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Moose Manor Farms

Are My Chickens Really Hogs?

8/9/2013

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Blue Cochin HenSweetheart Blue Cochin Hen

Hogs?  Certain breeds of chickens - you bet!

Let me tell you something about poultry... chickens will eat a lot more grain than ducks and ducks will eat more than geese when they have access to pasture.  Some chickens can be pigs. 

But recently, I noticed a serious uptick in grain consumption.  Mind you, I'm raising a few turkeys for our Thanksgiving meal, several guinea fowl, and I have about twice as many juvenile chickens out there right now as "on staff" layer hens so I, naturally, thought that those babies (and those dang turkeys) were seriously gobbling up the chicken chow.  I would fill all the bowls each morning and when I returned in the late afternoon the bowls were licked clean.  The most surprising thing was that when I came into the henyard with the feed bucket I was mobbed by starving birds.

I thought... wow! that's over 25lbs of feed just in the morning, but I put out an extra tray of kibble for them. 


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Sharpsburg Poultry Swap June 8th

3/1/2013

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I'll be there peddling ducklings, hatching eggs, and anything else I can shove into the Subaru.  My friend Erin Moshier sent this great information about her swap.  Don't miss out! 
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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) 

Homesteading Days Flyer
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

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Sharpsburg Poultry Swap & Farmers Market, Fall Edition

9/20/2012

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Sharpsburg, Maryland is a picturesque landscape of rolling hills and farmland with a very charming and nostalgic downtown that looks like it was lifted directly from a snapshot of the 1800's.  The town is near the West Virginia and Pennsylvania borders, tucked in beside the Antietam Battlefield and Historic Harper’s Ferry; it's a rather beautiful and bucolic 2 1/2 hour drive from my tiny farm in Southern Maryland.

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Speaking of charming, this swap is hosted at Green Hill Farm by Erin Moshier, a delightfully sunny gal with an infectious smile.  Twice each year (summer and fall) she hosts a fun poultry swap at her family farm just minutes from the center of downtown Sharpsburg.  But once you turn down that gravel road leading to the poultry barn and the horse stables where curious pony's whinny hello's over the fence, you feel miles and miles from anything but the countryside.

My MooseHerders and I arrived early in the morning with a modest selection of ducks, chickens and geese and quickly put up our canopy, table and portable poultry pen.  The feathered flock was soon nibbling on Erin's pasture and getting rehydrated after a long car ride.  Folks were milling about prior to the 8am "selling start time" and were very curious about what poultry or farm related product each vendor was preparing to sell out of that day.

I had 2 extra Holderread Penciled Indian Runner boys from my spring order I was preparing to sell.  Those birds were as nervous as ever and abjectly refused to stand at ease; they chose instead to peer nervously at their growing audience and sort of dance from foot to foot like a 5 year old who needs to use the potty.  The young Sebstapol goose was taking everything in stride (I could have sold him 10 times over!), and my affable juvenile Welsh Harlequin was attempting to charm the chickens into being his pals for the day (since he was raised by a chicken mama and didn't know he was a duck) and those Marans cockerels were not having any of it.  All in all it was shaping up to be an interesting day at my booth.


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Browsers stopped by to ask over and over again what the heck kind of birds those Penciled Indian Runners were ("are those some kind of goose?")  and before too long a somber and truly gentlemanly young man hailing from West-By-God-Virginia quietly asked me if I'd be willing to sell him those lovely Runner ducks (he said it just like that).  I was more than happy to negotiate a price for that gracious, young aspiring farmer and help him carry his new waterfowl to his car.  Such a peach, I wish him well.

Tons of folks stopped by to chat with me at length, get advice about waterfowl, and tell me about their own flock. I gave out many business cards and collected a few as well.  What a great place to network!  There was so much to see and hear at the swap:  Craftsman selling poultry housing and nesting equipment, crafty-crafter ladies peddling so many wonderful handhewn wares, local feed stores, chicken farmers, duck farmers, guinea keets, peacocks, muscovy, turkeys, pheasants, chukar, bunnies, goats, and pigs (ADORABLE)... I even saw guinea pigs! 

