The grass is starting to grow again but my horses are gone.  It was a difficult decision to sell them but as I lost my part time job and hay is looking like it will be quite expensive this winter I decided that it was time to sell them.  It wasn’t just money- they may have cost less than the chickens, turkeys and ducks to feed but also the work and worry that goes along with larger animals.

 I was surprised that they sold so fast. I expected that horses would be slow to sell, even though I wasn’t asking a lot.  They all went to the same place and I hope it was a good home.   It was to an older couple who told me they had 2 mini mares at home.  They also had a teen age granddaughter they thought would love to train Lucky the foal.  Or so they said, my husband thinks I’m crazy but I’m always a bit skeptical of what people say when they come to buy something.

I still think I see or hear them from time to time.   I really miss Lily, I feel like I broke a promise or something to her.   I won’t get to see how the foal matures, whether his long legs mean he will be bigger than Lily.  But I won’t have to worry that I can’t train him and that he will soon be fighting with his dad.  He loved his dad so far, they were best buds, so I hope they are together still.  The guy was actually looking for a stud for his mares, or so he said.

 

I love watching horses, I love to smell them and hear them.  But I can watch the neighbors horses  and see and smell them without trudging through snow to feed and water them or worrying about them getting loose or how I was going to pay for shots, gelding etc.  If they get sick or hurt horses cost a lot to treat.   And I was worried that Lily would foal again in March and that next March the weather wouldn’t be as nice as the past one.   So I have to stop thinking about them.

 

I did have 4 more baby turkeys’ hatch and some frizzle chicks.  Naturally the days the turkeys were set to hatch were the days that it poured all day.  I think more may have hatched except for the weather although the heat when the eggs were sitting out there waiting for her to start sitting may have killed some of them.

 The momma turkey with the first 3 chicks is now out of her pen and sure enough she led her babies out in the yard.  The babies are just like the last ones, they come running to meet me as soon as I come out the door, looking for bread.   They scare me by going right up to the cats, walking and running right in front of them, but so far the cats have paid them no attention.  What’s odd about them is that one is bronze, one is a bourbon red and one looks like it will be white, or nearly so.  The mom is bronze and the dad is either bronze or bourbon red. 

 It’s early to tell but it looks like the 4 new chicks will be all bourbon reds.  Their mom is keeping them out by the pond area.  That’s another good reason the horses are gone, they used to chase the turkeys for fun.  We are going to divide our barn and pasture areas with turkeys and ducks on one side and chickens on the other.  Two ducks are however, sitting in the barn on the chicken side.  One turkey is still sitting, the one who lost her eggs the first time, but I don’t think there are any turkey eggs under her and I don’t think anything else is going to hatch either, I think the duck and chicken eggs were old when she began sitting on them.

 One little baby duck is still following his mom around.  They are so cute to watch, the little ducks.  I expected to have tons of baby ducks this year with 4 hens but so far we have only managed to hatch 2 ducklings.  Maybe these next two sitting ducks will raise the total.

In the hot weather we have been having I go out everyday around lunch time to check on the animals.  The heat has been very stressful on the birds and egg laying has been down.   The horses seem to be doing ok, but aren’t real thrilled about having to eat hay this time of year.  This morning we had a tiny bit of rain and I’ll take it, in a brief dawn thunderstorm.  We are waiting to see if we get more tonight. 

 I watched 4 baby starlings at the feeder this am sitting on the crook of the shepherd’s crook holding the feeder.  When their mom or dad approached they went nuts and totally knocked the parent off the pole.  Bugs are probably sparse in this dry year and they are concentrating on the suet to feed their young.  I actually like starlings, they are cheerful birds and eat a lot of harmful bugs.  They get their bad rep from their habit on congregating in large flocks and sometimes stealing grain, although they prefer bugs.

I had another single duckling hatch and his mom is having a heck of a time trying to get out with him and get food and water.  She chose to sit under the top half of a dog house in the back of the barn.  But a hen chose to start sitting right outside the entrance to the duck’s nest and she doesn’t want the duck to emerge.  I put the duck with her duckling in a pen outside but she managed to get out of the pen and come right back inside under the doghouse top.

