rachels.haven's Journal

[rachels.haven]

Naw, I was going to have a heart to heart with the bucks about goat meat, lol. I think we can come to an understanding. I let my bucks manage their own equipment, thank you very much.

 

[rachels.haven]

Here's a chunky picture or two of Lucky 4-Leaf Count Chocula for his ad. This is the buck that was bred to 4 or 5 first fresheners, settled them all, but he threw nothing but giant, blocky, front heavy single kids and one of the does died in labor (only having a single is the does' department, btw). I'm not sure if he's going to sell. He has his one foot that got stuck in a fence and ripped between the claws that he still favors and it makes him stand funny, and to me he looks permanently immature and nothing like the kids he threw. He gets everything he wants here and has put on both muscle and fat, but I'm wondering if some damage minerally or nutritionally has already been done and can't be undone or if he's just a slow maturer and it's not a good time. And I don't want to shave him this year because if he stays the deer flies will go to town on him, and his well being comes first, so he doesn't look great. I mean, lamancha bucks look downright funny sometimes, but he looks a lot younger than his age-a little over a year.
If he fails to sell, I guess I'll figuratively sit on him until I decide what to do next.
What I want to know is how a buck that looks like that throw kids THAT solid, big, and blocky. Build-wise he's so feminine.

And here are some Summer bucks. The brown one is super compact to the point it's hilarious. The white one is more normal and petite. Both appear to be doing great.

Big goats dirty up stalls fast, btw. I do my best to get them out and back with the others asap.

 

[rachels.haven]

6 silkie roosters ready for dumplings in the basement fridge (our upstairs one is not cooling the fridge for some reason, now I know why God gave us two, which I thought was ridiculous). I left one of the best hatchery cockerels with Mr. Teddy to be his spare lookout until he starts being annoying. He's very henfeathered and one of the better ones.

I'm out of ziplocs otherwise I'd be looking at the extra drakes and production cockerels right now. Apparently I'm in a hungry mood.

The white extra cockerels McMurray sent me are gold comet males. They have a decent attitude and are not stupid/afraid. If I wanted brown eggs I'd consider gold comets to keep. A hybrid between a leghorn and rhode island red is still going to be productive in future generations and a decent meat bird too even if they can't breed true. The males currently feel more solid than the silkies but are still too small at 11 weeks. I might consider doing them as friers next week with the extra drakes. We are going through way too much feed.

Time to get some more goats disbudded. Saffron's buck is huge now and needs a touchup too. I flipped his lids last night and he had little white horns starting under there. He really needs the side of an iron squarely on those little budding stabbers/fence and barn wreckers.

 

[Bruce]

Sounds like the Austrawhites (Black Australorp/White Leghorn) I got from Meyer, cross of 2 productive egg breeds. Their site said as F1 hybrids they won't breed true so I doubt your Gold Comets will. For body type mine are way more WL than BA. They lay amazingly large eggs for their size, must be OWIE every time they lay one. They aren't much bigger than the Exchequer Leghorns who struggle to lay a USDA Medium more than infrequently. The AWs are laying from mid USDA Large to the occasional low end of X-Large. One lays white, the other a very light tan.

Wouldn't be much to eat on the AWs. Gretel bought herself a few nights in the broody buster yesterday, very light bird. My Barnevelder that died a couple of weeks ago was MUCH heftier.

ETA: Looked up the Golden Comet. Not an F1 and not a cross between WL and RIR, at least at McMurry. It is a Red sex link of which each hatchery has their own name. McMurry says:
"The Red Stars are a commercially bred strain of chicken developed over several generations. It is not two specific breeds that are used to create the Red Star."

According to Know Your Chickens: "A gorgeous, golden-colored chicken that is a hybrid between the New Hampshire rooster and White Rock hen, this chicken is sure to offer you everything you need in your backyard flock."

 

[rachels.haven]

Ah, I'd accept that anyway.
And technically I got their name wrong, McMurray calls them "Red Stars" but they are probably still Comets.
I like California Whites as well, but I'd have to get them from Hoover's and I lost 2/4 of my last ones to laying issues and their egg quality was low laying despite xl eggs daily. Nice friendly birds though.

