ELeVan ~ Honaker Farm Journal

[Sunny & the 5 egg layers]

Very nice photos! Boingo is adorable!

 

[elevan]

Ugh! DH just had to rescue one of the guineas from the tom turkey. Tom had the guinea down and in a corner and was beating the snot outta him. Poor guinea has his face messed up DH managed to tear his pants leg in the process and is now royally ticked off at tom turkey. Good thing he's going to the processor on Monday morning. Sad thing is that I was just saying this morning that I'm gonna miss him...but I seem to be the only one that he's nice to. He chases the goats and beats up any chicken or guinea that gets into that field...makes a run at DH every time DH is in that field. DH will definitely relish the revenge of eating him in a couple of weeks.

 

[Sunny & the 5 egg layers]

Ugh! DH just had to rescue one of the guineas from the tom turkey. Tom had the guinea down and in a corner and was beating the snot outta him. Poor guinea has his face messed up DH managed to tear his pants leg in the process and is now royally ticked off at tom turkey. Good thing he's going to the processor on Monday morning. Sad thing is that I was just saying this morning that I'm gonna miss him...but I seem to be the only one that he's nice to. He chases the goats and beats up any chicken or guinea that gets into that field...makes a run at DH every time DH is in that field. DH will definitely relish the revenge of eating him in a couple of weeks.

Aww. Poor Guinea.

 

[elevan]

It was a day for rescuing poultry I guess. I went into the coop and the chickens all thought I was gonna fill the feeder and rushed in. When they realized that I wasn't gonna fill it they all rushed out. I looked down to see one of the chicken nuggets (Fluffer's chick) stuck on his back in the feeder...the feeder is a homemade 5 gallon bucket feeder attached to a hog feed pan....the chick was stuck on it's back wedged between the wall of the bucket and the wall of the pan. Poor thing couldn't move. I pulled him to safety and he went about his business - quite upset until he finally found his mama.

Today was K's birthday - he's 7 now. He got a few learning games that he's asked for and we had spaghetti followed by ice cream cake (favorites of his).

 

[Sunny & the 5 egg layers]

Poor Chicken! Good thing you were there to save him though!

Happy Birthday to your son!

 

[elevan]

Sunny - Thanks. And K says Thank You as well

My mom has decided to start dating (it's been 2 1/2 years since Dad passed). While I'm semi ok with it, I'm starting to get concerned with how B feels...he has started stating that he misses Papaw. It's been a while since he last commented on it. We all miss Dad / Papaw but Mom / Mamaw deserves to be happy and to live her life (51 is still pretty young). Of course the missing Papaw could come from talk of processing the poultry knowing how B's mind works. :/ We'll all get to meet Mom's new beau next month...wish me luck that I don't start bawling.

Critter update:

No chicken or guinea issues this morning but there's still plenty of time for them to get into trouble.

After getting a good look at Daisy, I suspect that she'll kid either this month or early next...it was an accidental issue. Normally we wouldn't have bred her but she was in great condition (still is) and we saw no reason to abort it. I have a feeling she's one of those born to be a mama

It's nice to be able to look at them first thing in the morning before they've been out browsing (especially since they don't have hay yet) and know that those bellies are not big rumens We've got pretty good suspicions on a couple of others but we'll keep that mostly mum...don't worry when and if we have babies y'all will be the first to see pics.

 

[Dreaming Of Goats]

Happy birthday K!!!

 

[elevan]

K says Thanks D.o.G.

 

[elevan]

Well tonight I locked the Turkeys up in their coop for the last time. They'll stay there until Monday morning when they take a ride.

We also went into the chicken coop after dark and pulled the 3 roosters that are going in and put them into the brooder temporarily.

Next up was the guineas. One was being particularly mean to the chickens today, so I knew that one would be going...and it wasn't hard to pick out as it got super nasty with me tonight too. That one went into the dog crate. I needed to pick out 2 more...knew we want to take in boys (and we have 7 of them out of our 10 guineas). DH didn't want to take the one who got attacked by the tom turkey yesterday...that's his baby now so he got set aside. Then came the process of picking them up one by one to access attitudes and I quickly found 2 more nasties. My arm is tore up by one of those nasty buggers

So, all the birds that are going to the processor are separated and on a water diet until Monday morning. I'm really excited as these are our first home grown poultry. Woot! It's also an assessment of this poultry processor to see if we like them. We'll be driving to Utica and they said we could wait and / or observe if we want to. So we'll wait while they process.

 

[Roll farms]

I nearly lost an eye to a guinea last year. I swear he went for my eye on purpose. If not for my glasses, he'd have messed me up for sure. Looked right at me and purposely reached for my face w/ his feet as he flew at me. Thanks to the glasses, "all" I got was a black eye / big scratch.
He was sold to a guy looking to buy some guineas to butcher.