I was able to successfully move the hen and her nest over to the other side of the stall where they are but the duck still doesn’t want to come out and let her baby eat and drink.  I don’t have any other birds in a brooder and I am not going to set up a brooder for one duckling.  I put a baby water dish and feed right next to the ducks spot but the chickens just eat it up and turn it over.  I’m going to try something else tonight. 

 My momma turkey who hatched 3 chicks is going nuts being penned up and I want to release her.  Her chicks are feathered out and getting big.  But I am afraid she will jump the chicken yard fence and get her chicks to follow her, they fly pretty good at this age.   We have a big open ditch in the yard where we are repairing a septic line that broke.   It’s been so hot that work is progressing slowly there.  I’m afraid the chicks would get in and drown, although the water isn’t too deep.  That should be finished in a day or so and hopefully she can be turned free. 

It’s interesting that in these 3 chicks we have one bourbon red, one bronze and one that looks like it will be white, or nearly white.  Turkey genetics are not like chicken genetics, they don’t always breed true to color.  Some people believe that turkey breeds are actually just color variations.  I would concur except to say there are at least two body types, the broad breasted and normal breasted and those might be better classified as two different breeds.  Some people list the midget white as another body type.

 I am hoping to get another batch of chicks hatched in the next few days.  That would be the turkey hen sitting out by the pond under a thorny quince bush.   Since they are predicting storms in a few days, that’s probably when they will hatch and get soaked.  I think that’s why we had so few hatch from the last bunch. The day they were hatching we had a big rainstorm.  Even though I had a little cover over her on the nest the nest still got soaked.  It’s a catch 22-  we need rain but I would like some more turkeys too.  And I will have to herd or lure this bunch into the chicken yard where I can feed them, I can’t put feed out where they are because of the horses having access there.  And they are close to the dog yards, if the chicks go through the fence they’ll get eaten. I may catch the chicks and brood them inside.   That’s a young hen and I would like her to raise some chicks so she gets the experience.  Should be fun.

We need rain

It’s very hot and miserable here today.  Overnight we got a tiny amount of rain, not enough to even register in the rain gauge, just enough to make it horribly humid.  Trying to do anything outside is rough.  We bought hay for the horses, the pasture is gone.  When I brought it home Friday I left it on the trailer in back of the car to unload later and that’s when we had one brief, heavy downpour- 2/10’s of an inch of rain. I had to run outside and cover the hay with a tarp.  Not anywhere enough rain though. 

 I have made the decision to sell my horses if I can find a good home for them, preferably together.  I lost my part time job and while some writers must be rich we usually aren’t.  The old cliché of struggling writer is more appropriate.  But its not just money it’s the physical work and the stress of caring for big pets. I worry about big vet bills, no grass, training the foal, about deep snow in the winter and so many things.  As my husband says I worry too much.  Not having the horses will be one less thing to worry about.

 I am also whittling down my chicken flock, going to sell off all the old hens and just do with the 10 young hens I’m raising.  I want to keep the turkeys and ducks but they may go too.  I have 2 new pairs of bantams, a Porcelain pair and a pair of Belgian Quail Antwerps.  They eat next to nothing so I will probably keep them but sell off a few more of my frizzle bantams.  Right now we spend about $120 a month on poultry feed which is way too much.  They aren’t getting much pasture to eat because there isn’t anything growing.

 I have a red turkey sitting out by the pond under a thorny bush and I am hoping she gets to hatch her eggs.   The 3 babies the brown turkey hen hatched are doing well.  I still have the family locked up in a pen and the hen hates that.  I am going to move the pen into the chicken pasture and in a few more days let her out.  There are 3 baby chicks out there who have managed to survive with a hen just fine.

 I have chickens sitting everywhere, hens who shouldn’t want to sit, but even 2 Isa hens are sitting.  Two new duck nests are started inside by the hens laying boxes, I have one duck sitting in the back stall of the barn but I don’t know exactly what she is sitting on, chicken eggs, duck eggs or guinea eggs.  There is another nest out there that seems to be being shared by the remaining red turkey hen, and several chickens.

