The Farm at Castle Argghhh!!!

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned this here, but last November, I drove over to Herbal Maid Fiber Farm in Rosebud, Missouri and purchased 6 French Angora Rabbits. 4 does and 2 bucks. They each have their own 30x30 cage, and the cages are stacked 3 high.

I have the rabbit cages set up in the old milking room in the barn. I discovered that cleaning those cages was pretty difficult because my wheelbarrow does not go through the doors from the milking room to the larger barn area, so I had to either push the wheelbarrow through the goat pasture and through the door to the outside, or carry the 30x30 litter pans to the narrower inside doors and try to tip them just right so I could empty them into the wheelbarrow parked outside the door. It was a pain either way.

So, I looked for some kind of a wheelbarrow that would go through the inside doors, and I found one -

And it works well. (And if you want one, please get it by clicking on that link and I will get a gift card from Amazon!) The bunny's cages are being cleaned much more often because it is so much easier with that dump cart.

As for the Goats - Oh, my, they are such naughty, naughty goats! I looked out the garage door a little while ago, and there were goats in places where goats are not supposed to be! They were all out and hanging with the chickens. Buffy and Gunner and Kiki were all sitting on the hill keeping an eye on them, so they were safe, but as soon as I walked out the door, the goats all looked at me, and started sidling into the barn and then back through the gate that they had managed to open.

This is actually quite gratifying. Back when we first had the goats, if they got out, chances were that Serafina and Morgan would take off like the wind. We had quite a time finding them once, they were gone for days. Apparently, they all seem to realize that this is home now.

I might even try taking them out and letting them graze in back without a fence, if they will stay close. They will come running when I call them if they think I have treats for them. Maybe i don't have to build a bunch of fences for them.

Update: Here is are a couple of photos of the goats in escape mode: That's Horus!

and, Miss Maggie:

Yes, Maggie is quite tiny. She is the goat we almost lost last November - she spent Thanksgiving night in the kitchen, and I was terrified that when I got up in the morning, she would be dead. But, she is a very tough little doeling, and is now running around, jumping and playing like all the other goats!

Seems like it's been cold and cloudy since before Christmas. I'm probably exaggerating a bit, but on the whole, it's been quite dreary. Today, it's cold (hey, it is January!), but the sun is shining brightly.

The goats are out on in the pasture instead of hiding out in the barn, and the chickens are actually venturing more than a couple of yards from the hen house and barn. In fact, Mike, the rooster, was at the front door a little while ago, along with 3 of his hen harem. The fowl DO know where I live, and since I am "She who feeds us, yet steals our eggs", they often hang out waiting for me to bring treats from the kitchen (vegetables past their prime or if it's really cold and awful out, I cook oatmeal with molasses for the chickens).

I like it when it is sunny out because I feel happier and more energized. I'm much more likely to spend more time outside doing chores and preparing for planting veggies and herbs for canning and dehydrating once spring rolls around.

Last year, I had an awful, awful growing year. We had too much rain and the ground was so saturated that my green onions and potatoes all rotted and many more veggies never got going at all. I think I need to go back to raised beds (as I did the previous year). The raised beds are a lot of work to start out with, but the improved drainage really helps my onions, peppers and potatoes. I need to start putting together supplies to build those beds now.

I also need to get some soil tests done. I have some very, very rich soil where the previous landowner fed his calves - it's so rich, though, that I might need to add some sand or something to the loam to make it better for growing things.

So, hopefully, I'll be updating my blog more often and getting some pictures up and preparing my gardens for a successful year, no matter how much rain we might get!

There is a nice woman whose husband is going through CGSC at Ft. Leavenworth. She likes my eggs, and calls every couple of weeks to buy a couple of dozen. Typically, I just meet her at the PX.

Well, she called on Tuesday, and we agreed to meet at the PX at 10:00 AM yesterday. I was there at 9:58 and waited until 10:25, and the nice woman did not show up.

When I got home, after giving my eggs away to some friends, there was a message on the phone that she had waited at the Commissary for me and then realized she was supposed to meet me at the PX.

Now, I'm not really mad that she made an error. But, that was 30 minutes of my life that I will never get back for $6 worth of egg money that I won't get. I'm thinking that from now on, if someone wants eggs, they can call, and if I have some, they can just drive out to the farm to get them.

Honestly, I'm not making a penny on the eggs in the winter. I'm not even sure that the little bit I make during the market season even pays for the chicken's feed during the non-market season.

Most likely no one will bother to drive out here for eggs. Ugh.

I could just get more egg recipes and use them up and freeze the culinary results until we get around to using them.

Comments, suggestions?

This winter, we have had more than our normal share of cold and snow. Don't get me wrong, I love snow, really, I do. And the cold ... it's not bad, especially if the sun makes an appearance now and again.

In fact, come to think of it, its the wind that has been bugging me. We have had a whole lot of wind. Until we had a thaw last week, we had snow drifts that were over my knees - because of the wind! We had a drift, a huge drift, that blocked the front door for 4 weeks.
We almost always use the garage door to enter and exit the house, so we didn't bother with shoveling the humongous drifts around the front door. The only ones it bothered were the dogs, and the County guy who drives the plow on our road who sank in that drift up to his butt when he came to check to make sure he was not going to plow up John's body - see John's post!

