After putting in a request to Wrights English Shepherds and waiting over a year for her, Miss Reilly the Farm-Pup has arrived!   She's a tri-color girl with interesting markings and some really cute freckles on her snout. Born on a horse ranch in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia, she and her sister, Korie, came home with me this past Saturday.  Korie is a very pretty clear-sable color with a nice blaze on her forehead and a bossy attitude to go with it!  She'll be going to live and work on Kelley Creek Farms in Birmingham, AL where she'll be managing horses, chickens and geese... we will keep up with her activities in the blogosphere.

While Flynn The Wonder Moose Mastiff girl has been a very good protector here and she makes her rounds of the fencelines like a good guardian should.  However, I'm very excited to have a traditional farm dog to help me work the livestock and look forward to doing some farm-trials herding ducks with Reilly also.  I know that she'll very quickly become an indispensable part of getting the work done around the home-place!

The girls together their first week at the farm:

Hi there, peeps.

Now that we're seeing some warmer days, the farm animals are having babies and eggs are fertile and most breeders are hatching like crazy.  Spring is here! Our spring swap meet has been scheduled for Saturday, June 8th 2013 
http://mdpoultryswap.blogspot.com/. 

Along with the Huge sales area filled anything farm related, homemade, handcrafted, used, recycled, vintage, we will also have fun stuff for the whole family.  Kids will enjoy pony rides, a poultry show, the moon bounce, ice cream and aisles of bunnies, sheep, goats, peafowl, chickens, baby chicks, turkeys and more.  We will also have a pig roast, concession stand and a live bluegrass band playing from 10-2.  

Anyone is welcome to participate as a vendor.  It's a $15 flat fee to sell.  There is no registration necessary but, there are a few regulations regarding the sale of livestock. Please check with our website for more info!  Show up before 7:30 with your tables/chairs/canopy or just tail gate with you items.  Folks selling poultry with 5 birds or less can sell for free.

Vendors: Please contact me with what you are planning on selling so I can compile THE LIST in which I use for advertising purposes.

New this year:  We are now charging $2 per person for admission.  Kids 17 and under are free.  Due to us getting bigger, we are now in need of traffic control as well as parking attendants and this helps to cover those costs along with logistics, entertainment, advertising and kid's activities.  I hope you understand.  Camping is always free for swap goers (shoppers and vendors) 

Also new this year:  On Father's Day weekend, we will be hosting "Homesteading Days."  This weekend will be filled with seminars featuring many aspects of sustainable living.  Learn about goat soap making, canning, bread making, dutch oven cooking, harvesting rabbits, poultry processing, wine making, gardening and composting and we will have a seminar on "prepping." Experts in their field will be traveling to Green Hill Farm to share their knowledge and send us home with some goodies.  

Please see our website for pricing and how to attend.  Prices vary due to equipment needed and cost of googie bags.  There will be free camping during that weekend for seminar goers.. so feel free to help in the garden, help feed the animals in the morning or just relax.  You can build a fire and cook outdoors and just enjoy the day.  http://mdhomestead.blogspot.com/

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask,

Erin Moshier
Green Hill Farm
5329 Mondell Rd. 
Sharpsburg, MD. 21782

So I'm out locking up the birds for the night and start, as usual, with the duplex broody coop but find Mama Cochin and her 20 rowdy chicks (who've just started free-ranging this week) missing - uh oh!

Mama Cochin is sharing the duplex coop with my broody duck (due to hatch this week) so I peek in on the adjacent apartment occupied by Miss Blush, my Welsh Harlequin duck and her 10 eggs, where I find 5 fat baby chickens snuggled in there safe with her - LOL!  These two apartments share a single attached yard so those chicks must've figured cranky Miss Blush was better than cold, plain straw next door.

As I lock all the doors on all the various houses I search with my flashlight for Mama Cochin inside each - she has to find a suitable nighttime house for her babies. Just as I start to think I'll be covering a couple acres this evening hunting under prickery holly bushes for my Mama Cochin, the last house to be closed up is where I find her... she's taken over the doghouse my fat goslings are living in!  The small goosy-gooses are outside in their pen instead of in bed where they usually are after dark, so I herd them inside where I see my Mama Cochin tucked into a corner... many tiny heads poking out, curious as kittens, from her fluffy feathers.  Everyone safe and warm this windy, chill night.

