Springtime

latest two hatches of Wyandottes

light-colored chick appears RED,
but still a full Wyandotte

Lacey and kits

Brooke and kits

the broccoli and lettuce bed

Dutch-Boy, at Frank & Caroline's

Hope y'all enjoy these pics and vids, courtesy of hubby's smart-phone.  Commentary later.

Add three more goat kids

Maggie finally kidded.  Three little boys, who all look like their sire, Harry Houdini, except one appears to be polled.  The apparently-polled one is also the one most inclined to take the bottle, which will make him the perfect replacement for his sire, who is living up to his name a bit too well for Frank and Caroline.

Pictures maybe tomorrow, if the ones from this afternoon turned out decent.  If not, there will be more pics after the rain passes.

Oh, Brooke is due to kindle sometime tomorrow, and I am gathering more eggs for the incubators.  Busy, busy, busy!  We're both tired right now.

New additions

Pics will have to wait until tomorrow, but a lot of new additions here.   My second incubator kicked things off, with the first two chicks hatching Thursday morning.  Friday evening Lacey kindled a six pack - all six live, healthy, and close enough in size there is no actual runt of this litter.  At first, I was worried she wasn't caring for them, or her milk hadn't come in enough for six, so I gave her a small handful of raspberry leaves and this morning those kits had FAT round full bellies.  Saturday ended the hatch, with a total of thirty-four live chicks out of forty-one that showed development at candling.  I guess the record from two weeks ago didn't last long.

Now, for the new addition I know y'all will want pics, pics, pics!  Yup, a new goat kid, but it wasn't Maggie who kidded this evening.  It was Cocoa Puff, who I thought had another week or two.  She sure fooled me.  One very adorable, nicely marked girl.  Meanwhile, Maggie is huge: the proverbial broad side of the barn.  We're hoping she at least has twins, for her sake.

Another addition, but not a baby: I have a new stud bunny.  I'll get pics of him when he settles in, as right now he's hiding in the privacy cubby of the new bunny hutch.  This one is almost exactly like the one last summer, and is situated under the tress.  We had to move the electronet fence after setting it up, but bunnies need shade.

It's been an eventful weekend, even before the weekend officially started.

Thirty-three chicks

I finally have a GOOD hatch!  On January 11th, I set 41 gold-laced Wyandotte eggs, from Solo and the spring pullets I collectively named "the Young Ones."  Solo is named such because he is the only surviving chick hatched here last spring, and not so much for the Star Wars character.  When I candled the hatch on day 11 or 12, I only saw four obvious clears.  Two more were questionable, but I figured I'd let them go anyway.  So, I set 37 eggs Tuesday evening, and about a handful of those eggs cheeped at me as I moved them (a good sign!).  The first "early bird" chick hatched Wednesday morning, then Thursday they were popping out like popcorn.  I know at least one hatched Friday morning, as I saw a very wet chick when I looked in with the Mini-Mag.  I remarked to hubby there was no counting them until we pulled them out of the incubator because they were bouncing all around in it.

Yesterday afternoon, we set up the nursery, and while I added electrolytes and probiotics to their first water, and fixed up the first chick starter (I wet it with liquid from the fermented scratch), hubby pulled the chicks out one at time to count.  I came back with food to distract the adult birds out running around, and heard, "Thirty ... thirty-one ..."  Sure enough, once all the chicks were in the nursery, there were only four eggs unhatched.

That's an 80% hatch rate ...I think it's also a new record for here.

Oh, hubby got me a second incubator as my birthday present, so there are 42 more gold-laced Wyandotte eggs from Solo and the Young Ones.  The older hens aren't laying well enough just yet, so after I clean out incubator #1, I'll be loading it up with a third hatch from Solo and the Young Ones.  I intend to hatch a LOT of chicks this year.  Most will be sold or eaten, but I want to get another hen like Beauty was ... okay, I actually want a dozen like she was.  The best way to make progress in chicken breeding is to hatch as much as you can, and it is time to "move the chains" on this idea.

First goat kid of 2019

Tangie standing guard over baby

Baby spends a lot of time like this

Baby beginning to explore as Tangie watches

Saturday kicked off kidding season here at the Homesteade!  Like last year, Tangie signaled she was in labor by "talking" to her yet-unborn kid in the morning, but as the day went on and no baby, I began to wonder if she was having a false labor.  I decided to check on her around 1600 (4 P.M.) as the next-to-last check, and by the time I walked around the house to the pasture, she had started to call for help.  Baby was a single, which meant she was big.  I had been hoping Tangie would have twins again.  I had to pull pretty firmly, as baby had herself wedged in with her shoulders square, just like Sweet Pea in 2017.