And - holy moly - Someone had the nerve to bring some gorgeous German Shorthair puppies... O My GOODNESS!  Those hounds were absolutely snugglicious!  I barely contained myself at that booth.  I reminded my hard farmrgirl heart that hunting dogs and ducks were not the best bedfellows. *sigh*

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We had such a good time at the swap!  There was live music and great giveaways.  I bought a few things, sold a few things and met a bunch of interesting and fun folks.  You just never know who you might make a good friend out of until you go to one of these events!  For the upcoming spring/summer swap I'll be loaded up with hatching eggs, eating eggs, baby ducks, geese and chickens to sell in the early summer at Erin's next poultry swap... this event is too good to pass up!  I hope you'll join us all next year - especially at the early market when all those spring hatches will be ready. 

For more information or to be added to her mailing list, Erin's blog can be found here: http://mdpoultryswap.blogspot.com/. 

Don't forget: When you're in the area be sure to have lunch in one of the local establishments.  We did (twice - once in Boonsboro) and were NOT disappointed mmmmm... good!

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Crazy Birdy Bedtime

5/7/2012

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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!       

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The American Goose Egg

3/9/2012

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American Goose Eggs

Today my American Blue Goose hatching eggs arrived from my friend Kim Kelly!  She even tossed in a couple of bonus Sebastopol eggs...

This will be my first time attempting to artificially incubate goose eggs.  I have a Muscovy girl who looks like she's giving a great deal of consideration to going broody but hasn't really committed herself to it full time yet.  That's a bummer because I was hoping to remove the wooden eggs from her nest and slide these wonderful works of goose art right in under that warm, feathered bum of hers.  Wouldn't she have been pleased to sit 5 days less than her own would've confined her?  Oh well... I can certainly put that fluffy bottom to work on other duties once she gets herself settled.

These eggs are HUGE!  I had to take some pictures just for posterity. I knew they were big but until you actually hold one...

This is one of the goose eggs next to an average sized, grade "large", chicken egg -  one of my Marans eggs to be exact.  Just look at the size of that goose egg!  Wow.

I can see how it's often said that a goose egg is a meal for two - LOL! What an omelet, eh?  And I know, I know... when you compare the size of a gooses body to the size of a chickens body it does make sense - it's just - how often do you hold an egg that size?

Cross your fingers for me that I get a good hatch so that I'll have a reliable supply of these enormous eggs of my own.  I'm hoping for a minimum of 2 girls from the Americans and a pair from the Sebbies (that'll be a wonderful stroke of luck!)  A girl can dream...

What a fun project I'm embarking on tonight... I'll try to post pictures of their progress over the next 30 days. 
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Goose vs Chicken
Yes, that's actually the true color of the chicken egg. French Black Copper Marans lay a pretty chocolate brown egg. Neat, eh?
And, of course, there will be a meeeellion photos of the babies once they hatch out.  Who doesn't love baby goose breath?
Egg Comparison
Egg comparison: American goose, Muscovy, Cayuga duck, Campbell duck, Marans chicken
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The Rooster Who Shouldn't Be

5/13/2011

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Nocrow

This is Nocrow... he's my rooster. 

Yeah, I know... "I thought you ran a rooster-less operation?" you say.  You're right, I do... I did. Somehow this one has stayed.

You see, when I ordered my fall batch of Cornish Roaster chickens last season, McMurray Hatchery had a little checkbox - right there on that last page of your order transaction? - that says "include a free rare/fancy chicken with my order."  Well, for those of us who are checkstand item picker-upers (Oooo! look, tiny hand sanitizer... hey, what ARE BradJolena doing these days??), it's a given that we're gonna check that box riiiiiiiiggghht before we hit the submit button. Oops, too late to realize that hatchery's don't give away the expensive rare and fancy breeds... unless it's a rooster.  Ghaaaa!