Right now I've got what I've got and blue eggs are still nice.

 

[CntryBoy777]

If ya want XL eggs that ya can count on regularly...yep, ya need to get ya some KC ducks....added bonus is they are great companions to goats....

 

[rachels.haven]

I've got 20 pekins, does that count?

 

[rachels.haven]

I didn't mention it earlier but Avalon freshened with an infection on her udder. The day she was going to kid there was nothing then suddenly there was a little spot on the back of it by her leg a few hours after babies. The spot grew and it got the inside of her leg this time instead of around the teats and down the midline like last year. So today I found and called a different vet finally. She had a fever so the vet came out today. So $375 later Ava's on banamine, heavy duty antibiotics, and a tub of silver sulfadiazine and a recheck scheduled for next week. They think it's staph. I'd already given the milking and pregnant does lysign dose one, and the vet didn't necessarily tell me I should, but she said it maybe might could hypothetically help the other does not get a staph infection...lol. It's for cows and all so it can't be recommended for goats.
Also, the vet advised I vaccinate all the goats for rabies. There's a lot of it in the area. That sounded weird, so I looked it up. Turns out our county "wins" the rabies race in Massachusetts-we're first. And I probably should get them all vaccinated and avoid exposure to all potential carriers. Sure would have been nice for animal control or fish and wildlife to be more cautious about someone calling them about wild animals acting aggressively around people earlier.
Any way, I guess we'll be doing that. Whoopie.
...this state is so small. How can it have so many wildlife problems?

 

[farmerjan]

Because there are so many "do gooders" ; "anti-shoot" ; "oh, the poor wildlife that we have been so terrible to by destroying their habitat" and all those types..... I grew up with the BAMBI movie.... but there are people who really do project the "bambi" attitude to wildlife..... and more than normal of them have landed in Mass., with all the liberal, the gov't will take care of everything, IDIOTS.....
I am a native New Englander, family been there since the Mayflower, and I LEFT because so many have gone over the bend. Wanted to go from Ct. to Vt where family had property and been for over 100 years. Didn't work and now I am glad. The flat-landers that all moved in with the anti-this and anti-that ideas, and the moneyed people who came in for the "skiing" and such, have rendered a once very conservative state totally off the wall. New England was once known for it's common sense, live and let live, hands off what the neighbor was doing even if you thought it was a little strange, the old "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" was practiced by the very "tighwad" New Englanders. Sure it was basically a saying from the early 1900's and the WW I and WW II and great depression era, but it fit the people of New England. It is mostly gone now. Thought Va was more pro ag, and common sense.... but in the last few years they are losing it too..... We who have some real common sense and knowledge of the real world and wildlife and the relationship of both domestic and wild animal life, are getting fewer and fewer and being over run by the bleeding hearts that do not understand the balances that need to exist.
Luckily many on here are of the "old school" of being somewhat self-sufficient and providing for themselves. Practical about animals and the role they play in a persons life, and food chain. But, I think Mass got lost in the shuffle early on.

Sorry @rachels.haven , you are fighting a losing battle up there.

Rabies has become more and more prevalent because of the "anti-hunting" anti-shoot attitudes and the ones that think all wildlife is so wonderful and we have been so uncaring..... they are becoming a problem because they over populate their habitats, and then you get sickness and starvation and all that. Prime vectors for disease.

I don't think we ought to go out and routinely just kill everything.... but we need to be more aggressive about the wildlife that has become unafraid of humans, and quit feeding said wildlife so it loses it's fear of humans.... and we need to dispose of any and all that are aggressive like that coyote you have had problems with. None of this catching and relocating crap because it becomes a problem for someone else.
I will live in harmony with most until it goes after my domestic animals, that I have tried to provide some care and protection for. Once they do that.... they are fair game and will be dealt with.

 

[farmerjan]

Va has been plagued with rabies too, and this area has had several cases in the past few years that farmers have come into contact with. Know of several that have had to destroy animals, and a few that have had to take the rabies treatments due to being bitten or exposed to saliva and other body fluids... including one farm that had 2 cows test positive for it.