And now there are four....

We lost one of the male mallards. The one that was in the male/female pair. She called for him for a day and wondered about the farm looking for him. I wondered what the others would do.Then they started hanging with her. Now they are all paired off. It is a relief. Not that I have any control over such things. Nature works its magic.

I hesitate to write about the farm at times. It seems when I mention something good then something happens to that animal. I not a pessimist by any means, but something is always happening. I have learned to shut gates and pens with a passion. But we lost a chicken last week. I guess she did not go into the coop that night and a possum got her. Woke me up at about 1:00 am and I got up to look. Saw the possum under a pile of landscape timbers but I didn't see the chicken til the next morning. We set traps. But since I had not lost a chicken in a while, we don't have one set up right now.

Suppose to get a little wintry mix in the weather this week. Makes me plan my day a little better since I had to walk 2 miles in the icy snow a couple of weeks ago to get home. I just can't imagine how the poor folks in the northeast will handle the next couple of days/weeks without power. The farm is pretty much self sufficient. We have a well and a wood burning stove. And a generator. We haven't experienced any real power outages since we moved to the farm. But we lost power in town for three days a couple of years ago. I had my son come get all the deer meat in the freezer. Didn't want to loose that! And the ice causes problems somewhere in the state each winter. So we built the farm house with all that in mind.

Breaking the drought!

We live in the south. These past two years we have been experiencing the worst droughts. Our first three years we had such beautiful grass/pasture. We worked so hard putting out grass seed and clover. And then the droughts. We and about 60% of the nation have watched our pastures dry up. I know a farmer that sold 100 cows last summer, leaving him 10 breeders. He could not afford to feed them over the winter. We don't run that many and can rotate them through the pastures as the grass grows. Also we put in four ponds in the past three years with the help of our state agriculture center, NRCS. They help pay for cross fencing, ponds and watering systems. They are a farmers best friend. They are helping pay for replacement seeding this year. If we qualify.
So this winter we had a white christmas with 9 inches of snow!! and we have had a couple inches of rain this past month. And now most of our ponds are mostly full and this one is going over the spillway! This one is fed by the mountain ridge to the south. We could not make it through the drought without the ponds. We had to fed the cows hay in August. About a bale a week. That helped them through as the enced off pastures had a chance to grow some.

Donkeys in a pen

This was so funny. We are going to need to get the donkeys into a trailer when we give them away. We are getting guard dogs/puppies in March and trying to give the two donkeys away. They don't like new spaces. So then we see them in the duck pens. I think there was a little new grass in the pens. I think we will put feed into the trailer and see if they will begin to eat in the trailer. That's the way we caught the rams when they went to market. If it could just be that easy.

Movie from the Farm

Mallards on the pond

We have five mallards that call our farm home.

They are not wild.

 I raised them in my backyard in town

before we moved them to the farm.

I am asked all the time why they don't just fly away.

They really don't know where else to go.

Their food and shelter is here.

They come up every morning and evening to be fed.

 

Otherwise they fly between two close ponds. We have other ponds on the farm, within a half mile from the house,

but the ducks don't fly to them.

They have seperated themselves into two family units,

one male/female pair and one female/two males.

The one extra male had a female companion last year

but she did not make it through the winter.

I am hoping all of these make it

to have little mallards this spring.

 

Lily is on the mend

Lily seems to be doing fine now. The cow milk/buttermilk mixture seems to be doing the trick. I have to wonder how they came up with such a combination. But glad they are there doing their research for my benefit!

Last week we had four new lambs. One ewe had twins, one ewe and our first ram of the season,and Honey had a single ewe and 531T had a single ewe lamb. So that makes 9 so far. 90% survival rate. Not as good as I would like it. We are always sad to lose an animal.

Bad storm last night. All the animals in the sheep manger. The cows stay out in the weather but I can't stand the idea of the little lambs being exposed to the elements. Today was worse for me though. It seems that it can be 29 degrees and nice and then 40 degrees and windy and you just freeze! Well actually it was 65 yesterday and bad storms came through. Not a good day. And now it is windy! Blows right through you. Glad though it isn't wind chill of 30 below like being reported up north. Would not leave the house!

Lily is sick

Lily has scours. (diarrhea) This kills 46% of the little lambs lost. From what I have learned, it happens in bottle raised animals quite often. Even those raised by experts. I tried to find out on the internet how to combat this problem. Many ideas. So I emailed the experts at my local agri-school. They told me that they get scours in their orphaned animals quite often and how to handle it. So Lily is off the lamb milk replacement and is on a formula of whole cows milk with buttermilk and evaporated milk mixed in it. I think the buttermilk has the good bacteria that will balance her system. They said in a couple of days she should be doing better. Now she is very strong and active. She runs with her sisters and plays "king of the mountain". So I am not too worried. I think I have caught this in time.

I am not a full time farmer. I have a day job. Sort of. I am an Architect and have my own firm. Well, my two partners and I. My time is very flexible. But having to be home every 4-6 hours is even rough on me sometimes. It will get easier as Lily gets older and then she will be wiened at 8 weeks. About the time I get my new great pyrenese puppies! They will be wiened too but will still need to be watched with the lambs and sheep and chickens for a bit. Animals are very time consuming but I do enjoy them all.