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So here he comes, a tiny black bird packed in tight with my chubby yellow Cornish Roasters.  "What kind of bird is it?" I ask myself when I open the box. "Doesn't matter, he's not staying", I firmly decide, looking away so as not to accidentally make eye contact with the oddball chick.  

Well, he was a daggone friendly little guy: following me around, pecking at my shoes.  And he didn't make those high pitched cheep! cheep! cheep! sounds... nuh huh... he was silent unless he coo'd.

Yep, I was curious - puzzled, even.  He was solid black, was he a Java?  Maybe a  Black Spanish?  Ooooo,  I know!  He's a Black Marans... hmmmm, none of those are it though.  Very peculiar.   

OK, so I still don't know what he is but he looks a lot like the rooster gracing the cover of McMurrays 2011 catalog.  The inside cover says that the bird pictured is a Silver Leghorn.  But I looked them up and those birds have white neck feathers, not gold. Besides, Leghorns are small, athletic birds and this boy is BIG.  *sigh* 


Sheesh, what the neighbors must say!  "She's got ducks... AND geese!  Now a rooster?"  Yep, there goes the neighborhood.  I'm sure the language is a bit stronger at... oh... about 5:30am.

Anyway, he's a gorgeous bird - and big! - but I have no idea what breed he is.  I asked the experts at BYC... folks loved him but had no idea what breed he was either.  Pretty rare, eh? I could probably give him to about 20 different people only I don't know about shipping him.  

So, I didn't create a "for sale" ad because I didn't know what to call him... then he sort of grew on me.  Then I decided to put some of the girls eggs in the incubator.  Every one of them was fertile and he threw three quiet little black chicks, just like him.  I don't know yet if they're cockerels but unless they lay eggs, they're not staying!
Just Hatched!
Still wet... just hatched this one in the incubator last week
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Spring is Sprunging!

4/2/2011

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Farmer Jackie
Farmer Jackie digs worms for the Muscovy
The cherry blossoms are a bloomin’ and the Canada Geese are honking overhead… time to get those early tomatoes started!

I’m getting a better early start this year than I did last spring but I’m still two months behind.  I guess it-is-what-it-is but I do soooo disapprove of lateness.  Just this past weekend I (with the help of wonderful friends) was able to get my market garden plowed for planting and build out my duck breeding yards.  I’m way behind on my spring duck production!  I’ve currently got my Welsh Harlequins and my Black Cayuga ducks sectioned off for breeding.  At this point, it looks like my Cayuga harvest won’t be until the end of July *bleh*.  I should have had them in their yards by the first of February instead of the end of March.  *sigh*  Next year…

The Muscovy will be a staggered harvest this year since one of my hens couldn’t decide if she wanted to set that giant clutch of eggs she’d laid or not.  Little Miss Queeny went broody in December but I wouldn’t let her brood any duck eggs until February (so she wasn’t trying to raise warm weather Amazon waterfowl babies in January).  I replaced them all with infertile chicken eggs instead.  By February I think she was just tuckered out and sick of being inside all the time.  I’m crossing my fingers now… she’s gathered herself a clutch of 15 eggs in a new nesting spot and for the past two days has been more committed to them than the last batch.  If this is the real deal then I’m looking for babies in 35 days.

Big Boy Muscovy
'Big Boy' Muscovy drake is a sweetie
My Pretty Girl Muscovy has been broody since November!  Oh my, but that girl is committed to the nest… In February I ordered eight American Blue & Lavender-ice Goose eggs for her to set but it’s turned out that not a single one was fertile (sure hope I can find some more this year).  Poor Pretty Girl.  She’s been such a good little momma-wannabe that I broke down and ordered 15 Muscovy ducklings from Hoffman Hatchery in Gratz, PA for her to raise.  I’m hoping they’re able to fill my order this week so I can get them to her… she deserves to have some babies for goodness sake!  I’ll keep two girls from that hatch to add to my breeding flock and harvest the rest at 12 weeks.  Looks like a mid-June harvest.  I’ll have my Cornish chickens arrive to correspond with that harvest and do them both together.

