Happy Harvest Blog
Piglets and chicks.
We got the pigs! Three little piglets. They are very pink, but they are supposed to be sired by a full black Berkshire. It seems they take after their mother. We've finally sorted out our pig transport, after trying dog crates and the back of the car. That extra chickery I made came in, secured with a pallet, and covered with a piece of canvas (becoming as useful and ubiquitous around here as baling twine and wire), so the piglets don't get a sunburn or heatstroke. Our first piglets came in with sunburn and possibly heatstroke, but recovered.
Broodies and brooderies
The first order of business: a broody box for Perchick (smaller than a chickery, but big enough for a big hen mom - wow! I have broody layer hens!)While I was making a broodery, I made another chickery, because I'm sure I'm going to need one real soon. Cream Puff is still freakin' out! She's being good, diligently staying on her eggs, but she's on high alert and looks very concerned like she thinks she's losing her mind, and no one told her this could happen. What's happening to me?! I'm feverish!
All aboard!
Another guinea down. This morning she was sitting in the greenhouse-like she wasn't ready to leave yet, and I looked at her twice, and had a feeling, from her posture. When she let me pick her up I knew it was bad. I tucked her in this corner, gave her food and water, which I'm sure she didn't touch, and the other two stayed by her, doting. She just seemed to be breathing a bit hard. An hour later, gone. Such a pretty bird. The feathers around her neck are lilac coloured.
Where there's life, there's cheeps.
This morning on chicken breakfast rounds, I discovered tragedy in the broody box. A chick! But it was spilled out in a corner of the box, belly up, wings and legs splayed out, eyes closed, beak open. Very bad. It was still alive, barely, and I stuffed it back under her, immediately. Its legs stuck out straight. A minute later, after tidying up, I rearranged the chick to tuck the legs in. Its eyes were still closed and beak open, gasping. This is usually the sign of imminent death.
When they were small...
I noticed she seemed to be digging with unusually single-minded determination in one corner.I looked in on them once and she had dug a hole. I thought, any minute, a chick is going to be able to slip out of there. Before I turned away, one did.
Oreo update
Mom and the Oreos are rather wild these days. Hard to catch on camera. I get distance sightings.So far so good.They´re often off on their own, in the pasture, roaming rather farther than the other hens tend to.Once I found the Oreos inside the pig zone, Mom running up and down on the outside of the electric fence.
Instagram.
I may not make a blog post every day, but at least I Insta.
Bite size.
