ELeVan ~ Honaker Farm Journal

[elevan]

Went out to do evening chores and noticed that our yearling buck was a "little off". Observed him for a while and saw that he had "dog log" poo, so I went in to give an exam. His gums and eyelids are pale :/ Always a weekend Normally I don't deworm without having a fecal done but I really don't want to wait till Monday on this. So Speedy got a dose of Ivomec, Red Cell and Probios. I'll evaluate him in the morning and probably give him some more Probios...maybe even a copper bolus since they are due for it at the end of this month anyway.

I had just finished up that chore and heard a ruckus in the barn. Glanced in and apparently the calf thought our adult goat wether was a heifer So I distracted the calf so that Rocky could get out of the barn. The calf has been banded but his "nuggets" haven't fallen off yet...I'm hoping that his amorous behavior was a single incident and won't continue. It works well for us to have him with the goats, but I guess if it becomes a problem we'll be putting up some more fencing.

Oh, and thanks for the good guinea peep vibes DonnaBelle! The eleven (11) keets are still doing well!

 

[elevan]

Speedy is feeling and looking much better today!

AND....the hatchery chicks (all 44 of them) are in the new Big Coop for their first night!!
We still have to finish the next boxes and install a few roosts but those weren't essential to the chicks. We'll integrate the 2 flocks during free range time and then move the current small flock into the Big Coop when everyone is getting along (or mostly so)

 

[JusticeFamilyFarm]

Glad to hear Speedy is doing better! And how exciting to have ALL those new chicks in the new coop. Yay! Hope all of the integrating goes well for you.

 

[elevan]

I've got so many different animals that I'm talking about now that I'm going to try to keep my journal compartmentalized so that you all can keep it straight...sometimes I have trouble keeping it straight

Guineas:

We lost another one of the guinea keets this morning I am so not happy with Ridgeway Hatchery and will never use them again.

We moved the rest of the keets in their cage to the big coop and out of our bathroom...temps are to be in the high 90's with high humidity this week so I'm hoping normal heated air rather than a heat lamp will do them some good. They seem happier as they would get upset whenever anyone opened the bathroom door when they were in the house...I really hope we don't lose anymore of them.

Goats:

Speedy is definitely feeling much better. I'm very pleased that he bounced back so quickly

Snickers was having a minor problem with the tom turkey earlier. I'm not sure what was up with the tom but occasionally he'll start running around with his wings out...reminds me of my boys playing "airplane"...anyway tom kept running Snickers way and then when Snickers would startle and run away tom would hop up and down as if he was laughing


Chickens:

Cinnamon's chicks are starting to get taller...it seems as if they shot up overnight. There is still a huge difference in feathering out between them and the hatchery chicks. I've got to remember to take a side by side picture for comparison.

We've finally figured out which of our hatchery chicks is the roo that we ordered. We ordered a salmon faverolle roo. Our girls were varied breeds and we also ordered their rare and fancy feathered flock pack...25 assorted rare breeds. They included several faverolles but until recently we couldn't tell who was who...now the color pattern of the roo is starting to come through!

It's so exciting to see them grow and develop! Especially the 25 who were "surprises". We've figured out quite a few. I'll have to get some pictures taken to share

Every day that goes by I become more and more convinced that our EE "girl" Blue is actually a boy :/ We'll have to wait for the crow or the egg to know for sure...

Cow:

We needed to give T a dose of Valbazen today but didn't know his weight...DH decided to get "manly" and pick him up and stand on a scale...yep, calf weight is around 100#. But for his trouble T decided to poop down DH's leg!

At least it was easy to get him to take his medicine and he actually seemed to like the taste of it.

Animal Housing:

We decided to install a fan in the Big Coop to give the chicks some relief from the oppressive heat that is upon us here right now.

We also decided to turn one area of the Big Coop into a brooder area.

Yep, work on the farm is never done...

Glad to hear Speedy is doing better! And how exciting to have ALL those new chicks in the new coop. Yay! Hope all of the integrating goes well for you.

Thank you! We're very excited for all the things happening on the farm right now

 

[Sparks Fly]

Emily I just have to tell you I LOVE your sons names Keaton and Blaine. My Fiances name is Kenton Blaine and I love your journal also.

 

[elevan]

Emily I just have to tell you I LOVE your sons names Keaton and Blaine. My Fiances name is Kenton Blaine and I love your journal also.

Thank you

 

[elevan]

So...................I did have pictures for you all tonight................but.................they won't load! I'll try again tomorrow...