Tomato Seedling from last year
Heirloom tomatoes are a coming!
As far as my veggie garden is concerned, I plan to get my peas in the ground and get everything else into their peat pots ASAP.  By the last week of April I should be able to get my pole and snap bean seedlings in the ground along with my short season tomatoes and beets.  Maybe even a few others depending on how much my plastic mulch and cold frames are able to raise the soil temperatures.

Permaculture is the word here at Moose Manor: chickens, ducks & geese are all welcome in the garden at the appropriate time for each of them to do their happy little jobs. 

Chickens first.  They scratch, scratch, scratch at the soil.  Dump in the spring cleaning from the poultry houses and the chickens will spread it all around for you.  They'll also scratch up weeds, eat weed seeds and bugs; all the while depositing nitrogen rich fertilizer right where you need it.  You can use a chicken tractor or just fence them in.

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Harlequin duck on the hunt for bugs
Waddle, chortle, quack! Plant your seeds or seedlings out of scratching range!  Once fully established, trade those chickens in for some ducks (I'm sending in the Indian Runners).  Those broad billed bug busters will keep all the slugs, snails, cutworms, ect. and their eggs from eating your garden before you get a chance to.  No need for chemicals or even hand picking... the ducks are more than happy to help.  You can just dump their wading pools right out on the veggies... duck poop soup is the best fertilizer around!

What's good for the goose is... good for the lazy gardener!  It's also unnecessary to weed if you bring in a few geese.  They'll eat up your weeds for you.  Careful with your cabbages and lettuce though... they'll scarf that up too.  Just herd the geese to the pasture once your strawberries start to ripen so they don't ruin your plans for pie!

I reckon the agenda for this weekend is to move the chickens into the garden plot, clean the duckbarns so I can spread all that nutrient rich composted manure and straw around for the kickin' chickin's to till in, and get my farm-stand signs made for the Moyaone Market (3rd Saturday every month at 2311 Bryan Point Road, Accokeek, MD). 

I’m very excited about the veggie selections I’ve made.  I hope Mother Nature cooperates and that my California green-thumb has accompanied me the 3,000 miles to the mid-Atlantic!  I’ll keep you posted.



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Tales of the barnyard pecking order

8/31/2010

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My chickens are bossy.  

No… I mean it.  And the Rhode Island Reds are especially ornery little hens.

On any typical day the chickens are running around the property here there and everywhere.  Getting into stuff they’re not supposed to, eating the dog kibble (which is a lot more expensive than chicken kibble), and generally making a nuisance of themselves.  The dogs completely ignore them so their uppity attitudes are lost on my hounds, the cat steers clear of them because she can recognize a troublemaker when she see's one, but they get pesty and stubborn with me on a regular basis - stamping their feet and hunkering down in their mulish little way, forcing me to actually pick them up to remove them from off-limits places (like my hay bale stack).  But their most favorite pastime is to torment the ducks and geese.

Chicken & Muscovy Brawl
RIR's still ready to rumble and Big Boy has his forehead hackles up

This morning I heard a ruckus in front of the barn and went to have a look… my Cornish Rock chicken had puffed herself all up and was guns-drawn on my 14 lbs Muscovy boy who outweighs her by a dozen pounds.  He's normally pretty zen but Weheheeellll, lemme tell ya, he is NOT gonna let some chicken push him around so then when she rushed him he charged her.  That (previously sweet natured) chicken fought back like a fully feathered Calamity Jane and it was ON!  He got ahold of a big chunk of her neck feathers but before he could pull her down all the way to the ground she beat him with her wings pretty good.  He hung on and they tussled like that for a moment before the whole barnyard waddled and ran over to see the fight.  The other chickens jumped into the frackus with wings beating and Big Boy was outnumbered.  He pinched a couple of them when they got close enough and it was all over in 30 seconds.   I had my camera but by the time I switched it on the whole thing was done except for a little post-game chest thumping (pictured above).  I still don’t know who schooled who or which started the fight (I suspect the chickens tho).  The Muscovy all gathered up together and did that crane and bob thing they do in solidarity, all the while trilling and huffing what I’m sure were piercing chicken slurs at the retreating hens.  Now they’re out there with their duck-chests all puffed out, strolling among the chickens daring them to stick just one chicken toe across the line.

