Happy Harvest Blog

17/04/2020 17/04/2020

Ready for piglets

The piglet yard is all set up and ready to go. Right by the house, so I can keep an eye on them. This is from the porch. I’ve never put the pigs this close. They come tomorrow. I am overwhelmed with my own cleverness here, designing this for a water trough they can’t flip over. That means I’ll probably be lucky to get two weeks before they conquer it. It’s always unwise to think you’ve outsmarted a pig.

13/09/2018 13/09/2018

Pig bribery

I've got some rowdy pigs. Specifically, the female. She's a bit of a loner, happy to be apart from the boys some of the time, and she doesn't respect the fence. She knows how to get under it, rooting under a post (the bottom strand isn't electrified), and then tossing it up, where it will flop down on her back and she can charge underneath, getting only a modest shock on her thick back. I haven't seen her do this all the way through, but I've seen her start into the process very deliberately.

12/07/2018 12/07/2018

The post-breakfast perching hour

Perching and arranging one's feathers hour. It's the only time besides bedtime that they all get together so closely. Pepper's thinking about a higher branch. The newest babies are on the grass today! This one little silvery grey one is adorable- a new colour; we'll see what he/she turns out to be.

16/06/2018 16/06/2018

Furtive forest piglets

Three little pigs. They are not tame at all. They are wild animals, free and independent. They observe from a distance. It's quite nice to not be leaned on and snouted every time you go in their fence, but it will also be nice to play with them and scratch them, someday. They are curious. They approach, sniffing. But then one snorts and they all stampede off! Runaway!

25/08/2017 25/08/2017

Picky picky piglets

These pigs are here in prime harvest time to be plied with as much as they can eat in windfall apples and surplus veggies. All vegetables pigs past have quite enjoyed, mind you. And these two turn out to be picky eaters?I look at them. You're pigs. How can you be picky? That's against your definition. They look down their snouts. We'll have the peaches, s'il vous plait.

Instagram.

I may not make a blog post every day, but at least I Insta.
Bite size.

#HeatWave. It’s this kind of day. The #pigs are just going to sleep in the #wallow today.

#BlackBerkshires #pasturepigsarehappypigs #PasturedPigs #electricfence

Moved the #pigs deeper into the woods, including some dense balsam fir. I didn’t expect them to be excited about it, but that is one deeply asleep and well shaded pig in the densest of the firs.
#blackberkshire #pasturedpigs #pasturedpigsareha

The two mamas co-mothering nine chicks are just amazing. So adorable; I’ve never seen this before. The #chicks are so quiet, I almost never hear peeping, they’re so well cared for.

#MamaHen #FreeRangeChickens #DailyChicken #chickensofins

You know it’s hot when the chickens are hiding in the pine tree at nine in the morning.
#FreeRangeChickens #DailyChicken #ChickensOfInstagram #Heatwave #Shade #perchingbird

First plucking of chamomile flowers. Finally got some plants established, and lots of wild #chamomile as well, but those aren’t flowered yet. Later my bees will benefit from this.

#Herbs #Harvest #honeybees

The five. Cream puff’s five spring #chicks are all independent now, they’re always together and a little chick posse. The roosters are showing! They are the ones standing here. Already guardians.

#DailyChicken #ChickensOfInstagram #freer

I don’t know if I’d be into having my boyfriend stand over me like this when I was in the bath, but hey, chickens be different. Cleopatra having a dust bath while Shanti the rooster watches over her. Very, very closely.

#DailyChicken #Ch

It’s so hot!! I got these guys out of the hoop house in the nick of time, but even out in the breeze the beating sun is unbearable. I stretched a huge tarp as a sunshade today and it’s much nicer. I crawled under to test and it is cooler.

Coop move! Silkies are all “what?” over the grass. It’s so hot. Haaaawt.
#dailychicken #chickensofinstagram #chickentractor

Close. So close.
#DailyChicken #ChickenBedtime #FreeRange #Chicks #ChickenCoop #ChickensOfInstagram

Find the #Pig. Just a black pig having a lie down after breakfast and becoming invisible.

#PasturedPigs #BlackBerkshires #ElectricFence

The youngest chick on the go is at large in the big chicken world with mama (clearly no biological relation)

#DailyChicken #ChickensOfInstagram #Silkies #motherhentouring

Pine tree date! These two, perching in the pine tree.

#dailychicken #chickensofinstagram #freerangechickens #heritagechickenscanada

I love the tiny pearls of dew that decorate the edges of leaves in the morning

#windowbox

Mulch party! I laid down paper feed sacks with leaves and chips and wood on top, so that drew a crowd. They would scratch in it, and then look at the paper beneath like they were disappointed. That’s not what they usually get for scratching lea

It’s perching hour! The chickens like to cluster up after breakfast for a roost and a preen.
#dailychicken #ChickensOfInstagram #freerangechickensarehappychickens

These are both very sensitive hens so I didn’t move them out of the nest boxes when they went broody(same day) and all the other hens are livid, outraged, furious. “I’ve been laying eggs in THAT box for YEARS!” Daily indignant

Here come the chicks! Five little chicks of Cream Puff’s, and they’ve made the journey down the trail to the house, still a little uncomfortable to be so far from the familiar, but Mom’s coaching them.
#mamahen #dailychicken #chick

Drama in the hencoop today. Cheeks was pissed that the nest box was STILL occupied and there was much complaining. Hens have been laying in the corners of the coop. #adaptation

#dailychicken #layinghens #ameracuana #chickencoop #chickensofinstagram

Just chillin’ together under the coop... a little more alert now that I’m taking a picture.
#dailychicken #chickensofinstagram #freerangechickens

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