Goslings

We bought twelve Embden goslings. Our mature geese (two male, one female) have all three adopted them! They are very protective.

 They are starting to eat some greens.



Kittens

Our two female cats - Duchess and Tabby -  had kittens. Tabby is very protective of hers and won't let us near them. Duchess isn't so protective, so I got some pictures.

She had the first one on the driveway. Bennet moved her and the baby into a box with a towel in it. She now has five - three orange, two gray/black. Some have open eyes.

Calf

We recently got a new animal - a bull calf. We are raising it for meat. We haven't named it. I just call it Calfie, or Calf for short ;-) Naming gets me attached to animals, and if it's going to be history next fall, I might as well spare myself.

 He drinks 1.5 gallons of goat milk a day, not to mention more than that of water!

Fencing

We have been wanting to get some  fencing that's good for goats, steers, and poultry. About a month ago Dad bought some 7 foot high chain link fencing. We cut it down the middle, then bent the wires down.

 The cat likes burdening us - he lies on our coats that we're kneeling on and has us drag him when we move ahead.

These three photos are of the fence after it's cut. It will be 3.5 feet tall. We might do an electric strand at the top. Now, all we need to do is put it all up :-P

Birds

I love birds! I've been enjoying all of them this spring. I took some pictures.

 Robin - a very common bird around here.

Bluejays - not so common. These are some of my favorites. Blue is my favorite color, and I love their black markings.

Male pheasant - I rarely see these, but sometimes I hear them.

This is a cardinal - sorry the picture's so fuzzy :-( It has some black markings on the face and a red crest. These are pretty rare, but I've seen 4 this spring.

Downy woodpecker

        We had a redwinged blackbird in our trees yesterday. It was doing its mating dance. It would chirp a bit, then it would squawk and fan out all its feathers. It was interesting.

This is my life list - list of birds I've seen

1/13/10                                                                        Sparrow                                            

1/27/10                                                                        Junco

4/2/10                                                                          Robin

4/5/10                                                                          Canadian Goose

4/?/10                                                                          Downy Woodpecker

4/?/10                                                                          Chicken

4/13/10                                                                        Blue Jay

4/19/10                                                                        Pelican

4/19/10                                                                        Red Winged Blackbird

5/5/10                                                                          Eastern Bluebird

5/5/10                                                                          Goldfinch

5/6/10                                                                          Pheasant

5/7/10                                                                          Crow

5/11/10                                                                        Oriole

5/12/10                                                                        Trumpeter Swan or Egret

5/15/10                                                                        Tree Sparrow

9/4/10                                                                          Bufflehead or something

12/4/10                                                                        Male Pheasant

12/10/10                                                                      Pileated Woodpecker

4/14/11                                                                        Bald Eagle   

3/?/11                                                                          Owl

5/3/11                                                                          Sandpiper

5/11/11                                                                        Brown-Headed Cowbird

5/11/11                                                                        Rose-Breasted Grosbeak

5/12/11                                                                        Wood Ducks, Male, Female

5/27/11                                                                        Mourning Dove

6/11/11                                                                        Swallow

6/11/11                                                                        House Wren

6/15/11                                                                        Flicker

April-June, 2011                                                         Cardinal

Almost summer, 2011                                                 Great Blue Heron

Early summer, 2011                                                    House Finch

Summer                                                                       Cedar Waxwing

7/11/11                                                                        Belted Kingfisher
4/?/12                                                                          Purple Finch

Chicks 3

Now our chicks are almost grown up.

This hen adopted all 70 chicks! Sometimes I see them under her wings! She is VERY protective. She sure took it out on one of our cats the other day when she snuck up one the chicks with obvious motives.

This is our exotic chicken.

Two roosters fighting

Baby Goats!!! :-)

One of our goats had babies last Friday.

The mamma (Daisy) stands by their pen almost every minute. She licks and talks to them. We seperated them because we want to milk Daisy. If the kids suck her even once we won't ever be able to put them in the same pen again. They will want to suck even if they're older. We feed them with bottles. 

 This one's a male. We don't take too much thought into naming our bucks. I just call him Bozo, but B calls him Jack and L calls him Bucky.

 This one's Rosie.

This one goat has been very curious about the babies. She even jumped into their pen a few times.

 We have been feeding these two milk as well as water now.

These are our two newest additions to our herd, Cappy and Lizzie.

 

 Lizzie - I adopted and named this one. We used to bottle feed her, but her mother (Lady) has fairly small teats and was a pain to milk, so we're letting her suck. She's still very tame, though, and lets me hold her.

If I stick out my chin and make sucking noise she sucks (and chews) on my chin. I've found she's getting some teeth :-S

Cappy - B and L named this one. He was just born in this photo.

We've made a couple changes to the kid pen. The kids started jumping out of it and sucking on their mamma, so we made it taller. We also put a little hay manger in it so they can gradually start eating hay.