Geese high tailing it to safety
Geese and ducks high-tailing it out of the pasture

A few weeks ago I was out in the yard and noticed the ducks and geese were happily grunting and chortling and digging their little beaks around in the grass, not paying much attention to anything other than tasty bugs hiding in the greens.  The geese tend to stand sentry duty around the flock while they forage and were taking turns eating grass and keeping an eye out.  The chickens were busily running all over the yard in a hurry to get from one very important chicken task to the next.  As one of the RIR’s was wandering her way past the ducks I noticed her do a little second take at one of the geese's backside (I could almost see the wheels turning in her malicious little chicken brain)… just as the goose bent to nibble some grass that chicken goosed him!  That poor Goosey-Goose jumped 4 feet in the air and let out a big old rusty honk.  The RIR just carried on like nothing had happened.  I would have to say the chickens firmly believe they're running the barnyard... goosing the goose?  Are you kidding me?

Queeny Girl Muscovy
Queeny is actually a very calm & sweet girl

Another time, back when Duck Dodgers had 5 Welsh Harlequin girls all to himself (I’d just harvested the other 3 drakes), he must’ve been feeling like he was the big man on campus and his little ducky britches got a bit too big for him.  I was walking across the barnyard to get from one chore to another and out of the corner of my eye I saw Duck Dodgers make an opened beak threatening gesture at one of my Muscovy girls, Queeny.  I stopped to watch just to see what would happen.   At first Queeny pulled her head back in surprise, then a moment later she narrowed her eyes, craned out her neck and huffed her quiet Muscovy trill at him, like, “don’t you dare talk to me like that!”  Duck Dodgers held his ground so she charged him!  He ran, she chased and finally when she caught him she jumped on his back, dug in those pterodactyl claws, mashing him into the dirt, grabbed the back of his neck and hit his head against the ground a few times.  He managed to get away and she chased him just a second longer.  When he stopped and turned around she advanced again and he boogied it on out of there while she huffed and trilled and bobbed her head at him.  He went back to his girlfriends and fluffed up his feathers, then resumed leading them to grazing.  He didn’t mess with the Muscovy girls after that.

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Big Boy with his girls
The four Muscovy prefer to flock by themselves.  They’re a bit like a flock of 3-year-olds: very curious, get up to a bunch of hijinx, and like to explore on their own.  They have their own pecking order and prefer that the other ducks maintain a little distance but they’ve generally allowed the Harlequin to hole up in their barn with them when they catch sight of a predator and run for the nearest safe portal.  

The Muscovy have all been sequestered for the last 3 weeks in a smallish run while they heal from hawk wounds, but I let them out into the barnyard this weekend where they encountered the geese face to face for the first time.  There’s always been a thin wall of fencing between them, but they’ve interacted many times through it without any trouble.  I reckon the geese decided the Muscovy would be easy to bully and came right over to lay  claim  to  the  water  dish the  Muscovy  were  using.  My  two  most  timid Muscovy hens high tailed it

Goosey Goose chasing someone out of the pool
'Queeeeeeg? Out of my pool!'
out of reach but Queeny ignored the goose and continued to drink while Big Boy wouldn't be bullied either and did the Muscovy huff and puff.  Everyone stood their ground for a moment but it looked like a draw to me since they both went their separate ways.  Then later that day one of the geese wanted to push Queeny away from the waterbowl again but she ignored the goose… until he stuck is long neck out and made his rusty gate sound “Queeeeeeg?!” (you dare disobey?!).  I could tell from her body language that the goose was about to get it.  She stretched out her own long neck right back at the offending goose, who didn’t back down, so Queeny reached out and got herself and nice fat bite of goose chest meat in her big, pinchy beak and twisted hard… and hung on tight!  The goose started to back up – all the while honking in a panic – and she hung on like a pit bull until she was sure she got her message across then she chased him for good measure.  That big ol’ goose had learned a valuable lesson: don’t mess with Queeny the Muscovy girl!

