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.
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.
Mystery egg bending in response to pressure.
What was inside the mystery egg and what was the cause?
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.
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.
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.
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.
The goats have had free run of the 3 biggest pastures since late September – able to go in and out of the pastures whenever they felt like it. When the new tenant cows arrive this spring, we will need to rotate the goats into different pastures opposite the cows. While this isn’t a problem in terms of the amount of grass they will have available to eat, it does present an issue with trying to feed them a little bit of hay over the summer while the cows are here.
The outer barn has ample space to spread out hay in various locations so all of the goats can feed at once without fighting over it. Once the goats are rotated off of the pasture with the barn to the other pastures, there are many fewer places to spread out the hay. We decided to design and build a new homemade goat feeder to feed them their hay.
Here is a video of the goats testing out the new goat feeder:
Unfortunately, the first test was only partially successful. The goats successfully ate some hay from it and were not able to knock it over or lift up the roof. However, they began to eat pieces of the wood off of the feeder itself around the corners. We had to remove the feeder from service until we can make some small tweaks before trying again.
Click through for a more detailed description of the goat feeder.
We have some new baby chicks!
A close-up of our baby white bantam cochin chicks.
We are currently raising 3 bantam white cochin hens to add to our flock. Bantams are smaller breeds than typical hens – usually about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of a regular hen. White Cochins are a breed of chicken that has fluffy feathers including feathered legs and feet.
Here is a video of the baby chicks shortly after they arrived home:
Click through for more pictures and information about the baby chicks.
Last week, one of our barred plymouth rock hens had to be put down. She is our first animal loss since moving to the farm.
Here is a picture of one of our two barred rock hens.
One of our Barred Plymouth Rock Hens in the field.
She was very sick and likely wouldn’t have lived much longer.
A couple of weeks ago, at least one of our hens was laying some odd sized eggs, from tiny to extra large.
Here is a picture of the different sized eggs to help refresh your memory:
Different size eggs (likely from the same hen).
Well, we decided to crack open the eggs to see what, if anything, was inside.
Click through to see what we found.
It is now early March and the weather is very warm. The high temperature was over 70 degrees earlier this week. The average high temperature normally doesn’t reach the 70s until June. Even the deepest snow piles have almost completely disappeared. Instead of mid-winter, maybe this is really an early-summer update.
How have the chickens fared over the winter?
Like the goats, the chickens are doing well! On the coldest days, the chickens remained inside the chicken coop with a space heater to help them keep warm. On days at or above freezing, the chickens would usually venture outside as long as the snow wasn’t too deep. During the recent warm spell, the chickens spend most of their day outside.
The chickens out in the field enjoying the early warm weather.
The chickens are venturing out into the pastures during the warm weather and enjoying the longer days.
Click through for more pictures, including an interesting egg phenomenon.