Tag Archives: farm

Defending the Homestead

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Out in the country, traditional home defense products, like standard alarm systems, aren’t as effective because of the long distance and time before assistance can arrive. So, you have to go back to what worked in simpler times.

After some thought, we decided to build a moat around the house. Here are some pictures of the preparations for the moat going about 1/3 of the way around the house. It is approximately 10 feet wide and about 6 feet deep.

A view of the moat in progress.

A view of the moat in progress.

Another view of the moat.

Another view of the moat.

Another view of the moat with the backhoe.

Another view of the moat with the backhoe.

Click through for more information about the moat.

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The Cows Head Home

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With the summer winding down, it was time for the 3 tenant cows to head back to their home farm for breeding before winter.  Now the goats get to have the run of the pastures until spring.

Here is a close-up of the cows at their water trough a few days before they went back home. Bell comes up close to check out the camera.

Click through for more pictures of the cows.

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Surprise from the NY State Fair

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Sometimes you end up buying something unexpectedly. This can occur anywhere, even (maybe especially?) at the NY State Fair – and fried cookie dough, fried oreos, and other atypically fried foods don’t really count as those are now expected at the fair.

One of our neighbors mentioned that they bought a steam mop at the fair a couple of years ago.  At this year’s fair, we even saw the steam mop display, but just walked on by.

However, we did end up with an unexpected purchase from a different area of the fair – the poultry building.  As the fair was more than half over, there were a number of chickens on display in the poultry building that were listed for sale.  We ended up with 2 new black and white Wyandotte hens!

The seller put them into a small wood and wire crate for transport. I actually just carried the crate with the hens in it right out of the fairgrounds. Although no one tried to stop us or verify the purchase, we did get a lot of strange looks from other fair-goers throughout the grounds and especially on the shuttle bus out to the parking lot.

Two hens in a small crate.

Two hens in a small crate.

The crate was not very large for 2 hens and the hens kept trying to squeeze out of the gap in the top before we got home.

Close-up of the hens in the crate.

Close-up of the hens in the crate.

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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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