Recently, our Bielefelder rooster, Oliver, was discovered injured by another larger rooster that was able to fly into the pen where my poultry are being kept - I brought him home and kept him in the rabbit hut (quonset shelter) for observation and medical attention. He was very depressed, uninterested in the world around him, not eating or drinking much, and I was very concerned that we were going to lose him, even though his visibly minor injuries were healing nicely. As a last ditch effort to snap him out of his funk, I brought his hens, Felicity and Polly, home to keep him company - he didn't even seem to notice them for almost a full week, but then each day showed a significant improvement until he was back to his normal self.
Right at the end of Oliver's recuperation time, I heard that our mature tom turkey, Winston, was causing trouble at the boarding farm - being housed with his hens and some of the other poultry, he'd been doing ok, but now that summer was beginning and mating season was kicking in, Winston was making more than just a nuisance of himself, being aggressive to other chickens and ducks, inflicting somewhat serious injuries. The jake turkey on the other side of the fence wasn't helping, as they were both strutting and fighting through the fence, but there were really limited options for housing them. After mulling some ideas over, I decided to just go ahead and bring Winston home, by himself, and put him in the rabbit hut with Oliver and his girls - no turkey hens to fight over should, I hoped, result in no more fighting. I was both right and terribly wrong. Winston and Oliver were ok with one another after about a 5 minute poultry equivalent of a muscle-flexing session, with me acting as referee (spraying water at whichever bird was getting too much out of line); they had their own places to roost each night, and during the day they kept a polite distance from one another. Unfortunately, during the day, for the first couple of days, and during the night, every night, Winston expressed his annoyance at his human captors. All. Night. Long. Gobbling a string of curses and accusations, possibly calling for his long lost ladies. At full volume. All. Night. Long. *sigh* Did I mention my poor, tolerant husband works a full time job? Did I also mention turkeys can be startlingly loud, especially when they're peeved? Oh yes, indeed, our Winston was a most disgruntled creature. He may have heard me asking around about best techniques to prevent freezer burn on mature turkeys that need to be processed and stored until the holiday meal, rather than prepared close to the holiday, as was our intent...he's since mellowed, though he still complains regularly. We don't really want to process him early; fresh homegrown holiday turkey really is amazingly delicious, so I'm at a crossroads. We can go ahead and process him and store him in the freezer, or we can bring home 1-2 of his hens and see if that calms him down. I think I'll risk bringing home his girls - if it doesn't work, we can always process him then.
Our goats are doing well. They've all settled into their temporary herd nicely, and although there were some initial scuffles for herd position, now it's mostly in play. Teuscher and Ginny are growing quickly, essentially weaned (Geneva still lets them nurse, though they don't actually need to), and though I'm a little sad that I'm missing out on their daily antics and discoveries, I'm happy that they're in such good hands.
The rabbits are doing fantastic. All the mixed breeds are gone, leaving just my American Chinchillas and Creme D'Argents. I've been building large quonset cages for the does to use with their future litters, and I've been offered an amazing deal on larger stacking cages that will be used both for mature bucks, and for grow outs that may also join our herd. The Am Chin herd has grown slightly, as I've found a couple nice rabbits locally, and I have potentially a few more coming in this weekend. I have one purebred litter of 7, thanks to Sara, my 5 year old doe, who is doing a remarkable job taking care of her litter. The Cremes should be increasing soon also, and I'm extremely excited about that!
I've continued hatching out eggs, farm yard mix, and purebred chickens and possibly purebred Narragansett turkeys, in my bank of 4 incubators - the incubator with the egg turner, which is on loan from a friend, holds the more valuable turkey and purebred eggs, and the other 2 without turners get the barn yard mix eggs - these I have to turn by hand a few times each day. The 4th incubator is taller, so I use it as the hatching out incubator - when eggs should start hatching soon, they go in that incubator, and when the chicks are dry, fluffy, and have figured out how to walk around, then they go into the Baby Brooder. The Baby Brooder is scaled for the freshly hatched; feed and water dishes are very low and easy to reach, heat lamp puts off much more heat, as chicks have to gradually be weaned off the heat. When the chicks' feathers start coming in, and they're able to almost escape the Baby Brooder (jumping up and trying to fly over the sides), then they go into the Toddler Brooder; this is a metal water trough that's been converted into a larger scaled version of the Baby Brooder. Higher walls, weaker heat lamp, larger food and water dishes - this is the last phase before they get moved out to the farm yard and learn how to really be chickens by the mature Bielefelders (hunt for food, peck and scratch, etiquette around the adults, etc). Our first 3 cockerels and lone pullet have already been out in the rabbit hut with the adults for a few days, and they're doing very well indeed, especially considering the very grumpy Winston is sharing space with them out there ;)
The trees are all down on our property. Beth, Bill and Tim of She Cuts It tree service did a fantastic job, and we're very happy with the work they did. Many of the logs have been hauled away by their loaders, and there are still several remaining here for us to cut into firewood rounds. There are a tremendous number of branches that need to be pulled away from the fence line in both the front and back yards, at which point we can focus on getting the perimeter fence installed in the front yard. Once that's done, we'll be able to bring the goats home and they'll stay in the front yard, munching on all the lovely green branches and other tidbits, which will help with their deworming regimen, and lighten our overall tree clean up job. While the goats "work" in the front yard, we'll turn our attention to the back yard, getting the logs cut and branches sorted there, then start getting the farm fence put back up, so the goats can be moved into the back, and begin to work through the branch piles there. When the branches have been stripped by the goats, they should be more dry, lighter, and ready for us to bring in a large chipper to transform the gigantic piles of branches into substantial piles of helpful, mud-eating wood chips.
Then, we'll turn our attention to getting the grazing paddocks set up, and shelters built...one project at a time! :)