It's been a hot week here in O-H-I-O so far and supposed to keep it up for a little while yet. With some relief coming next week. It probably wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have outrageously high humidity too. You sweat buckets the minute you step out the door. I've been inclined to just jump in the pond when I'm in the field...it looks so refreshing...

One of my favorite parts about the height of summer though is the sunflowers. We got our sunflowers in late in the season and are seeing the first blooms now A lovely sight! New to us this year are sunchokes. The sunchokes that I got from damummis have gotten quite high...hopefully we see some blooms from them soon too.

And now - our critter update...

Chickens:
The hatchery chicks had their first foray in free ranging tonight. Opened the door of the coop and supervised them for about 45 minutes. They didn't venture far and I really didn't expect them too. At one point all 44 of them were out but mostly they came out in thirds and rotated in and out. Two of our adult hens came over to check them out...Cinnamon (our mama hen) and Susie (Hamburg hen). Both girls were nice to the babies so I'm hoping integration of the two flocks isn't going to be a problem.

Bedtime in the little coop was a little stressful tonight for whatever reason. Everyone has their favorite roosting spot and normally that's where they go to...but tonight Rita decided to take Lucky's spot and threw everyone else off. There was quite a bit of squabbling over roost space because of it and everyone's order was rearranged. I was happy to see the "little girls" on the top roost with everyone else. Normally they are forced to a separate roost by themselves, I guess they've finally been accepted.

Quail:
Our quail have suddenly become obsessed with getting out of their pen. It seems that is all that they want to do right now

Turkeys:
For the second night in a row the turkeys have put themselves to bed! I don't want to jinx it but Do you know how much of a pain it is to wrangle 2 turkeys every single night to put them into there coop is?? I hope this is the end of turkey wrangling. Although my one boy has gotten quite good at it.

Goats:
It was such a hot day today (99*) that the goats each found a separate place to lay to be comfortable. Found Goldie behind the little chicken coop...Daisy and the kids in the shade of some trees...Rocky was in the barn's doorway...Lilly and Maggie were deep in the barn...and the boys were in their barn. Poor things. I felt so bad for all the critters today.

Around 8:00 pm it started cooling off (85*) and they all were in the field munching until dark. You know it was a hot day when you consider 85* to be cooling off! We had something like 75% humidity

I need to get some hoof trimming done but until we get a break in the temperatures I'm not going to do it...definitely don't want to stress them more than they are.

 

[elevan]

We hit 107* with our heat index today So not much was done today other than making sure everyone stayed hydrated.

I still am unable to get yesterday's pictures to load to my computer...but I did take some with my phone and decided to share...

Taking advantage of the evening "cool down"

Jukebox Charlie, our little salmon faverolle roo

Our first 2 ducks eggs (on the left)

Some pics of the Big Coop (still need to do some trim and of course paint)

 

[elevan]

Hatchery chicks are allowed to free range at will now. They don't go very far from the coop and it seems like they have divided into 3 separate groups...
Jukebox Charlie has the largest group of girls though I suspect that there may be one other roo in there...we'll see.

2 of Cinnamon's chicks have turned out to be roos and it appears that my EE hen is actually a roo I might have to make some decisions later and get rid of a roo or 2.

The guineas are growing like weeds. We've still got 10 of them and while that means that I've already lost money on them I guess it could have been worse...if they hadn't added 5 extras I would be so steamed right now still.

We'll be moving the guineas to a slightly larger brooder later today and then within the next 1-2 weeks they'll go to their permanent coop (after our hens are integrated into the Big Coop with the hatchery chicks.

I think the entire farm would be happier if this heat wave would let up. We've been having some really nice evening temps but during the day it's unbearable.

I'm a little worried about our llama and this heat wave that has been upon us. He's so hot even though he's clipped. He's been taking a morning dip in the pond and stays to the shade during the hottest part of the day but his lower lip is hanging way down and you can just tell that he's super hot

Poor llama has been spending more time guarding the chicks and hens than the goats lately while he tries to stay out of the sun.

Speaking of goats, we haven't had any of the girls come back into heat so here's hoping that all of our goat does that we wanted bred are Goldie's due date is Sept 2!! Looking forward to that as they will be her first kids born on our farm. She's such a sweet girl...I hope we get a doeling or 2 from her

 

[ksalvagno]

Electrolytes in the water will help the llama. Buy the horse electrolytes. Cherry is usually a favorite. In this heat I keep electrolytes in the alpacas water buckets all the time. Could also cool him down with the hose on his legs and belly. Sounds like he is heat stressing a bit. That is the one thing that alpacas/llamas easily get is heat stressed. They can go down fast when it really hits them.

Nice pics!