GO Abby! First goose egg of the season!

Just had to post, as this is my only real record of when things happen.  Saw Abby in the A-frame hut for the first time yesterday.  Today, I discovered her first egg!  Now, if I can just witness Beefy getting his business underway, and the weather warms up so eggs don't freeze, I'll let her start building a clutch.  Gotta remember to email the gal I got her from and share the good news.  Apparently Abby hatched a batch last year, so we'll see how it goes.  If nothing is fertile this year, we may need to add another gander to the flock... and what that means for Beefy?  I dunno.  Anyhoo, goose eggs leave me feeling that spring weather and longer days aren't far off.  :)

Updates/changes on the farm! New birds, fluffy goat and sheep...

A few changes over the last 6 months or so.

We have increased our muscovy flock.  Merle now has two more girls in addition to Maggie and Frieda.  They're young, and I expect they'll hit 1 year in late summer.  Man, can these ducks fly.  We had to clip wings, as they enjoyed flying all around the backyard and over in the chicken yard.

New girl

Of the scovys hatched last year, we butchered all but one drake.  We also butchered our goose Broccoli, Beefy's girl/boy friend.  Pretty sure Broccoli was a boy, and low boy on the totem pole to Beefy.  Beefy was entirely uninterested in Broccoli, and would mount the ducks instead.  We never saw Broccoli mount the ducks, but I'm guessing because Beefy was so dominant.  Anyhow, the crazy thing was that the two <1yr old scovy drakes that we butchered dressed out at nearly the exact same weight as that goose!  Nuts!

We ended up getting a pilgrim female for Beefy, and named her Abigail. Great thing about a pilgrim is that we KNOW it's a girl, due to the sex-linked color.  Yay!  Crusty is in LUUUURVE with Abigail (Crusty has a goose fetish, having grown up with geese) and likes to follow Abigail around while doing her sexy duck dance.  It's highly amusing, but Abby doesn't care much for it.  Added plus, the gal I got Abby from has pied guineas.  She's supposed to give me a call this summer when she has keets, and we'll be able to get Deputy Guinea some friends.  Ah, I can already hear the guinea chorus.  Sigh.

Abigail

We kept one chocolate drake from last year's hatches, Choco Taco, and got him two girls as well.  Only one of the 4 total new girls has a name.  Chad named her Hennifer Grey.  :)  She's a pretty gray/brown, and a really calm and petite little girl.

 Hennifer Grey

Choco, the muscovy drake we kept, is a big beautiful boy.  He was attacked by our trio of turkey toms a few months ago and they just about scalped and blinded him.  Time in a crate and treatment with bluekote, and he's growing his feathers back on his head, and still has both eyes, though his beak is a little gnarly on top.  He was really a mess for a while, but is back out there terrorizing the roosters and lovin his girlfriends.  We also only have ONE tom left... his brothers were very tasty (seasoned with "these damn turkeys attacked my Choco").

Choco

What else, what else... Traeger and Weber, boer goat and katahdin sheep, are fat and sassy and slated for slaughter on the 19th.  We'll kill/gut/skin here at the house, and then take the carcasses to the butcher for further processing.  Very ready for them to go, as it's almost time for pigs!  We're debating taking the hides down to a guy in Clackamas to be processed, as they're really nice and fluffy from the unusually cold weather we've experienced over the last few months.  We could try to do it at home, but their coats are so nice... I think we'll practice on the next deer we get, and just have these professionally done.

Fat, Sassy, and headed for the freezer.

So, that's about it for the moment.  Not too much else exciting.

More soon!

New duck hut

Despite the cold weather (<20deg this morning), the ducks have started laying again. Front pen contains Beefy and his new girl Abigail (Broccoli is in the freezer), Merle, Maggie, Frieda, Crusty, Olga, and two new scovy girls (Sven is also in the freezer). We're only getting 1-2 eggs a day, but the girls are making pretty little round nests in all the huts. They didn't like the new hut last night, (the geese swore at it for hours and the scovys wagged their tails and bobbed their heads), but today the straw on each side was swept into pretty little nests. Hoping the low dark doors and nests being in the back of the hut will help dissuade the ravens from sneaking in to steal eggs. Stupid ravens.

Beefy is not impressed.

But I'm pretty happy with my work. :)

Duck duck duck goose... gander

Soaking up a little sun last weekend. From left to right, Crusty, Olga, Sven, Broccoli, and Beef(y). Goose Chalet and the new Duck Hut in the background. (My new duck hut is AWESOME... More on that later).