Wonky but satisfying social dynamics you don't typically consider: Baby chickens shacking up with my broody duck (poor Miss Blush!); Mama chicken and her hooligan brood bedding down with baby gooses... and one adult Khaki Campbell duck (Miss Faith) who somehow ended up sleeping in the barn with my newly broody Muscovy girl, Lumi, this strange, mixed-up night.  Everyone completely tolerant, if not downright companionable, with the other.  Only at Moose Manor, eh?

Well, everyone is locked up tight and all babies are accounted for and pleasantly cooing while warming with a fluffy mama of some stripe.  It could certainly be worse!       

On Easter Sunday 3 little baby goslings were coaxed from their satin shells into the world.  My mama Muscovy, newly named Gåsmer or "Mother Goose" in Swedish, has been such a wonderful broody, and now caretaker, of these fat Buddha goose babies.

Of the 6 eggs I put under her she hatched 3, and based on the notations Kim wrote on the shell, I now have 2 Sebastopol and 1 American Blue goslings.  It would appear that the golden baby pictured above is a white Sebbie and one of the dark & yellow fluffers is a Saddleback Sebbie.  The other dark gosling is my new little American Blue.

All 3 are very sweet and friendly.  When I open the door of their little house in the morning they meet me right away with their tiny necks craned out and their little baby goosey sounds peep peep peeping through.  One especially, my tiny Curious George, really does like to snuggle a moment every morning and chew on my hair.  GoldenChild is the least happy to be picked up but, honestly, doesn't seem to mind that much.  I've been handling them quite a bit to keep them friendly, although I'm not sure, in my experience, that there's a true correlation to the amount of handling they get as babies and their level of friendliness as adults.  I'll say for sure that some handling is helpful but once they mature I see a big difference between behavior as a baby compared to their level of trust as an adult - in opposing directions most often.  One thing remains constant: their response to the sound of my voice.  All my birds respond positively to the sound of my voice but each respond differently to my nearness.  So, all that said, I think a moderate amount of stress-free handling is important when they're small, but don't expect them to still be eating out of your hand in 2 months.

I haven't determined the sex of these fluffers yet.  I did an initial gender evaluation but it was inconclusive so I'll have to do another after a short instructive video viewing at the Metzer Farms website.  I'm hoping that my American Blue is a girl so that I can finally have a pair... unfortunately, one of my 2 boys will have to find a new home.  Sad but very necessary for pair bonding.

I'm excited that the babies are finally here, healthy and happy.  I'll keep you posted on their progress!

Yep, 50.  As my good friend, Kent would say, I now have half-a-hundred of these tiny yellow chicks in the brooder already eating me out of house and home.

Meyer hatchery was running a sale but I had to place a minimum 50 chick order to get the deal.  I called a local farmer friend who raises these same jumbo Cornish cross for meat, usually right about the same time I do in the spring and fall.  She never called me back (it's a busy time for farmers right now).  The longer I wait to place my order, the further I push my harvest out so I wanted to get them growing asap.

I figured I'd just place the order and if she decided that she wanted them they would already be on their way.  And if she didn't, I'd just sell them on craigslist; wouldn't be hard at all this time of year.

Then they arrived and I started to feel all greedy about them.  I wanted to have them all in MY freezer.  I was feeding more people this year, wasn’t I?  I need to make certain my larder was full, right?  Yeeesss,  you really never know when the lean times are upon you until they’re looming down… and quality organic meat is really expensive.  So I decided to keep them  All.  For.  Myself. 

Yes, all 50.

This is where you might be scratching your head... "how will you harvest 50 chickens with your little operation?"  Well, I figure 25 one weekend and 25 another.  I'll sell the usual amount to offset my cost and put the rest in my own freezer.  Then you so sweetly remind me, "but you haven't finished your duck harvest that the hurricane brought to an early conclusion..."  YesYesYes... I KNOW that.  I'll do it.  I'll do it soon. 

