So this happened.
His name is Charlie and he was my Christmas present from Alexa. As a bottle baby, he has never known anything except human interaction and feeding, so to say he is spoiled rotten is an understatement. I wouldn't have it any other way.
I have discovered that cow tails are disgusting. I know cows are gross, and just like goats they are not particular about the time and location of a good poop. Nor do they care what may lie in their direct line of fire. In the case of goats it is infallibly their feed pans and water troughs. I swear they back their butts up and play some sort of twisted game of beer pong using goat pellets as their projectiles of choice. Cows, on the other hand, are not as lucky in the grand poopy scheme of things. They cannot aim, nor do they have convenient little pebbly poos.
They squirt.
Everywhere.
Most notably down the inside of their tail and on a direct path down the back legs to their feet where it falls with a resounding plop. The resulting "cow pie" cannot just remain where it lands, no sirree, it must instead splash up to attach itself to the underside of the unaware bovine. I retract my former statement, and amend it with "Everything below a cows neck is disgusting". Their faces though...precious as they come.
We have all had the flu in our house this week and are just now getting back in to the swing of things. During our "down time" we had a chicken that suffered what one can only be called "boo boos". One poor little Polish pullet (that we humorously named Pink) has been the victim of terrible bullying by her nest mates for weeks. They seem to find her top hat enticing enough to peck at, as you can see from an earlier pic I took last month.
This time however, the bullying was taken to a new level and all of her funky head feathers have been pecked off. Now, chickens look fluffy and harmless but the idea that they are the end result of millions of years of dinosaur evolution is not so far-fetched when you have seen the little darlings tear into each other at the first sign of blood. I have seem them peck a weak and injured bird nearly to death, and roosters have been known to kill and eat chicks. Not a pretty picture is it? So when I noticed the bullying getting worse for little Pink, I knew I had to intervene on her behalf before it was too late. Once again, as seems to be a common theme around here, we have a chicken in the house.
Today was a good day for the Heeby Jeeby flock, as we sold four of our good laying hens and a gorgeous little rooster to a family just beginning their chicken adventure. It is rewarding to know that the time we have spent raising these birds and giving them the best care we could will give these lovely people a great starter flock. In time, we would like to have exact breeds of hatching eggs and chicks to sell, and expand our little business. Not a hatchery, exactly, but more of a "made to order" small batch of quality egg breeds for local hobby farmers. Besides, if we expand too much then the whole "spoiled rotten" standard becomes much harder to attain.
Petunia, the milk goat, is now giving us a daily supply of tasty milk that will turn in to all sorts of fabulous concoctions over the next few months. Hopefully we can document and share all of the does and dont's we discover during this process for all of you to enjoy. Until then...
Happy Farming!!!
