Happy Easter

It’s Easter Sunday and a chilly blustery day here.  The sun is shining but the north wind is biting cold.  It’s blowing the doggie door open in my office.  Even though it was 80 just 2 weeks ago I have to admit this is more like early spring and Easter weather. 

 This is a year for the record books of horticulturists like me.  It’s interesting what plants are surviving the early warmth followed by seasonal cold the best.  My poor lilacs had buds showing color but are now turning brown.  The flowering quince is blooming quite nicely.  Many daffodils in bloom were browned and wilted by the cold yet the tulips soldiered on.  The fruit crop in Michigan remains questionable and since this weather is not just confined to Michigan, the nation’s fruit crop may be at risk.

I don’t know if it’s the weather or my chickens have been listening to TV stories about rowdy egg hunts but they are trying to give me egg hunts of my own.   Our egg count has dwindled and I keep finding eggs in odd places.  That may be because the mean Guinea hens are hanging around by the nest boxes or because some of the hens want to raise their own chicks.  Or it could be the weather since some of my chickens are molting, which is odd this time of year.

 Our turkeys are also doing odd things.  We had some large eggs, either duck or turkey laid in two different areas of the barn.   The two bourbon red tom turkeys have been sitting on those eggs part of the time, although the hen turkeys are ignoring them.  Last year the old tom sat on some infertile turkey eggs for a couple weeks until I tossed them out.  His son has his same habits.  We have 3 different Muscovy ducks sitting on eggs in different spots so I think they are turkey eggs but they will never hatch with the on and off again sitting.

 I think the Guineas are disrupting the nesting of the other birds.  They chase the turkeys and chickens viciously.  I would give them away but no one wants them.  My husband has started pushing that option - giving them away.  They are interesting but noisy and mean.  Maybe if we just had 2 instead of seven.  I’d keep one pair but I have a heck of a time sexing them.  They are dropping eggs here and there but not nesting that I can see.  If I found a hen on a nest I’d keep one other bird and give away the rest.

 Our foal Lucky is doing well.  He’s eating grain and hay with momma now.  His coat is shiny and plush.   I found out his color is called bay with a pangera mutation, which is common in ponies and donkeys.  It makes the muzzle and belly and legs lighter.  He’s a wild and crafty little bugger though.  I have a heck of a time catching him and I am not doing it enough. 

 I have a little halter that Lily’s last foal used that I want to get on Lucky, although I think it’s just a bit large yet.  It might make it easier to catch him.  Horse people say you should catch and handle foals every day but that’s not happening here.  I don’t know, I sometimes find that young animals get tamer as they get older as long as they are treated gently and that they tame naturally.   Food treats have tamed a few horses around here I took in because no one wanted them.

 We haven’t put his daddy Chance back with him and his mom yet but he is getting impatient to be back with his mare.  She hasn’t came into foal heat yet but I expect it anytime now.  I wanted to wait a bit before allowing her to breed so the next foal wouldn’t be born so early in the year.  Lucky is called that because he’s lucky he was born on a March day that was so warm.  I am hoping my fences will keep them apart at least until late April.  We leave in a bit to drive to my moms for Easter dinner and will be gone several hours.  I bet that’s when he will climb the fence.

Happy Easter

Spring in February

It’s February 4 and the sun is shining and its about 40 degrees here in Michigan.  There is no snow.  This has been a weird winter but I like it.  We have had the hose to the barn run every week at least one day and many weeks every day, at least in the afternoon.  I love it when I don’t have to carry buckets of water.  On warm days I just fill several large buckets and it lasts me through most days when the hose doesn’t run.

 Today I opened up the coop door and let everyone have a day outside.  I am hoping that all will return home to roost and I am not trying to get turkeys out of the trees tonight.  All the birds were so restless, fighting and running around in the coop that I just let them out.  The guineas were the first out followed by a couple hens then the ducks.  Not all of them ventured out right away but I think they will.  The sun should be good for them all and they may even find a few green shoots here and there.

I put some nest boxes in big enough for turkeys in the coop last week.  The turkey hens have been trying to get in the chicken nests.  It looks like I have 3 tom turkeys and 3 hens.  At least 3 of them were doing a strut and circle dance in the coop.  I think I messed up with choosing the dark turkeys and left a tom instead of the old hen which I really, really regret.  It makes me sick thinking that she may be in the freezer. She was such a great mom.  They looked so much alike last fall.  I stared at them every day trying to sort them out.  But when you go to catching them things get confusing.  There is one dark hen so I am hoping the smaller one that I thought was a young hen just got bigger and was actually a tom.  Time will tell.