I ended up making paths through the snow from the garage door to the henhouse to the barn, and every time the darn wind blew, I had to forge through the new drifts all over again.

Because of the deep snow, our Colored Angora Goats had little reason to leave the barn. The chickens would barely leave their house unless it was to run to the barn. I have a lot of mucking out to do once all that chicken poop thaws, let me tell you! In the meantime, I put layers of straw and pine bedding on top of the poops in the henhouse.

For the moment, the snow is gone. It's cold, but so much easier to work outside.

http://www.thedonovan.com/swwbo/2009/11/omfg-what-idiots-there-are-on.html

We have two goats who are feeling less than stellar today. Maggie and her mother, Morgan Le Fey, both have scours (aka diarrhea) In goats, that can be fatal if you don't nip it in the bud asap.

I suspect they have coccidiousis. Coccidia is a parasite that is always present in goats, but if for some reason, their immuity is down, it can affect their guts and cause diarrhea.

So, I have quarantined them both in their own stall. They are both getting electrolytes, B vitamins and a sulfa type of drug. They have their own minerals and hay and water. This way, I can get a much better idea of how much they are consuming than with the rest of the herd.

If they are not better by Monday morning, I'll get some fecal samples and run them down to my veterinarian. But, many goatherds tell me that I should be able to treat this myself.

It is also possible that we could have a worm problem, but they don't appear to look anemic to me.

So, I'm saying a prayer and doing all the medical stuff I have been told to do.

I'll update tomorrow on their progress.

One of my ducks is missing. We only have five ducks, and they are always together and always close to the house. John came home around 6 pm and told me that one of our Pekin ducks was missing.

I put my coat on and went out with the dogs - Buffy (the coyote slayer), Gunner and Kiki. We are indeed missing a duck. He must have been taken by surprise, as I could find no sign of struggle anywhere in the area the ducks are known to frequent.

Buffy and Gunner picked up a scent and ran down the field behind the house and into the woods on the other side of the creek. Kiki, being an elderly dog, trotted behind them and then sat down until she figured she had been gone long enough to impress me and then returned home.

In the meantime, Buffy and Gunner could be seen racing through the woods and then back across and to the field to the West of the house - where I have seen coyotes before. They were gone for at least 30 minutes before they returned.

This happened between 4 and 6 pm - prime coyote attack time, in our experience. I am going to have to start keeping watch with rifle in hand during those hours. Last autumn, John shot several coyotes during that same time period - as they started up the hill toward the fowl.

I,being my normal lazy self, brought just one of the three large pumpkins that I managed to grow up to the house. Well, I left it on the seat of the Ranger, and pretty much forgot about it. Until last night. The chickens ate it! Everything - the seeds, the rind, the stringy goopy stuff.

I wonder if the eggs they lay today should be saved and used in a pumpkin pie?

Fall has arrived. The trees started turning last weekend. I had the Angora Goats sheared professionally a couple of weeks ago by Danny Smith. Danny makes short work of shearing the critters, and the money he charged ($50 for the 7 goats) was extremely well worthwhile. It saved me untold hours of shearing with a scissors.

For those who don't know, John's Dad, Tim Donovan, passed away rather suddenly last month. My heart is still heavy with his loss. The world changes when the last family member of a generation passes on. We miss him very much.

We are getting kind of back to normal now.

Now, for the farm news: I have failed rather spectacularly in my vegetable growing efforts this year. It rained so much that my onions and potatoes rotted in the soil, my tomatoes set fruit that never seemed to ripen and leaving for a week of studying spinning and dying and felting in July allowed the weeds to completely take over.

I improved the henhouse by adding 3 windows in it for better air circulation. The hens were not impressed and started moulting and stopped laying for a month. I'm just now starting to get some eggs again. And now I have to devise some shutters for those wire covered windows so I can close them once it starts freezing at night.

We are going to make some improvements next month. Digger Jim is going to move dirt around and build some french drains to keep water from flowing into the barn. He is also going to add two water hydrants for me - one up by where the garden in the field next to the yard is, and one that will pull water down to the lower small garden area, so if we ever have another DRY year, I can water the plants.

Jim is also going to put gravel out behind the barn, where the goats go in and out, to keep it dry -currently, it is a muddy mess. He's also going to fix the gutters and the drains on the barn. I may do some research into finding some rain barrels to divert the rain into - it might be an easier way to keep the chickens and goats watered.

Then, on the other side of the road, in our horse pasture, he is going to build a 12x36 lean-to shelter for the horses. Currently, the horses have lots of woods and stuff to get to in bad weather, and have survived just fine for two years, but with Willy growing older, I'd feel better knowing he has a sturdier shelter to keep the wind off his back.

I insisted that Digger Jim add a closet that I can store their feed in, and he had just never heard of anyone doing that - he kept saying, just keep it in a 55 gallon drum next to the shelter - I don't think he realized that Willy will break into something like that once he knows there is grain there!! I think I finally convinced him that I need a lockable door to keep that 55 gallon drum behind! If not, I will build my own 'storage locker' for the horse feed.

By the way, we are having a beautiful morning here! The sun is rising over Castle Argghhh! and the fall trees are magnificent.