OK… ummmmm... next year I'm only doing the Spring and Fall harvests.  Three is clearly too many for me to handle {she says woefully while holding her head in her hands}.

So sometime in the next 6-8 weeks I need to finish my waterfowl harvest of Cayuga and Muscovy (those Muscovy drakes are on my last nerve and on the short list for the first to go), then 2 more weekends dedicated to sending the jumbo Cornish cross to freezer camp.   We WILL be eating healthy, protein filled meals this winter. 

Now I just need to get the winter veggie garden planted...

You know... sometimes I wish I could get rollover minutes to add to the days I really need to cram more time into my time.

Unlike this poor womans family, my minutes would never get old enough for me to consider ever throwing them away.... those minutes are still good, man!

Yeah, OK.  So the hurricane… my power was out for several days and all the eggs I had in the incubator were officially a no-go.  Luckily, I was gearing down for the season and only had about 30 set at the time.  And in retrospect, I really don’t need any more chickens.  But I was looking forward to a few more Welsh Harlequin girls for next season. 
.

So I decided that while I had my Welsh Harlequin pair in the garden alone I would put all of Miss Blush's eggs in the incubator to see if I could get a few more girls to add to my flock for next season.  I set every one of the eggs she laid, waiting until I'd gathered about a weeks worth each time. That should give me a week for slow hatching babies before I open the hatcher to put in another set.  I don't expect high fertility on these eggs since it was really late in the season, but I'm likely to get a handful of ducklings from this hatch, which should net me at least 2 or 3 girls to add to Duck Dogers harem.

The first of those eggs came due last week and this little cutie hatched out from the 4 eggs I set on August 31 - looks like a pretty silver phase girl (the black head = silver phase & pink bill = girl). Luckily, the night after this lone duckling was born my 50 Cornish cross arrived and I just popped this little one in with her new bunk mates.  Everyone is getting along perfectly.

I have another set of Welsh Harlequin due to hatch this week so I'm looking forward to a few more fuzzy butts to add to the giant, fluffy yellow brooder bunch soon.

**Update: 2 more WH ducklings hatched on Oct 16!  And based on the dark brown color of their bills, It looks like I have two boys.  One appears to be a silver phase and the other probably gold phase.  I've also determined that Miss Blush's eggs consistently hatch 3 days early... LOL!**

I've had mixed results in my incubator this year.  The eggs that I'm able to get consistently excellent hatches for are Spot, my single Ancona girl and Blush, one part of my lovely Welsh Harlequin pair.  Those two girls give me an average 85% hatch rate! 

Spot was in my WH breeding yard until I moved Blush and Duck Dogers into the garden last month.  I added her when she hurt her leg and was trying so hard to keep up with the Runners at a fast limp.  Just so happens that Blush was acting like she was getting ready to set a nest and Spot could keep Duck Dogers company for the month that she was broody.  Since Spot and Blush's eggs look just alike, if I wanted to hatch WH I had to set them both. So after carefully marking their eggs when I collect them each day, I discovered that it's really easy to tell who's babies I have as soon as they hatch.

Both girls throw beautiful, healthy  ducklings but Spot's kiddo's are really interesting looking.  She throws Blues, Blacks, Chocolates, and Lavenders... some splash but most bibbed.   One of the fun things is trying to figure out just what Spot's babies will look like when they get their feathers.  Sometimes they lose their baby bibs and sometimes they don't.

On July 13th I hatched out 4 babies from a batch of Blush and Spot's eggs and this time I got colors I haven't had before: one lavender and one chocolate from Spot all with multicolored legs and feet.  All of Blush's babies are yellow with orange legs and they're growing into beautiful Welsh Harlequins, however, the one in this batch is a creamier color than her usual... I'm interested to see what kind of adults I get.

I plan to keep all the WH girls to build my flock and, while I don't need them, I'm tempted to keep the chocolate and lavender from this hatch.  I bet that they grow into stunning birds.  

The pictures below were taken just a few hours after these babies hatched as I was moving them from the incubator to the brooder.