I have a duck sitting on eggs I can’t reach very well so I’m letting her sit.  Didn’t want babies until April but at least it will be March.  The other hen ducks are very interested in finding nests too.  The only bad part of letting the birds out right now is that they will roam all over looking for places to hide nests and this isn’t good outside nesting weather.  At least there aren’t many good hiding spots right now. 

 I have been trying to tell what sex the little wild kittens are- they are nearly cats now.  I hope they all aren’t female or we will have a population explosion. (They always find a tom somewhere.)  They won’t let me pick them up and look.  I haven’t seen any acting like they are in heat, that’s a good thing.  Steve keeps cooking eggs for them, they are spoiled little things.

The horses have been frisky and Chance is rubbing his winter coat off.  I wonder if he knows winter is going to be mild the rest of the season.  The groundhog did not see his shadow here so maybe this good weather will continue.   It’s just if the animals and plants get too many signals that winter is over and then we get a surprise clobber snowstorm or real cold weather it really hurts them.  And it’s so likely to happen.   But everyday I don’t have to carry water is a blessing and its one more day closer to true spring.

Later in the evening footnote.

I went outside around 5 pm to get all the birds back in the coop.  Most had came inside already.  However one turkey had flown into the dog kennel.  I was able to rescue him with just his tail feathers lost.  The guineas were all making their horrible noise outside because one of the flock had went over the fence by the pond and couldn't figure out how to get back.  Since I would have to climb down a slippery bank and back up on the other side of a fence to get to it, I waited a bit but he was still there after the others finally marched off to bed.   So down I went and back up, working carefully so I wouldn't fall into the icy pond.  When I appeared on the other side he suddanly remembered he could fly.  He went over the fence and was in the barn way before me.  Guineas are pretty stupid.

February 5- the birds stayed in the coop.  Maybe they'll get another outside playdate soon.

hot times

Well after stating that I intended to blog more often, I haven’t.  I could use problems with internet dial up services as an excuse but I’ll just say I didn’t follow through.  I did enter a 24 hour short story contest this week, and while I completed the story in no time, I had to sweat out whether my phone would come back on in time to send it.  It did and that is now behind me.

 It’s easier to stay inside and write now that the weather is hot and muggy and today- peppered with thunderstorms.  I need to move some chickens and ducks around in the barn but I don’t want to stress them and me in this heat.  We had all the meat chickens butchered a few days ago which leaves us with a little room to spread out the rest of the birds.  Some of those birds- at 49 days- were the size of small turkeys and I am not exaggerating.   It’s amazing how selective breeding has transformed these broiler birds. 

 When we first started raising meat birds it took about ten weeks - sometimes longer- to produce a nice bird from broiler stock.  Now about 18 years later it takes about 6 weeks- at least we could have butchered last week and had decent sized birds.  I saw a number of broilers at the butchering facility that were from the new “Red Ranger” meat stock.  They sort of looked like red barred rocks, or maybe New Hampshire’s a little.   I saw one butchered out and the carcass looked pretty good but I had a feeling the birds were a few weeks older than the broilers we brought in.  They are supposed to do well on pasture.

 I don’t think you save money raising your own chickens but they were every bit as tasty as store bought birds and they were fed a good natural feed with no antibiotics.  Plus the meat wasn’t pumped full of salty water before we cooked it.  Our 10 pound  roasters were all real meat, no additives.

 Well the barn swallows have left their nest and I turned the baby mallards loose to find their way back to the wild.  For a few days they never left the pond.  Now they are back up in the chicken pasture hanging out with Mr. Muscovy duck.  They seem less nervous and scared than they were in their pen.  The baby muscovy ducks have not been allowed outside yet, they are growing like crazy - but I gave them a big rubber horse pan to swim in.  Soon I am moving them outside to a pen.

 The guineas are starting to make their weird little guinea noises.  They too need to be turned loose soon.  The red turkey disappeared for most of the days last week and I had to hunt down her new nest.  It was right beside the road, under a small bush, a very unsuitable place.  I tried to move her and the eggs but that turned into a disaster of cracked eggs.  The dark turkey hen is sitting on a nest in the middle of the corn patch- a small bit more acceptable.  After a few days the red hen is sneaking off again.  We saw her coming out of one of the bushy garden beds I have so I suppose that’s the new nest spot.  She can stay there.

 I don’t know if the tom we got is doing his job or not, although I have seen them mating.  He is still a scruffy thing, with most of his belly bare.  Hopefully a few more weeks of good food and care will see an improvement in him.  The hens are egg laying machines though- as good as the chickens almost.

What is quite interesting is the baby silky-frizzle crosses which I understand are called sizzles.  They are turning out quite pretty although I can’t sex them yet.    They probably won’t lay well but I think I’ll keep a few.