Things are going great here on the farm!
Cow Cow is doing much better and getting heathier every day! Once his nutrition is under control, we need to move on to other things with him. At some point we will need to bottle break him and get him to drink milk from a pail instead of a nipple. He knows how to drink water from a pail, so you think this would be easy. Wrong. He refuses. If it is milk it must be consumed via nipple. There is no other way in his mind. Set the bucket in front of him and he will just continually search for the nipple. We will also need to get a halter and halter break him. He has a large pasture to roam freely and a shelter to bed in, but there will be times when we may need to get him from the pasture to the barn, or from point A to point B. We have some time before these things need to happen, but it is something I should spend some time researching now.
The broiler chickens are doing great! They are living life out in the pasture in their chicken tractors. They get plenty of fresh grass each day and fresh bugs to eat. They are getting bigger each day. I do not think we will have any problem reaching our weight goals for these guys. Butcher date is approaching soon (June 25th) and so far, we have only lost 4 birds. This is much less than we expected, especially being first timers! I believe it is typically expected to lose about 10% of your flock before butcher date. So, we must be doing something right! We are getting everything lined up for butcher day and are looking forward to seeing everyone at pick up!
Little CJ has done a great job of helping with the chickens. I am so proud of him! It is quite difficult to move the chicken tractors in that pasture as the grass is taller and much bumpier. The chickens add to that by being lazy. They do not move quite as fast as our larger egg layers. Those chicken tractors are heavy and with the birds not moving as fast when you drag the tractor, it can be very easy to accidently run over a chicken. For these reasons, Dad has been moving the tractors each morning. Then, Little CJ goes out to feed and water all tractors. Little CJ checks on them throughout the day and goes back out at 3pm to feed and water again. He is also in charge of checking on the egg laying birds during the day and collecting eggs. He gets up with Dad around 6-6:30am every morning and does his job without complaint. I cannot express how impressed I am with his commitment to help!
Alayna does not have such an interest in the farm yet. I was hoping she would with Cow Cow, but since he went all crazy that day, I am hesitant to have the kids go in the pasture alone to help with him. He will get bigger one day and I do not want them to feel overly confident and end up getting hurt. I am thinking of having her put her artistic skills to use and design something for us. Even if its just labels for the shrink-wrapped chicken. I want to find a way to include the kids on the farm, but I also want it to be something they enjoy doing and take pride in.
Jasper the donkey is doing great! He is very low maintenance. Grass, water, and an apple treat each evening is about all he needs to stay content. I do try to include the kids when giving treats in the evening. He is a little jealous of the cow. I have been spending quite a bit of time with Cow Cow up at the other pasture, and Jasper has noticed! If I spend too much time over there and do not give any attention to Jasper, he will run to the gate braying as loud as he can, ending in a big ole huff and puff! He demands I come give him some loving and I always oblige. He is a good donkey.
The egg laying birds are doing great as well! The new coop is working great out in Cow Cow’s pasture and they get to free range in a large area each day. Today they rewarded us with 7 eggs! We only have 6 hens! Guess someone was working overtime! HA! The rooster is settled into his routine and is doing well with the girls. He is a talkative fellow and crows quite a bit during the day. They have a poultry net fence that surrounds their area to protect them from predators. It is charged by a solar powered battery that connects to the fence. Cow Cow decided they no longer need this since he was there to protect them and chewed through the battery wire. I have no idea how he managed to do this as the wire was live and would have been shocking him. At least CJ thinks it was Cow Cow, we do not have proof that it was him. Either way, thankfully, CJ can fix the wire so that we do not have to replace the battery. We will have to come up with a way to protect the wire from future chewing though. We may end up just blocking off one end of the pasture so Cow Cow can not get to it. We shall see.
All in all, things are coming together nicely here at the farm! It is not always easy, and things go wrong (almost always for me), but we are taking things one day at a time! We can do this!
Did I say we? I totally meant CJ… I will be in the house not dying via cow.