Author Archives: Dan

Bottle feeding a Calf

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Loyal readers may remember Sunshine, one of the tenant cows that used our pasture during summer 2015.

Sunshine (summer 2015)

Sunshine (summer 2015)

She gave birth to a calf, named Bert, in early summer 2016. Unfortunately, Sunshine rejected the calf and wouldn’t care for it. Other cows in the herd won’t take care of an abandoned calf so the calf needs to be hand raised to survive.

We went to visit Bert at his home farm a couple of miles away. Our neighbor let us bottle feed Bert for one of his meals.

Bert getting bottle fed.

Bert getting bottle fed.

Click through for more photos and videos of Bert.

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Growing our own food (2016)

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Last summer, by the time the farm purchase closed and we moved in, it was too late to start a garden for the summer. However, the prior owners had planted a full garden with a variety of plants. With limited work needed on our part (just some occasional watering), we were able to harvest a large number of tomatoes, radishes, rattlesnake beans, kale, lettuce, green peppers, dill and much more.

This year, we had a lot more work to do – we had to prepare and plant our own garden! It took many hours to turn the soil and get it ready for planting.

The garden before planting (2016).

The garden before planting (2016).

Although last winter was generally warm, it stayed colder than normal late into the spring with frost still occurring regularly up through the beginning of May. We decided to go with planting from seeds this year instead of started plants. Due to the late frosts, we couldn’t plant the seeds until late May.

Our garden shortly after planting in late May 2016.

Our garden shortly after planting in late May 2016. Note that it looks very similar to the before planting picture because we planted seeds.

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Wildlife Escape Ramps (Part 1)

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For anyone who has open man-made water sources on their property, wildlife escape ramps are very important.

What is a wildlife escape ramp?  Wildlife escape ramps are ramps or other structures that allow wildlife that fall into the water to escape from water troughs or buckets that otherwise have side that are too steep for animals to climb out on their own.

Wildlife Rescue Ramp in the bucket.

Completed Wildlife Escape Ramp in the bucket.

For water sources with shallow sloping sides (such as most bird baths), wildlife escape ramps are not necessary as animals can climb out over the edge as the water is shallow near the edge.  However, for water sources with steep sides (such as most livestock water troughs), wildlife escape ramps are needed to help any animals that fall in and are unable to climb out because of the steep sides.

A couple of weeks ago, a juvenile bird drowned in one of our water troughs and a toad was unable to climb out of one of the other water buckets (we got the toad out in time). In addition to causing the deaths of animals that fall in, dead animals in the water troughs can spread disease to the livestock, and even when discovered within a day, requires the water trough to be emptied, cleaned and then refilled.

We researched solutions and the most useful solution was to build wildlife escape ramps.

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Another Egg Mystery

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One of our hens laid another mystery egg last week. At first glance, the egg looked relatively normal other than being slightly more translucent than usual.

The latest mystery egg.

The latest mystery egg.

However, it didn’t feel like a normal egg. See the below picture for how the side of the egg would indent and bounce back in response to pressure.

Egg indent

Mystery egg bending in response to pressure.

What was inside the mystery egg and what was the cause?

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Bantam cochins join the main flock

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After a few weeks in the chicken tractor (see http://www.luckypennyacres.org/2016/06/26/baby-chicks-venture-outside/), the baby chicks were old enough to merge into the main flock. To help the integration process, we put the chicken tractor inside the main field where the main flock spends most of its time so all of the chickens could see and get used to the cochins before we merged them together.

We first introduced them into the main coop late in the evening when it was already after sunset and all of the chickens were roosting. Chickens are mostly asleep / zoned out while roosting so the older chickens didn’t make a big fuss and we were able to place the young chicks on the roost bars without any issues.

The chicks were also mostly asleep at the time, but the next morning they took the opportunity to explore the coop.

Click through to read more about their integration into the flock.

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Clearing downed trees

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One night, I was woken up at around 3 am with a loud noise (similar to a thunder clap) followed by a loud crash.

Just outside the house, a large chunk of one of our old maple trees broke off the main portion of the tree and fell onto the driveway.

A large piece of one of our old maple trees broke off in the middle of the night.

A large piece of one of our old maple trees broke off in the middle of the night.

With a scheduled meet-up happening at our house about a week later, we had limited time to remove the tree and clear the driveway to provide enough parking spaces.

Click through to see how we finished the process.

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Baby chicks venture outside

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At around 9 or 10 weeks of age, the baby bantam white Cochin chicks were old enough and the temperatures were staying warm enough overnight that they could now live outside full time.

To keep them safe and to make sure they didn’t run or fly away, we put them in our chicken tractor.

Here is a video of the chicks shortly after we put them in the chicken tractor. You can see some of their natural behavior to kick at the grass and leaf litter to look for insects.

Click through for more information about our chicken tractor.

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Sssnakes!

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With the long grass in the pastures, it is a perfect habitat for a variety of small snakes. The small snakes eat a variety of bugs, worms, toads and some of the larger ones even help keep the vole and other rodent populations in check.

I came across a pile of garter snakes hanging out near one of our animal sheds. I was quick enough to get a few pictures and a short video before they all slithered underneath the shed and out of sight.

Click through for more pictures of some snakes and another surprise visitor.

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Spring 2016 Shearing

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After a mild winter, our goats had full, heavy fleeces that needed to be sheared off before the summer heat. With the milder than normal temperatures, they were able to put less energy into staying warm and more energy into growing longer and thicker fleeces.

The local shearer stopped by earlier in the spring to shear our goats.

Here is a quick look at the start of Ruby’s shearing this spring. He likes to start with the stomach first and then move on to the legs and back. This video shows the first few passes across Ruby’s stomach area.

Click through to see more videos and photos of the spring 2016 shearing.

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Cows!

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The new cows have arrived!

Three new 1-year-old cows were dropped off last weekend to spend the summer at our farm grazing on our pastures.  Just like last summer, these cows are part of a pasture lease and the cows will eat the grass to help them grow to maturity while at the same time reducing our need to mow and maintain the pastures over the summer.

The 3 cows we hosted last summer each gave birth to a calf this spring back at their home farm.

Click through to read more about each of the new cows for summer 2016.

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