2010 fall shearing by hand
This year I incubated 30 eggs that I collected from the chicken coop. More than half were blue-green Americauna eggs. Only 5 eggs hatched. One of those died within the hour after hatching and another one got snatched up by a cat that happened to be in the house when they got big enough to perch on the top of the brooder. So I successfully hatched 3 chicks this year. Many pipped but died before hatching. Others never pipped at all but when I cracked the unhatched eggs open to see what happened (ewwwww…stinky!), they seemed fully developed, they just died in the egg before hatching. I think something is wrong with the humidity in the incubator. I have a still-air little giant styrofoam incubator.
I was outdone this year by a persistant Buckeye hen. I went out to the coop today (I have a brooder that I built in the coop for when chicks finally get big enough to jump & perch on top of the inside-the-house brooder (which is a large plastic bin)) to feed & water my 3 fabulous chicks. When I opened the lid to the nest boxes I found a hyper-disgruntled buckeye clucking indignantly at me. To my surprise she was hiding 5 little chicks and atleast seven more unhatched eggs. Hopefully those will hatch too. I am nervous though that she will take them out of the chicken coop and the guinea hogs will eat the chicks, so I blocked the entrance to the nest boxes so she’s trapped in there with her chicks for now.
As far as the guinea hogs go, Gretel is looking extremely pregnant. This would be her first litter this year and her second litter ever. Her last (and first ever) litter was last year on Sept 29th. She gave birth to 3 boys and 3 girls, no still-births and no birth defects. However, not one of the babies made it through the winter. While the first casulty definitely died by being flattened, I suspected the parents ate the other babies one by one. It was a very cold winter and it IS possible a baby could freeze to death first and then the parents simply ate the carcass, but every single one?! Seems suspicious to me. I have found that our guinea hogs will eat pretty much anything. We even had a problem last year with them eating a newly born goat kid (we pasture our guinea hogs with our dairy goats, llamas and free range chickens). I think perhaps in that case the pigs smelled the blood and went into a frenzy. This year we solved that problem by locking up the pigs during kidding season until the kids were big enough that the pigs understood they were pasture-mates. Everyone gets along just fine now.
Had a problem with our yak bull King George today. I was brushing him to get his shedding down and he started to poke at me slightly with his horns. Usually I give his horns a shake and say “NO!” firmly and he stops. Not today. He made like he was going to flip me with his horns. Obviously, if he was going to flip me he would have, my holding his horns wouldn’t have stopped him if he really wanted to hurt me, but he was very aggressive with me. I didn’t run out; I walked calmly away and he ran off to play horn clacking with Betsy yak; but I was suddenlly very conscious of how dangerous he could be if he wanted to be. He’s still young, barely a year, and his teenage hormones are raging. It’s all in fun for him but it could have serious consequences for me. I think I should keep my distance from him until he gets a little older. I’ve already got most of his down for this year so he won’t get all matted up if I wait a year to brush him again.
And I have just GOT to shear the darn sheep. It’s such a pain though. I should have sheared them months ago before they had their lambs, but it was so muddy and rainy! And now, I really have no excuse except it’s so hard to get them to come in the corral; and I had planned to have a shearing stand by now but I don’t so I’ll have to bend down again and it’s very hard on my back. I don’t do the thing where you shear the sheep while they sit on their rump. I find the fleece comes off so much easier if you start at the rear end and push it up and over as you go toward the front. Oh well, it’s not going to get any easier; I’ve just got to get out there & do it. Sigh.
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