Sunday it started raining before we got up, and rained continuously until after we went to bed.  Goats and cats began to complain about the weather by the afternoon ... for some odd reason they all seem to think we can do something about that.  Yesterday and this morning were downright chilly - below 40F and hubby and I both sound like bowls of Rice Crispies with our "Snap! Crackle! POP!" as we get out of bed.  I did make the comment Sunday evening, "At least it ain't snow!"

Enjoy the pictures.

Random rabbit stuff

So, it's what passes for winter down here.  Yesterday's high was only 50F, up from upper 30s in the morning, while today it's supposed to get up in the mid-70s with an overnight low of mid- to upper 50s.  Tomorrow it's supposed to be a bit warmer, and more humid until it starts raining overnight through Thursday morning, then the temperature will drop again to upper 30s for overnight lows again for a few days.  I had acupuncture last Thursday, but by Sunday night it lost to the cold front that rolled in.  Ah well, we did get some garden stuff accomplished (more on that later).

While my back was just screaming yesterday in protest, I did a bunch of reading about rabbit breeding and general feeding and health, and found a couple nice little nuggets of useful  info.  One I had seen previously, and now saw confirmed is that rabbit pellets may be complete in nutrition at the feed mill, two vitamins are not shelf-stable in the pellets: vitamin A and E.  Since they degrade in storage, supplementing goes a long way toward willingness to breed.  Black oil sunflower seeds (usually abbreviated as BOSS) will provide stable vitamin E, and in general green vegetation has vitamin A, along with of course carrots.

I found another little gem in a forum thread I intend to try, likely starting tomorrow, and that is the mineral supplement that's best for bunnies is sheep mineral.  One sheep-and-goat block, coming home tomorrow.

I've also noticed bunnies are bored.  I have golf balls in there for them to roll around, and the boys in particular do that a lot.  In fact, we figured out that Larry has been rolling his out of the cage, through a bent section of the door frame.  Shalimar has been rolling her food dish around, which is a bit of an effort considering I bought no-tip dishes for the rabbits.  Chew toys are recommended, in addition to cat toys to roll/throw around, so as a chew I plan to get the girls some alfalfa/timothy hay cubes.  Another option will be to put in pieces of cardboard for them to shred.

On the breeding front, at least three girls are definitely bred.  Shalimar kicked things off with the eager-breeder routine, which Lacey did a little less than a week later (and remember, this is her first time breeding).  Brooke had been bred by Jack, but when I put her in with Larry the other morning, she willingly lifted for him, whereas she made Jack really, really work at less success.  I'm wondering if it was a timing thing, or if Brooke simply likes Larry better.  Since Shal kindled at 30 days last time, I estimate her to kindle on February 9th.  MaryAnn has not been very enthusiastic about the breeding idea, but Jack acted like he made contact while she was on the run.  Gracie has been in George's cage for over a week.

Finally, I'll be getting a new bunny boy from Frank and Caroline.  Caroline said a friend of hers gave him and a couple girls away for free, because she couldn't keep them anymore.  This fellow is a Dutch (breed) rabbit, may even have a pedigree, and has a lovely, solid, and thick body.  Hubby has a pic of him on his camera, so at some point I'll post up what he looks like.

Fruit crisp

No pictures, as it's in the oven right now, but here is a recipe for fruit crisp I tweaked:
Preheat oven to 350F
generously butter medium glass baking pan (7x11?  8x??)
5 Gala apples, cut into bite-sized pieces
enough dried cranberries to almost cover bottom of pan
approximately 3/8 cup juice (I had cranberry-pomegranate open in the fridge)
in smallish bowl mix together
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2-3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch salt if using unsalted butter
cut in 1/4 cup (half stick) butter
add 1/2 to 1 cup oats (recipe I started with calls for 1/2 cup, but hubby asked if we could have more this time) mix and spread on top of fruit
bake 35-45 minutes ... we do 35 because we don't feel like waiting longer

I have apples on hand since they were on sale the other week, but this will work with just about any kind of fruit you could care to put in crisp.  We're pretty much going to eat this for "dinner" plus the leftovers will make a nice warm breakfast tomorrow.

Can anyone tell we're kicking off another "cold" snap here?  Overnight low is forecast to be 41F.  It only got up to 60F today - which was our overnight low for Sunday.  I do not exaggerate when I say we can go from 80+ daytime high to frost overnight in 36 hours down here in the winter.