Hardscrabble Yak Farm

A week or so ago one of our family dogs “Rodney” (black lab) decided to go against the rules and “play” with one of our bantam adolescents.  It is very difficult to get Rodney to follow the “leave the birds alone” rule, though usually he doesn’t actually touch the birds, just makes like he will so they squawk and run off like little feathered TRex`s.  Anyway, this time he got one when we weren’t looking and loved the little fellow until it was scared stiff.  I was running out the door to take the kids to karate when Sara announced the catastrophe.  I had them take the still alive but stunned birdy in the car with us so I could take a look at it while they were in karate.  It’s about a 40 minute drive to karate (that’s living in the country for you) and about half way there I hear this from the back of the car, “Yuck!  This bird has worms!”.  Oh god! I thought, I’ve just infested my car and my kids with something disgusting! The kids use big paper grocery bags to hold their karate outfits, so I had one take the outfit out and put the bird in the brown bag and pass it up to the front, to hopefully corral any little buggers that wanted to escape off the bird.  After the kids ran in to karate class, I took a good look at the poultry patient and found that it was not worms, but little crawly creatures, like fleas with elongated and swollen abdomens.  Some were white and some were brown and they were crawling through the bird’s feathers.

Normally we buy our chickens from hatcheries; Murray McMurray specifically.  But you must buy in large quantities from them.  We went to the Springville Livestock Auction in Springville, NY earlier in the summer and ended up buying two bantam “chicken families”, each family was a momma with babies.  Cool! I thought, we’ll know for sure then that these must be good sitters because they were able to hatch babies. We’ve had problems in the past getting our chickens to brood and hatch babies.  And the bantams were cute, with tufts of hair on their head like little pompadors and feathered legs.  Now, sitting in the car looking at these disqusting creepy crawlies that infested the little birdy, I felt the sting of adament internet advice not listened to: DO NOT BUY FROM AUCTION HOUSES.  THEIR ANIMALS WILL INFECT YOUR ANIMALS WITH SOMETHING GROSS.

The bantam ended up dying later that night. It must have had internal bleeding because there were no other marks visible and it had lived for three hours after the attack, which seem to me long enough that it didn’t die from shock.  I am not a poultry vet (though I’m trying to learn as much as I can) so I must now forget what cannot be changed and deal with what can: the unpleasant reality that these auction birds (we have eight left, two adults and six adolescents) must all have parasites and will probably pass them on to my other birds (16 chickens, 6 ducks, two geese and three turkeys) if I don’t do something fast – that is, if they haven’t already infected the entire flock and hen house.

These are the questions I must answer:

1) Who is currently infected?

2) What are they infected with?

3) What is to be done about it?  Chemical or Herbal remedy?  Applied to birds directly or to roosts ?

4) What should be done in the future?  What kind of ongoing maintenance techniques can I practice that will protect my birds from parasites?  Must I really only buy from hatcheries or is there protocol that I must take when buying from neighbors and auctions?

Hopefully these answer will be answered as I research more on these issues.

Other updates:

Kizzy (our toggenburg mix doe) is in heat again.  She is about two years old.  We bought her from a local guy who got her along with some horses he bought.  He wanted the horses, but not really the goat.  He advertised on HOTLINE (a local radio show where people call in about stuff they’ve got to sell or want to buy) and that’s how we heard about her.  When we brought her home we put her in our pasture that was enclosed with a six strand high tensile fence.  She walked right through it.  Magic goats, they are very hard to fence.  So we ended up adding four more strands and when that didn’t work, we ended up electrifying the fence.  When we first got her we named her Kizzy because of all the issues we had keeping her in the pasture (for those of you who don’t know, Kizzy was Kunta Kinte’s daughter in ROOTS, and Kizzy means “stay put”).  When we bought the aforementioned bantam chicks, we also bought a very very young boer buck at the auction.  His name is Little Bill.  It was to be a humorous name when he became a massive adult boer buck, but he is not growing as fast as we would like.  True, he was very young when we got him (how young we don’t know, that’s the trouble with auction animals), almost a baby still, but we were under the impression that boers grew large very quickly so we are nervous that Lil Bill might have some pygmy blood and that would be not so good for a herd sire.  Any way, Lil Bill has very large testicles now, almost as big as his little head and he was trying to mount Kizzy this morning.  Unfortunately, he is just too short; and strangely, though Kizzy was wagging her tale and egging him on, as soon as he jumped up to mount her she would walk off.  It is very possible that we will not be able to impregnate Kizzy this season, which is sad for us because that means no goat milk next year as planned.

On a completely different topic: Clean Coal and the 2008 Election…

We have a two story plus attic 200 year old home, needless to say it is very difficult to heat.  Last year we invested in a coal furnace which was a godsend. It would really suck for me to have coal go up or disappear.  (Those of you in California that have never experienced the possibility of freezing to death in the winter should be careful how you criticize those of us who want to make it safely through the snow season without going bankrupt.)

In addition to my use of coal to heat my home, I also use electricity daily, which is often made by coal, so I like the idea of clean coal or even alternative producers of electricity beyond fossil fuel.  And although my home furnace itself is not a pollution problem (compared to oil, wood or electricity made by fossil fuels), I hate the idea that what I use to heat my home might be destroying our environment and killing people by how it is harvested and used commercially.

As a coal consumer, I find the political issue of coal and energy policy very unsettling.  It’s hard to tell what stand the candidates really take on the coal issue – And I mean all of them: Obama, Biden, McCain and Palin all seem to flip flop on the coal issue.   But for more information on the politicians and their stand, please see….

Palin knocks Obama over months-old coal comments

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/02/palin-knocks-obama-over-months-old-coal-comments/

Biden: ‘No coal plants here in America’

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080923/pl_politico/21939

Obama-Biden Campaign Announces Support for Clean Coal Jobs

http://www.boilermakers.org/resources/news/LEAP/Obama_clean_coal_jobs_task_force

Not Coming Clean on Coal

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/not_coming_clean_on_coal.html

Obama vs McCain: Is Clean Coal or Offshore Drilling Worse for the Environment?

http://www.sprig.com/Obama_Vs_McCain_Is_Clean_Coal_or_Offshore_Drilling_Worse_for_the_Environment#