It might sound like there’s one rumble after another in the barnyard but most days all the animals just play and chortle and make their way from the grass to the pool.  Once in a while I catch sight of… well… a sight.  There’s no lack of entertainment around here, that’s for sure!



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Buffy the Buff Orphington chicken is a mom again!

8/25/2010

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Today Buffy hatched 10 of the 15 eggs I put under her when she went broody (again!).  

She hatched out 6 Welsummer chicks in April (read about that here) and then in August she went broody again.  For a week I kicked her out of the nestbox each day and collected the eggs.  She’d run around the barnyard like she was supposed to until that night when she would sleep in the nest box.  I figured if she was so committed I’d order her more fertile eggs (remember, I have no rooster here).  So I ordered a dozen  from a fellow chicken keeper (Dipsy Doodle Doo) in Arkansas (Clovis Place Garden and Poultry) whom I met through BackyardChickens.com.  She was kind enough to put together a variety pack of colored egg layers of interesting looking birds and sent a collection of 15 eggs of Ameraucana, Silkies in a variety of colors, Naked Neck Turkins, and frizzles.  The colors of the eggs I received were really great!  There were tan, olive green, and two shades of blue.  

I can see that I have one Turkin because it’s the only chick without feathers on its neck.  The others are interesting colors but I’m not sure yet what I’ve got out there.   Once they’re old enough to sex I’ll figure out what to keep and what to sell and look forward to then finding out what color eggs I’ll be getting.  Very egg-citing!

Buffy just loves being a mom and she’s very good at it.  I let the other chickens out to free-range and close their access off to the henyard, then I open the broody box gate and let Buff take her babies out for a private scratching match.  That’ll work great until they’re bigger and she’s ready to bring them out onto the property.  For now they’re snack-size morsels for the Muscovy so I’ll keep them in a safe place until they’re old enough.  Wow… 10 more chickens!  Wonder how many will turn out to be roo’s?

 


 


 


 


 



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Oooooo... aren't surprises fun? Hmpht... not so much

7/11/2010

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I made a very interesting discovery this weekend:  I do not, in fact, have 4 Welsummer girls.  I have 2 girls and 2 boys!  Ain’t that the way the cookie crumbles…

I noticed last week that one of the Wellies seemed to have a very prominent comb so I started watching them a bit more.  I noticed that two of them did a lot of “play fighting” while the other two would perch quietly and watch the activity in the barnyard.  Then I was taking some photos and noticed that the coloring and tailfeathers were different.  The girls are very light colored at this point and the boys have black feathers jutting out of their backside.  Now when I look at them I can’t see how I missed it to begin with!  The difference in their combs is pretty clear.

They're all still pretty tiny right now and these traits only just started to show.  But next time I raise Welsummers I'll probably see the signs much sooner.

Well, I really don’t think it’s prudent to have 3 roosters running around when I only have 9 hens…unfortunately, in these days of  urban chickens, most folks aren’t looking for a roo around their house because they tend to be a little on the noisy side.  Personally, I enjoy the sound of a rooster crowing but I've discovered that I'm an anomaly.  Because it would appear thaton that my immediate neighbors do not.  Hopefully someone will want to take these pretty boys home; otherwise they’ll have to go to freezer camp with the extra drakes I haven’t been able to send to new families.

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Of course, looking at them now it's so obvious... live and learn.
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    Dana

    About Farmrgirl

    Small town Calif. farm-girl leaves the ranch behind for many years of adventure at sea, travels the world, then moves to Washington DC in 2007 where she finds the perfect homestead to settle down: acres of secluded Southern Maryland woods where she goes granola by raising her quality of life, Mastiffs, ducks, chickens, and tomatoes {& one Bengal kitty}... sustainably.


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