chicks on June 21st, so they were 5 days old yesterday afternoon in these pictures, and doing great.  It was fun to see so many chicks hatch! 

13 chicks were dark and 1 was white.  I use the past tense terms because tragedy struck her brood last night.  Lisa saw a hawk attack at dusk while she was in the garden, but the mama and chicks went into their box so we couldn't see how many of the 14 made it.  I don't know how many chicks a hawk could take at one time.  Maybe something else besides that one attack had happened also?  But this morning there are only 7 chicks with this mama, 6 dark and that 1 white one.  There was another dark chick left in the nest dead with an apparent broken neck.  How did that happen?  It is very frustrating to go from 14 to 7 in one evening.

Meanwhile, Buffy still has kept all 12 of her brood, not loosing a single one (yet).  All 12 are dark, but are showing some pretty markings.  They hatched June 12th so they are 14 days old in these pictures.  They have been very fun to watch.

The first chicks to hatch this year are now 25 days old and so much bigger!  Of the 11 original chicks, this White Rock hen is down to just 5; 3 dark and 2 white.  You can see in the above pictures what a pretty pattern two of the dark ones now have.  I think they are both cockerals.  The other dark one is staying pretty much black.  I wrote about the 5 that got taken by the coon and then the very next day, Matthew saw a hawk flying off with another of the chicks!  It was frustrating that while we had the coon captured in the cage, we see a hawk swoop right down above the coon and take another chick!

On another frustrating note yesterday.  One of the White Rock hens that had been setting on a nest since June 16th walked off the job yesterday.  I had been noticing that she seemed to be neglecting her nest more and more the past few days, but now she seems to be done with it altogether.  So those 15 eggs are now no good to eat or to hatch.  (At least they will still be a benefit for the pigs!)

We also found the black hen that I knew had a clutch of eggs somewhere in the wild.  For the past three weeks or so I would see her for a few minutes as she got food and water, but she would always disappear before I could see where she goes.  And then yesterday afternoon, Simon heard chicken sounds under our house right next to the back porch!  We were able to peak under the house and saw the hen, some eggs, and at least one, wet chick!  How fun!

But... it seems that our mama cat was also interested in the strange sounds coming from under the house.  After dark, we heard some wild chick peeping sounds like something was getting them!  We didn't exactly see Fritsie or the kittens with any chicks when we looked all around, but the kitten Puff was not very hungry for the can food when we decided to give it to them.  Not fun!  I hope we gave them enough food that they were full all night and left the mama hen and nest alone!  The nest is in a location that would be very difficult for us to get at and move, and since the eggs were just hatching we thought it would be a bad idea to move them anyway.  At first I thought she was a smart hen for picking that place because it is too tight an area for the dogs to get in, and I know that Luna eats eggs if she can find them!   I guess later today we will be able to see if any of those chicks survived their first day of life, or if our cats continued to feast!  If they can get hatched and established, I think the mama hen will be able to keep the cats away like the other mama hens do.

In addition to the hen under the house, we still have 3 other hens setting on nests as of this morning.  A black hen is setting on 10 eggs in a nest we made in an old hamper and they should hatch this Saturday, the 29th.  A White Rock hen has 7 eggs in the dog house that should hatch the following weekend, and another White Rock hen has a clutch of 14 eggs in a cage set to hatch on July 12th.  I'm sure they will each give us a mixture of fun and frustrating experiences during the upcoming weeks, but I hope they will be mostly fun!

If you are keeping up with our chick count, we now have 24 living chicks between the 3 mama hens as of this writing.  Maybe there are more with the hen under the house.  I'm sure we will have some additional frustrating losses as the summer moves on, but hopefully we will also get to enjoy some more fun hatches as well. 

You know, after thinking about it, those words "fun" and "frustrating" are two words that pretty much describe every aspect of our entire homesteading adventure!  Life sure is complicated, isn't it?

The Return of Kittens: 2013

The last time kittens were born at Pure Water Hollow was the summer of 2007, 6 years ago.  Sandy is the only cat left from that batch.

This is what Sandy looks like now.  He's a very pretty cat, but we had him fixed long ago so he would stay around and not mate with the other cats we had at the time.  After a dog attack last year, he was the only cat we had left at all!

Then last July we adopted Tigger through Dumas Rescue and in August we got Charlie and Fritsie along with our German Shepard/Great Pyrenees mixed dog, Augusta.  Tigger, Charlie, and Fritsie were still in the "kitten" stage when we got them, but they were older kittens.  We chose not to get them fixed so we could have the kitten experience once again.  We figured it would be good for Timothy to see brand new kittens emerge and the rest of the children also were excited at the thought of new kittens.  So we decided to just let nature take it's course. 

Both Tigger and Charlie are orange cats.  I used this picture of Tigger on the blog not long ago and  Charlie looks pretty much just like him, so we're not sure exactly which one is actually the daddy cat.  It was exciting to see Fritsie get large with kittens in her belly; and then one day noticing she was skinny!  A couple weeks later the children found a bunch of small kittens in a box in the shed.  We tried to take pictures, but it was always too dark in the box and we decided not to take them out before Fritsie was ready.