What happened to my goose babies

Bobcat. 

Gone are Affie, Baby Girl, and my big bitey jerky gander Bitor. I really loved him, for all that he was a bitey jerk. He had one hell of a personality. Sweet Girl passed a couple months ago, and we couldn't find a mark on her.  We figured there must have just been something wrong with her, but perhaps that had been a bobcat too.

Took precautions, weren't good enough. Damn cat came within 30 yards of our house. Don't know why it went after the geese instead of the ducks.  We ended up moving what fowl were left (the 3 ducks) to the pen next to the house.

Hubby went out and bought a furtaker's license and a bobcat card.  We'd determined it was a bobcat due to pics on game cams we'd set out.  Over the first weekend he had it, he got not one... but TWO freaking bobcats.  Both females.  @$#%@#$%#$  A friend of ours is a rather good hobby taxidermist, and we're gonna get his help to cure the pelts. 

I've decided that I won't have any more farm critters that are "pets".  We can't make our critter areas absolutely impenetrable.  Don't ask why or berate that I don't.  It's just not currently feasible, and I'll leave it at that. 


RIP my little goose babies.

 

 

RIP Affie Girl

LJ found Affie dead in the pen this morning. Apparently she was next to the fence, all curled up like she'd normally be for sleep, but missing her head. :( She was my darling girl, and the only one of our original geese that I considered a pet. The very same goose that nearly committed suicide the day we brought her home as a gosling, horking down a piece of shaving that we managed to dislodge before she could choke to death.

Gotta love breaking into tears while at work. Not awkward at all.

I'm heartbroken.

We'll bury her tonight, and I will be beefing up the goose pen by headlamp and putting out game cams to see if we can figure what did it. :(

We'll miss you sweetie pie.

Chinese goose... Last new farm baby

So, of the three goose eggs in the incubator, only one made it. It's been alone this past week. I tried to foster it off on the geese, but it didn't work. The adult geese were interested and happy to include the baby into the family, but the juveniles attacked the baby mercilessly, and it came running to me each time they did, screaming to be picked up. *sigh* So, I went by Wilco to see if they had any waterfowl left. They're done ordering for this season, so I didn't have super high hopes. They had two. A huge male pekin duckling, and a male white chinese gosling. Of course, remembering how very very messy ducks are, I forked over a whopping 16 bucks for the goose. He's awfully sweet, loves to be held, and doesn't pick on mini-goose. I've decided to name him Jeffrey, because he reminds me of the gosling in Charlotte's Web (haven't heard him oink yet, though). I think we'll keep him, and he can live with Jiminy and the ducks. We may have a taker for mini-goose... One of LJ's coworkers. Fingers crossed!

Gonna be MIA for a bit. Work is crazy right now, and planning the wedding (only a month away!) is stressing me out something awful. Anyhoo, when I get back I'll have critter updates and hopefully a post on butchering the Cornish X icky chickies (what we did last weekend).

Have a nice June, everyone!

Jiminy's albatross imitation

Geese are so funny. When they're little, their wings are just little tabs, and seem way too small for their bodies. Then, seemingly overnight, their wings quadruple in size and are suddenly too big. They remind me of some sort of sea bird fledgling. Great big heavy wings that they can barely lift.

Internally pipped goose egg!

Ok, so I'm on my second round of goose egg incubation. The pic above is me in a dark tiny closet, holding a small maglite to an internally pipped egg. That little peak is the beak! Internal pipping is where the gosling/chick/keet/whathaveyou breaks through the membrane inside the egg, allowing access to the large air cell at the big end of the egg. Within a day or so, I should see an external pip, where the baby breaks through the shell so it can access outside air. Shortly after that, baby will "unzip" the egg, breaking the shell in a circular manner so it can get free of the egg.

In the pic above, I think something is wrong with the egg. See how there's a lighter area under the air cell, unlike the first pic? Perhaps a ruptured air cell? I dunno. In any case, the gosling is moving around in there, so hopefully it can proceed to external pip.

This is my last round of incubator eggs this season, and it has been an incredible experience! The geese are done laying, and our second and last round of chicks are due naturally-incubated under Jerky Pecking $&@#% Hen next week. (Not every hen can be as sweet as Bellina, you know). I'm hoping to foster these new goose babies (if they make it through hatching) with Affie. Sooooo much easier when the geese raise them, as I don't have to feed and water them separately, and I also don't get ATTACHED to meat birds... sigh... We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck!