 My sweet corn is starting to tassel and I am out there every night watering it, trying to get a crop.  The farmer’s corn is rolling up in the fields and if we don’t get rain soon, there will be a poor corn crop and that’s going to really drive feed prices up.  The soybeans aren’t growing well either and it isn’t just in Lower Michigan where it’s dry.  There are a lot of states dry.  Even vegetable crops coming into the farmers market are getting scarce and pricy.

 I am seeing deer and turkeys out in the daytime searching for food and water.  Deer damage to watered ornamental plants has jumped.   Flocks of Canada geese are searching for food and new water holes. The wild birds pile up at the bird bath and they are missing many fruit crops they normally feed on. Everyone should pray for rain.  And maybe I should go buy some more hay and leave it out.

It’s been terribly hot here in Michigan, just in time for my brother from Australia to visit.  It’s their winter and they are sweltering here.  The yard looks ok, I have been watering every night but it was nuts trying to get the yard in shape as well as clean house in this weather.  Everywhere else looks bad, the pasture is dried up, the corn is rolling up in the fields and the soybeans have stopped growing.

My sister-in-law loves horses and was missing hers as they have been on vacation a month or so. She spent some time with Lucky, the foal, getting him used to a lead and handling his feet.  He managed to injure a front foot some way, he’s limping a bit but we couldn’t see anything in his foot.  He’s still playing though so it isn’t bad yet.

My brother raises cattle and he kept asking where the cattle were around here.  Unfortunately they are east of here- most of the cattle raisers- and my brother drove in from the west.  He kept asking why people kept so many horses, ones they didn’t even ride- like me.  We are just horse crazy in Michigan I guess.

My turkey that was sitting hatched only 3 chicks.  I found 4 other eggs with chicks half hatched and dead.  Their fluff was dry, they just didn’t emerge.  It was near 100 degrees the day they hatched so that may be why.  I had to put her in the pen that my frizzle chickens are in and let them out for a couple days because the momma cats were way too interested in the turkey chicks.  It was so hot in that pen as it faces south that we hurried up and build a new lightweight pen we could put out on the grass in the shade.  Momma turkey isn’t too happy about being confined but it will have to be that way until the chicks are a bit bigger.

I do have a hen with 3 chicks she has been leading around and nothing has gotten them yet. That’s a Black sex-link hen; all these supposedly non - sitting hens keep sitting this year.  I have birds sitting everywhere, the two other turkeys are trying to nest again as are the ducks and I actually have an Issa Brown hen sitting on eggs. 

We sold all but 2 of the Guinea fowl off as we thought they were ganging up and attacking the turkeys and ducks for their eggs.  Turns out it may have been 2 Isa hens, I saw them chase a duck off her nest quite viciously and when some eggs were broken in the process they ate them.  I think one of them may now be the Isa that’s sitting.  There is a combination of eggs under her- duck, guinea and chicken so who knows what will hatch.

 We have 9 barn kittens around.  Some are tame and some are not.  I am going to have my husband take them up to the stockyard and try to give them away soon.  They are cute to watch but they are underfoot everywhere and Steve is worried he will run over one in his electric wheel chair.  He doesn’t even like going near the barn now because they are all around the door every time any one goes near it.

 My mom was up here yesterday with my brother and she was amazed that the chickens just chased and picked on the kittens whenever they got near them.  It’s a bit scary to watch but the kittens never seem to get hurt, just scared and that’s what makes them leave chickens alone when they get older.  They may have left the turkey chicks alone but that turkey was awful close to the front of the barn where the cats hang out and I want to raise at least a few turkeys this year.

 I only picked up 4 eggs yesterday between the heat and the birds all trying to sit and out of 16 hens that isn’t good.  My young hens are getting big, in a month or so I’ll hang out a sign and sell off some of these older hens  I think I’ll stick with ten hens, that’s plenty of eggs for us and even to sell a dozen or so a week to my friends at work.  I have two Rhode Island Reds, 2 Black Jersey Giants, 1 ameraucana and 5 Isa  Browns in the young bunch.  We sold off all the extra young hens and a trio of gold Sebright bantams last week, getting the numbers down so we can afford to feed all of these.  I still have 4 sizzle-frizzle roosters I need to sell anybody out there want one?