Before too long, we began to see inquisitive little faces peering out the building!  These first pictures were taken May 18th.

This little orange kitten was the first one to really come out and explore and run around.  He was amazingly friendly right from the start!  Timothy named him Puff because he looked like Sally, Dick, and Jane's kitten which was named Puff in a book Timothy likes.

 Soon, the others began venturing out into the open.

Timothy loves them all! 

 Augusta also seems to be very fond of them, and the kittens have shown no fear of the dog at all.

There have been many cute scenes of the little kittens.  I've only photographed a small sampling.

 

After another week or so, Fritsie moved her litter to our front porch.  In this picture you can see all six of them, along with their mama making sure her kittens get all the can food they want.  It has been neat watching her wait for her kittens to eat before she eats any of it.  She has been a really great mama!

 They sure are small, cute, and playful!

Timothy has been having great fun with them!  The above pictures were taken June 4th, after he had been splashing around in the river earlier that afternoon.

I'm sure I'll come back here some time and show more pictures of the kittens.  The children have names for all of them, I think, but I'm not sure what they all are yet.  We have decided that we are going to keep all of them, and probably move them to our place at Pure Water Pastures when they get bigger.  We have had mice in the barn, shop, and house and there are no cats around.  I think they would enjoy a home there, as long as they can keep from getting hit on the road.  That would be sad, but we will have to brace ourselves for the possibility of one getting hit since the the barn and field is on one side of the road and the house on the other. 

But that move is still pretty far into the future.  For right now we will be enjoying watching them romp and play and grow on our front porch!

Thank you, Lord, for the blessing of these kittens!

Homestead Happenings: Random Pics From First Half of May

Things have been rather busy around here, lately, and I've not had time to record much of it.  I did take the camera out a few times and got some pictures, however.

The meat rabbits are still doing well. 

Simon and Timothy enjoy taking care of them!

Our Angora rabbits are also doing fine.  Christina tends to them everyday.

Matthew, Christina, and Simon went on a fishing expedition down the river the day before Mother's Day.  Lisa was hoping for some catfish for her Mother's Day dinner.  They had a nice time on the river, and saw several geese and a couple of mama ducks with their ducklings, but the fish weren't biting.  Maybe next time.

Chief is rather old, for a Great Pyreneese, but he is still with us.  I think he has the sweetest face!

Christina did not want to wear the helmet, but since they were going to be on the road, we insisted.

Augusta (long u in the middle) is a good dog and loves her family.  Wherever we go, she is sure to follow!  Luna is still with us, also, but she didn't make it in a picture this time.

Timothy, 'Gusta, and Sandy looking around up the mountain.

Tigger is one cool cat!

I didn't take pictures of the other cats, but they are all cool cats as well. 

Since I'm thinking about it, I'll report that Fritsie has had her kittens!  The children found them in a box in the wood shed.  I think there are 6 of them, but Fritsie hasn't brought them out to play yet.  When they start appearing in the open and playing, I hope to take several pictures of them.  It's been many years since we've had the kitten experience!

The chickens enjoy their free-range time! I like to let them out early in the afternoon, as long as they don't go to the highway in front of the house.  When they get into that bad habit, they find themselves staying in their lot much later into the day!

One of the White Rock hens is setting right now.  If all goes well, we should have baby chicks around the first of June.  But I'll not count my chickens before they hatch!

We still have 2 hogs at the moment.  We will be butchering them if we don't see piglets pretty soon.

So, I've reported about our dogs, cats, rabbits, chickens, and pigs, but I've not said anything about the cattle or bees. 

Well, one of the hives swarmed earlier this month before we could divide it.  We lost them because they swarmed to the highest point in a tree in an impossible location for us to capture.  We need to try to divide the other hives before they swarm, too.

I haven'tt gotten a picture of the cows in their lots for a while.  Right now we have Violet, Dandelion, and Rosebud  here, close to our house.  They have both barns and the hill lot that we originally fenced off for goats.  It's not a very good pasture, but at least they have room to move around and they like to eat some of the leaves and branches from various trees and they find some grass and weeds that they eat. 

We plan to start trying to milk Dandelion soon, but are concerned about her cooperating with us.  Rosebud was her first calf so she has never been milked.  Violet should calve sometime in June, we think.  She is starting to show some signs already.  But after our experience with Dandelion, we're not going to expect any calf too soon!

Meanwhile, Gracie and the two bull calves are at Pure Water Pastures.  There has not been much change over there in a while.  I plan on doing some more fencing work over there.  I already have all the materials laid out there for a second lot, but I need to find the time to invest the sweat equity required.

So, that's a bit of what has been happening around our homestead.  We've also spent several evenings getting our garden out.  I hope the garden will do well, even though we've had some cold temperatures in May.  Last week we even had a few nights in the 30s!  But I'll save the garden news for a future post, because we still have some room out there to plant.

Thank you, Lord, for your many blessings!