The tastiest grass is that which I'm sitting on...

My, how the goslings have grown!

So, these are the goslings that I hatched in the incubator a few weeks ago. That's Jiminy in the front, Meat Goose behind, and their pet duck (Crusty) on the right. They're currently living in the recently vacated duck tractor. Every evening, I let them out for a walk and some socializing. They're way too much fun. I do love geese!

Standing guard

Ever vigilant, Bitor makes sure that nobody gets near his goslings.

On another goose note, Affie has been halfheartedly sitting on a beautiful nest she made and the remainder of Baby's eggs. I went in last night and took them all away. Good thing I did! I candled them all, just in case any were late lays and showed development. Yeah, no. Most were sloshy inside, and a couple had some evil streaks. Yeah, they all went carefully into the outside trash before they could explode on me. Lol. They were starting to stink. Ew. Ew ew ew! If Affie wants to be a mommy so badly, and Baby's babies aren't enough for her, perhaps I'll try and get her to accept the incubator babies when (if) they hatch next weekend. Would sure help me not get attached to them! Happy Friday, all!

Lap goose

The weather is halfway decent, so I brought Jiminy out to eat some grass and stretch his/her legs while I listened to some Diana Gabaldon on my iPod. Yeah, didn't work. Darn goose insisted on being in my lap, and would only eat grass if hand fed... I'm a sucker. This baby seems like a female to me, so I'm gonna start calling Jiminy a she, and we'll see next spring if I do or don't see eggs. :)

Sweet Jiminy

I adore this goose. It loves to snuggle, and screams to be picked up. I took the two goslings out for a walk on the lawn yesterday, so they could stretch their legs and have a bite of grass and clover. Jiminy didn't want anything to do with Meat Goose (what we call the one that isn't particularly friendly). Jiminy just wanted to run circles around me and eat, every so often looking up at me and chattering away like I could understand. :) Too cute.

Oh, and I checked on Baby last night, and she has 3 goslings. Will try and post pics and more info this weekend. Happy Friday all!!!

Another new mommy on the farm!

Baby Girl's goslings started hatching yesterday! See the little gosling by her side?

LJ went out to change the goose water, and all the girls were in the hut and hissing at him. Strange, as the ladies don't hiss at us... Just at strangers. Then, he started to hear peeping. :) When I got home from work, I had him distract Bitor so I could snap a quick pic. All the geese are excited and hanging out around Baby. Bitor diligently guards the goose hut, Sweet Girl snuggles down a couple feet from Baby, and Affie has been smack in the middle of things, nestled right next to Baby and helping her incubate the eggs. Can't wait to get home this afternoon and check on the progress!!!

First baby hatched on the farm!!!!

Say hello to a noisy and very energetic new gosling. Little guy isn't even dry yet, and has been careening around the incubator and squealing for a good 45 minutes. Thought they were supposed to take a post hatch nap!?

We have a beak!

More patient than I am, by far

Baby is still sitting her nest. She has at least 15 under there. On the rare occasion that she gets up, Bitor hovers near the nest to protect it, and often Sweet Girl will go sit on the nest til Baby gets back. Affie, of course, doesn't sit. As far as she's concerned, the other two ladies make perfectly servicable nursemaids, and this way Affie keeps her lovely figure. :)

Me, though... I. Can't. Wait. To. GO HOME! When I left this morning, the two pipped eggs hadn't made any more progress from last night, though both eggs peeped and rocked when I directed the light through the incubator window. According to LJ, a couple hours later before he left the house, both were rocking away, and one had started to unzip the shell (he said it had broken off a large chunk!). I hope the other two non-pipped eggs have also progressed since this morning. One had finally pipped internally (I could hear the clicking breaths), but nothing yet from the other (just some faint movement at the top edge of the air cell). Fingers crossed for some more shell pips, and maybe a couple newly hatched goslings when I get home!

One step closer!

I came home to TWO pipped goose eggs! Woohoo! C'mon babies!

It pipped!

One of the goose eggs pipped internally today! That means that it broke through the membrane inside the shell. I heard it PEEPING!!!! Yay! We're not out of the woods yet, though. Lots to happen still. Goosey baby still has to pip the egg shell, "unzip" the egg, and get free. This should happen over the next 24-48 hrs, from what I've read. The other eggs need to catch up already!

Fingers crossed! Hopefully I haven't screwed up this hatch in some way, and these 4 eggs will produce little fuzzy butt babies. Cross your fingers for them. :)