New Birds!

So last evening me Silver one of our interns and two of the kids went over to my rabbit person to catch as many of her chickens as we could get our hands on. We did this around sunset in the hopes of catching them roosting. From the looks it seems most are crosses of some kind. We now have a good number of roosters (I am going to be culling there and I am trying to decide which roosters to keep), there is a few young birds; who keep close together thankfully. One of the youngsters is a guinea fowl, she (I think) has a lame leg; seems to be twisted backwards. I am hoping as she grows she'll be able to walk ok so I can let her loose come next spring to eat bugs for us. We did get some turken's otherwise known as the “naked-necked chicken”. The two adults are roosters and seems we have two young ones of indeterminate sex. I am hoping for at least one hen in there as I want the size of those birds added to my flock. So if we don't have a hen I might be keeping one of those roosters as they seem very vigorous in mating with hens from watching them for a few minutes this morning.

I was also offered to take the one homing pigeon she has. Seems at one point she had more and the rest flew off and left this one female by herself. We are thinking of taking her, we just need to make her a house. I was thinking of buying a couple more to raise as squab maybe, though the birds seem very pricey to buy. Lowest I saw was $50 a bird and that did not count shipping. I'll have to see what I can about getting a few more somewhere down the line.

The guinea isn't the only one with a foot issue it seems either. There is a hen who is missing at least her claws, and a white rooster who walks decidedly oddly like one of his feet don't work right. The woman said the guinea is due to her incubator, that is possible I imagine; I will have to see when we use it. Granted Silver is thinking of rebuilding it so it might not be an issue at all for us. I plan on checking on everybody a few times today to see how they interact to help me decide which roosters to keep around for my ladies. I also have a few that I am still trying to see if they are hens or roosters, as I learned when I had just the Rhode Island Reds and Jersey Giants that the hens sometimes get big combs. So that's it for now, I wish I had a -working- camera so I could snap some pics but that is one expense I can't afford right now.

BE Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Snow Days ...Gods When Will it End...?

Firstly.. Sorry to not have written anything in a while. Life in general has been hectic here.

Now about Snow days... the first year we were hear we had sooo much fun with them. Seemed like every other week the school would cancel days on end. Well in the last 2 months aside from the normal time off they have had an additional 2 and a half weeks off. ...and last week it got ridiculous. The last couple days they had off there was no snow on the ground and one of them was a day it rained all day. I jokingly said on Facebook that it wasn't a snow day it was a “rain day”.

It was so bad that back on Monday I joked about the fact they'll call school off on account of heat... as it was in the 50's in January. The intense cold did give us a minor problem. Our pipes froze, just one segment and it was the important one. The outside pipe leading to the house from the well. So instead of waiting for thaw we just went out and bought some PEX pipe and re ran it.

On the pigs we were going to get... Seems they died in the cold we had along with the goats these people owned. Now my only problem with this is that we own 1 goat. She lives in a shelter made of tarps, concrete board and some rolled roofing. Theirs had a post beam structure and 3 goats in total. I'd think the three goats would be able to keep each other warm. While the only help my goat had was hock deep straw and my daughter's blanket. Shrugs

We got our van which was out of commission working again. Spent over $300 on the repairs till we replaced the right thing. Funny thing is everything we replaced needed it, but wasn't the problem till we got to the final one. It was the MAP sensor something that costs $40. Well at least we now have a new...

Fuel pump

Fuel filter

Distributor cap

ECM

Spark Plugs

Spark Plug Cables

..so we know if something else happens they won't be those.

My son gets to go on his first maneuvers with the National Guard next weekend, hope he enjoys it. Right now all we are currently doing is making plans for the building we are going to do. The house is low on the list, have so many other things we need doing first. Well house, outdoor kitchen, layer house/yard, goat house/yard, pig pen (as we are planning on trying for some other pot bellied s).

Well That's it for Now.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Pot Bellied Pig info

Well since Sunday I've been searching online for info on raising pot bellied pigs for meat. Well, oddly... there isn't much info on it. The most of the info online about pot bellied pigs is on the “pet” trade for them. The only places where they even mention it tend to be online forums. So I went around and posted pretty much the same question to all of them.

“I'm getting 5 pot bellied pigs, once I can buy and set up the fencing for it. However I'm not finding much about how to care for them. I'd like to know some basic info about care.”

Well, I've had a few responses. A lot say DON'T it's too fatty that it's only good for lard. Also that you don't get much from them. I expected with a small pig you wouldn't get much, small pig; small meat. Now the ones saying it's only got for lard have from the responses only butchered one pig and it was one they bought at what they considered proper weight.

Now aside from the ones who wanted to know more as well there were a few that raise pot bellied pigs normally who have ALL said... “..if you are getting a large amount of lard then the hog is OVERWEIGHT.” Seems that a pot bellied pig NEEDS to be a bit on the “trim” side. Also every one of these regular raisers of them have said they prefer to butcher them a bit on the old side. As in older than most would butcher a typical hog.

They have all said you will get mostly sausage out of them. Though you will get some small hams. That is fine by me, though I am thinking of trying to get some chops out of them. I am not expecting to get roasts out of them at all.

That's what I have learned at the moment. If/when I learn more I'll pass it on!

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Free is Always Good

Well yesterday was an interesting day for us here. A year ago, I believe we cleared (not completely left some nice oak trees) for a pig enclosure. Then me and Silver were discussing it and decided we didn't want the hassle of a full sized pig, as they can be dangerous and require really good fencing here. As if they get “away” from you you WILL be fined. Wild hog (read a feral) is a problem in this state.

Well yesterday our neighbors from down the road came over and asked us if we might be interested in some Pot bellied pigs. 5 of them for free. Well, pot bellied pigs don't get very big and while they still need sturdy fencing.. and “rooting under” fencing their requirements are about what a goat needs aside from height. While the goat may jump a 3 foot fence the little piggy won't. So we are going to go out and buy some fencing and set up a pig enclosure in about 2 weeks then we will be the proud owner of a small herd of pot bellied pigs. 2 adult sows.. 2 young-uns.. and one boar.

Also these same neighbors were looking at Momma and said, “you know, We have a horny goat at home how about you bring her by and we'll see if we can't get her pregnant.” Yeah on 2 counts! So Momma is over visiting a right handsome fella right now and hopefully we'll get something out of that.

I've been up before the sun this morning making bread and feeding everybody else. I even have some laundry going.. and we'll see what today might bring us.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...