SA Farm's journal

[thistlebloom]

I absolutely love it and totally plan to carry baby around while I do chores...until he gets too heavy! Then I’m thinking of carrying him around in a laundry basket so I can safely set him down while I work

I wore my kids in a backpack for a ridiculously long time. Can't remember how long exactly, probably almost 3 years. My horse vet used to live about a mile from our house and we traded my labor cleaning corrals and mowing for his vet services. I just kept track of my hours and when I needed vet work he'd take that off the bill. It was a great barter system. Anyway, I used to do all that with Kid#1 in the backpack, and when I was pregnant with Kid#2 they asked where I was going to carry him. In a sling on the front I said, lol.

 

[Bruce]

The nest is on an outdoor light, so it’s under the eaves on the porch. About 6 feet above the porch floor. I think it was a barn swallow, actually. They’ve nested by my sheep shack in the past as well.

Ah, it just LOOKS like it is at ground level. I don't know if barn swallows will build with grass, their nests are mud cups glued to a vertical surface usually just inches below a horizontal surface. It is amazing to watch the chicks fledge, never having had an opportunity to stand on the nest edge and build up their wing muscles. There is just NO room, the birds barely fit.

The first year we were here I had a pair build on a blue plastic light box, the top of it was the perfect height below the floor above. Makes sense to me, start with a stable surface. Every year since the breeding pair (same ones or offspring of them?) have built a new nest just to the side of that box.

Barn swallow


Ready to fledge


Tree swallow

 

[SA Farm]

@thistlebloom I highly doubt I could carry my boy around for 3 years So impressed that you could do it for so long! I can barely pick up my nephew on my DH’s side for any real length of time now and he’s 2. He’s a hefty boy and I expect ours to be similarly sized lol. (My will may be strong, but my back is weak.)

@Bruce there are a few layers under the robin’s nest. Last year’s nest was a mix of mud and grass, I think. I’ve definitely seen my share of cramped barn swallow nests from my time working with horses. They really did like the most minute amount of head space But, then again, there aren’t a whole lot of options in a stable, so maybe they just take what they can get? I don’t know. It’s possible it was a tree swallow. They look similar enough

Every year I manage to forget how delicate turkey poults are. Even some of the ones with the strength to hatch don’t always make it to fluffy before they just...give up. I helped two. One gave up and the other is doing fine, but one of the ones that hatched didn’t have the strength to even stand up after, so it didn’t make it either. The weird thing - something I’ve never seen before - is that the one baby I tried to help wasn’t shrink wrapped. Instead, it was too big to turn around in the shell! So bizarre.
Anyway, their delicacy is the main reason I always keep my poults for the first week. I want to make sure they have a good start before facing the stress of going to their new homes.
So sleepy after all that hard work hatching

 

[SA Farm]

@Bruce I got curious and went back to find some of the pics from last year. What do you think?

 

[Jesusfreak101]

i lost my place in your thread however skimming to refind my place lead me to see you are pregnant congratulation!! Thats so exciting. I love babies but who doesnt lol. I an going back to reading now.

 

[thistlebloom]

@thistlebloom I highly doubt I could carry my boy around for 3 years

It's like Milo of Croton, you start by carrying a small calf(your kid) and as it grows so does your strength!
Actually it's much easier to carry weight on your back. They make some really amazing baby backpacks these days. not like the primitive 2x4 and flour sack contraptions we had back when I was young. Just kidding. But the ones they make now are pretty impressive, and no doubt much more comfortable for both parties.
The kid would have rather been down on the ground most of that time, but I couldn't get all my chores done with him running around trying to get himself killed. And forget the playpen. He was good in that for maybe 10 minutes.

 

[Bruce]

I got curious and went back to find some of the pics from last year. What do you think?

Interesting that so many different birds make use of the nest space.

Yep, barn swallow. The ones I've had make their nests so close to the floor above that not only would I have no idea what the eggs look like, nor what they line the mud nest with (if anything), I usually don't even know how many are in there. Usually 3 or 4 fledge.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

While we are on this topic, do you folks know if barn swallows will make a nest in a bird house designed for tree swallows? I saw a video on Greg Judy's YouTube channel about making nesting boxes for swallows, so that the swallows will control the flies in the pastures where he keeps his cattle and sheep. So I decided to make a nesting box similar to what he made. We have what I think are barn swallows, as they make nests on our front and back porches right close to the ceilings on the porches. The swallows flew to the bird house and looked it over but did not go inside. When I checked the video again, I noticed it said tree swallows in the video, not barn swallows. So will the barn swallows build a nest in the bird house I built, or perhaps some other bird use it, but not the barn swallows?

Another thing I would like to ask is if hummingbirds are afraid of barn swallows. We have 2 hummingbird feeders on our front porch, and until recently quite a few hummingbirds would feed there. But once the barn swallows showed up on the front porch, we haven't seen the hummingbirds much at all.

Comments?

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[SA Farm]

@Senile_Texas_Aggie Not sure about the barn swallows nesting in a house made for tree swallows, but they could as could lots of other birds.
If the barn swallows are breeding/nesting on or by your porch, they will chase away anything that may be a threat to their chosen territory.

 

[Bruce]

So will the barn swallows build a nest in the bird house I built, or perhaps some other bird use it, but not the barn swallows?

I really doubt it, barn swallows don't nest in cavities. I don't know if you can attract barn swallows to a location but you could try creating a suitable environment, maybe something from here: Barn swallow nesting plans

What size did you make your swallow nest boxes? I copied a rotting nest box from the garden to put out at the NW corner of the fenced acre. THEN looked up tree swallow nests and found out it wasn't big enough. The bottom on the inside should be 5"x5", hole 7.5" above the floor. So I made a new one Smaller boxes I guess are good for bluebirds though I don't know that I've seen any bluebirds here. The site I was looking at said that bluebirds will occupy tree swallow nest boxes. I guess they are McMansions to them because bluebird nest boxes are usually a bit smaller.

Don't know about the hummers.