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.
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.
Following a recent reader request, I have added a new subscribe feature to the blog that may be of interest to those readers who don’t visit every day checking for a new post.
You can now subscribe to the blog on the right side of the main page by entering your email address to receive an email each time a new post is published.
Note that when you enter your email address, it will send a confirmation email that you need to click on before you are subscribed – check your spam folder as the subscribe confirmation may get put in your spam folder.
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.
Although there was a cold spell earlier in the week that saw temperatures dip below freezing several nights in a row – spring has mostly arrived!
The clover is in full bloom – see all of the little purple flowers in the fields.
Clover in bloom in the fields.
In addition, the chickens are venturing further out to check for delicious bugs around the property. Two of our hens, Mindy and Sindy, along with our rooster Pineapple recently ventured out of the pastures to the front yard to help dig up the front flower beds in front of the barn.
A few months ago, we purchased a Lucky Penny Acres sign. Last week, with the help of some visiting family, we were able to build a sign post and mount the sign in our front yard.
Here is a picture of the almost completed project with the sign mounted. We still need to paint the bare wood at some point and add a couple of lights, but it is otherwise complete.
Penny in front of the completed sign with our tractor in the background.
April showers bring May flowers is the phrase. I think that phrase usually refers to spring rain showers.
Temperatures reached into the 60’s and even the 70’s in February and March. However, winter wasn’t over quite yet.
This past weekend we received around 6 to 8 inches of snow over 2 days – the largest single snow storm of the whole season!
And now temperatures are back into the low teens overnight. The high temperatures are expected to be back above freezing later this week and a lot of the snow will likely melt pretty soon, but a little more snow is forecast for this coming weekend.
Snow covered yard and pastures in April.
Snow in the front yard in April.
Snow accumulation on a tree in April.
With the previous warm weather, we were considering putting away the snow equipment for the summer. Luckily we hadn’t gotten around to putting it away just yet.
