Goat Shelters And Such

With all these baby goats, I've decided to keep a few instead of selling them all. I'll go from two dairy does to four and from 4 meat

does to 6. 

I'm building several of these small shacks for shelter from the rain and sun, and come fall I'll add some side panels and move the front to face south, to catch all the sun I can. They already seem to love the shade from these things.  

    

                                                                         

I've got some baby chicks too. They hatched out two days ago, and I've moved them and their mother to a small pen of their own.

They're a cross between a Rhode Island Red rooster and a Buff Brahma hen. I'm anxious to see the outcome once they're grown.

Everythings late this year, due to the hail and flooding, but the root crops are coming along pretty good, 

and I've been getting tomatoes

here and there, along with the hulless oats and now the sunflowers are starting to bloom. 

The oats and sunflower seeds make good, cheap feed for hens and goats, but there's a lot of labor in the harvesting of them.

Billy Goat Update

                                                        It looks like Rooster;'s going to be ok. I think he is, anyway.
                                                          Here's a short video of him up and around this morning

Sick Little Billy Goat

 I've spent the last 3 weeks and 5 days doctoring a baby goat round the clock with electrolytes and thiamine injections every three hours, antibiotics and pro-biotic everyday and cleaning his feces off him every morning and evening. I brought him back from deaths door 4 times and I think by the looks of him this morning, the little son of a bitch is gonna make it. He's eating like a horse.

I call him Rooster, cause they ain't found no way to kill him yet. Only the really cool people will get that reference.

Bouncing Back...Sort Of

The rains stopped and things are bouncing back really good with all the sunshine, as I'd hoped, but I've had to replant a lot. It took a good five days but I got the weeds under control, to a certain degree. I know everything looks bad in the pictures, but trust me, it looks worse in person. The good news is, I should have tomatoes by June 20. The bad news is, all the melons and pumpkins will be terribly late this year, September at best.

Replanted half of the sunflowers. 

These are black oil sunflowers, for chicken and goat feed, and right next to them I had to replant an entire section on cowpeas. Another feed crop.

The only thing looking really good are the hulless oats, which 

thrive in wet weather.

There's a lot of good sized green tomatoes on the plants, but the problem is, with such a cloudy and wet spring, the plants really

haven't developed enough to support a lot of production.



Same issue with the summer squash, the plants are trying to produce, but they're just not ready.  

                             

Some Rain, Finally

We've been getting a lot of rain the last few days and the

weatherman says it's going to stick around for awhile. That's good news, it should give all the transplants and the seeded crop

a real shot in the arm. Squash and tomatoes are coming along great and should be early this year and the cabbage is finally starting to head up, after the hail pretty much destroyed it. 

A new Tiller

It was a rough week, with a lot of work involved, but everything is out and planted. There's even a few small tomatoes on the vines already.

I picked up a used tiller for a real good price, earlier in the week, and it's a real workhorse for it's age and size. After I plow and disk the ground with the tractor, I use a tiller to smooth out my rows to plant in. It makes the Earthway seed planter's job a lot easier

Feed Crops

My trusty tiller is giving me some problems this spring, but not to worry, I keep a lot of old time, hand powered planting tools on hand.

I planted my feed crops this week, which keeps the cost of feeding the goats and hens down, and hopefully, in the future will eliminate feed costs altogether. Corn, sunflowers, cowpeas and collard greens, along with the already planted oats, should make for a good feed

Oats and New Transplants

My oats have already started bouncing back after the hail damage, which I expected. Oats are a tough crop and can take severe weather as well as anything. I started replacing some of the lost transplants, with some backups I always make sure to have on hand. You can never have enough seedlings on hand. I even put out a few Early Girl tomatoes and some okra seedlings. Just gambling again.

The baby goats are doing great. They look big and strong, and exactly what I was hoping for at this point.

Freeze and Bad Hail Storm

We had a hard freeze early last week, all the way down to 18 degrees, which killed any chances of my fruit trees producing this year. I was expecting this, since everything bloomed so early, but it's still disheartening thing.

That's not all though, a few days later we got a devastating hail storm. Quarter sized hail came down for 20 minutes and covered the ground like a snowfall. All my early transplants and even my oats were turned to mulch. Basically anything above ground will be set back a few weeks at best, or replanted at worst. This is why I call my early transplants 'gamble crops'. It's always a gamble in April, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. This year, I lost.

Turnip Greens and Oats

I took some turnip greens from the small cold frame this week, and fried them up in butter, with a pinch of salt and a tsp of brown sugar. They were great.







My oats took off after the watering I gave them and as you can see 

they have a good start and my garlic is coming along nicely as well. 

 

Early Blooming Trees

It's a bit early for my fruit trees to be blooming, but this warm weather has set them off. As pretty as they are to look at, I know this is a disaster waiting to happen. There's just no way we get through to summer without another freeze, and that means no fruit this year. I don't see any way around it, but here's some nice pictures of my sure to be doomed plumb trees.

We had some baby goats born this last week, and they all three look sound and healthy. These are a cross of 3/4 French Alpine dairy and 1/ 4 Boer meat goat. I'm hoping for a good duel

purpose animal with strong milk producing does and meaty bucks. Right now they're just fun to watch.

I got four rows of potatoes put in and started putting some water on

the oats this week. It's been dry and the oats need a jump start. I really need a rain.

Baby Chicks

 As a test of the new incubator, I set 7 eggs in it, and they hatched this weekend. Well, three of them hatched. I'm not real big on incubating, but modern hens aren't great mothers and not many breeds will even set a nest, so I feel like incubating is better than purchasing new chicks every year.

 Three our of seven isn't impressive, so I'll make a few small adjustments to the temperature and humidity and try a larger batch.

 I bought a small composter that I'll hopefully use to make some good potting soil. Haven't tried it yet, and I don't have much composting experience, but it doesn't sound like the hardest thing to accomplish. 

A photo update

The weathers been real nice and I have a lot of started plants doing great

Transplants and Eggs

I put all the spinach and cabbage transplants in the cold frame today, and I'm letting them get some sun before I cover them this evening. They're right on track to be the first to be moved to the field come warmer weather.

My hens are laying really well lately. The warm weather has them thinking it's spring and nature tells them to crank up production. I have a hatch due this coming Sunday, and another in April. I'm looking to triple my flock size, so

I can keep up with the sales demand. Fresh eggs are like gold nowadays.